[lit-ideas] One-sided reporting on Darfur

From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 23:38:09 -0700 (PDT)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1768002,00.html

One-sided reporting that is delaying an end to the
killing 

Western media and US Christian support for the Darfur
rebels, guilty of their own atrocities, has held back
a peace deal 

Jonathan Steele
Friday May 5, 2006
The Guardian 


By the time you read this, there may be good news from
Africa. A peace agreement could have been signed for
Darfur, the place often compared with Rwanda as a
cause for international shame because warnings of
genocide went unheeded. If done by last night's
midnight deadline, a deal will surprise most people,
since with very few exceptions the world's press has
ignored the negotiations that have been inching
forward under African Union (AU) mediation in the
Nigerian capital, Abuja.

I call it the Darfur Disconnect. One TV reporter after
another does the standard tour into Sudan's western
region, guided by rebel groups. Out comes footage of
miserable refugees huddling in tents or shelters of
sticks and plastic and recounting stories of brutal
treatment by government-backed Janjaweed militias.
Commentators thunder away at the need for sanctions
against the regime in Khartoum and denounce western
leaders for not authorising Nato to intervene.

Last weekend the outrage took a new turn, with big
demonstrations in several American cities, strongly
promoted by the Christian right, which sees the Darfur
conflict as another case of Islamic fundamentalism on
the rampage. They urged Bush to stop shilly-shallying
and be tougher with the government of Sudan.

The TV reports are not wrong. They just give a
one-sided picture and miss the big story: the talks
that the rebels are conducting with the government.
The same is true of the commentaries. Why demand
military involvement, when western leaders have
intervened more productively by pressing both sides to
reach a settlement? Over the past few days the US,
with British help, has taken over the AU's mediation
role, and done it well. Robert Zoellick, the state
department's number two, and Hilary Benn, Britain's
development secretary, have been in Abuja urging the
rebels not to waste the opportunity for peace. Sudan's
government accepted the US-brokered draft agreement
last weekend, and it is the rebels who have been
risking a collapse.

It is hard to see why. The as yet unpublished text,
which I read this week, gives the rebels most of what
they went to war for. In many insurgencies, Northern
Ireland for one, rebels are asked to come out of
hiding and join the political process with or without
an amnesty. In the Darfur peace agreement, large areas
of territory are recognised by the government as being
under the rebels' control and therefore closed to
government troops during a transition period. This is
a humiliating recognition of loss of sovereignty. The
Janjaweed militias will have to be disarmed before the
rebels are. Foreign peacekeepers from the AU will
oversee security around the camps for internally
displaced people, and government forces will be
barred.

Darfur's marginalisation (which was one of the issues
that led to the conflict) will be addressed through
extra funding from Sudan's national budget.
Affirmative action will give Darfurians public-service
jobs. The rebels will have the right to nominate the
governor of one of Darfur's three states, and the
deputy governors of the other two. The rebels will
also have a top post in Sudan's presidential
administration in Khartoum.

Why were they reluctant to agree? One reason - rarely
reported in the media rush to paint the rebels as
heroes - is that they are seriously divided. Splits
along ethnic lines have recently widened, even leading
to armed clashes. There are reports that the rebels
themselves have been using janjaweed-style violence,
storming each other's villages on camels. The rebels
are also guilty of blocking aid to the displaced. Jan
Pronk, the UN special representative, this week
charged them with jeopardising aid to 450,000
vulnerable people through attacks on UN agency
vehicles and non-governmental relief agencies.

One-sided international media treatment of the crisis
may have emboldened the rebels to increase their
demands. In many forgotten conflicts, the TV and
commentary spotlights help to sound the alarm and
bring pressure for action. In the Darfur case, they
could be having a pernicious effect and be delaying
the chance of ending the killing.

Western governments, at least, have been more
even-handed. It is widely accepted the Sudanese
government was responsible for the initial atrocities
by overreacting to the first rebel attacks three years
ago. Khartoum armed the Janjaweed, and may still
control some of them. UN officials fear that without a
peace deal government forces may attack the rebel-held
town of Gereida, putting another 100,000 people to
flight. But the US, Britain and UN now blame the
rebels for atrocities and the lack of peace. The
security council last week put international travel
bans on four people suspected of serious crimes in
Darfur. Two were mid-ranking rebel leaders. At Abuja,
western mediators have been conspicuously fair. Jack
Straw was there some months ago, calling on rebel
leaders to be realistic and ready to compromise.

The fact that Benn took over this week as Britain's
negotiator marks an important trend. There is growing
recognition that the Department for International
Development cannot just be a body that handles
post-conflict reconstruction and humanitarian relief.
Resolving conflicts or preventing them from worsening
are also legitimate DfID tasks - it is engaged in
politics as well as aid.

Last year, DfID took the British government's lead
role in Ethiopia by cutting funds to the government
over the repression of opposition activists. Several
went on trial in Addis Ababa this week on absurd
charges of "genocide" for allegedly provoking
demonstrations in which more than 40 people were
killed by the police. Benn's role at the Darfur talks
is another useful step.

If a peace agreement for Darfur has been signed by the
deadline which the mediators set, the crisis will be a
long way from over. Helping 2 million displaced people
to go home will take time, care and money. There must
not be another Darfur Disconnect, this time between
delight at the peace deal and a failure to follow
through and see it implemented. The big UN agencies
are already complaining of lack of funds. The World
Food Programme has had to halve its rations for the
hungry. Unicef says it is only getting 15% of what it
needs. The AU will need financial help to bring in the
extra ceasefire monitors the peace deal requires.

And that deal may yet not be struck. This morning's
news could be bleak after all. If that is the case,
the marchers in America and the world's TV cameras
should focus their anger on the rebels rather than on
Khartoum.

· j.steele@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx




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[lit-ideas] One-sided reporting on Darfur

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