Luring Darfur

OPINION:

Washington often rails against what it depicts as China’s amoral foreign policy, especially in Africa. But China is in many ways a diffident international player.

Recently, I chaired a conference in Beijing on Sino-Sudanese relations and the Chinese experts attending were coy about my suggestion that China is a “reluctant superpower” and that it holds some of the keys to peace in Western Sudan.

The Chinese trotted out the old shibboleths about “non-intervention,” an old doctrine when a weak China was engulfed in domestic turmoil. Beijing says it supports the African Union approach, especially in Darfur, Sudan. But the AU has ditched non-intervention if it means indifference to massive human rights abuse.

There is no genocide in Darfur, but rebels and government troops and militias regularly commit atrocities. This is primarily an ecological war caused by climate change and increasing desertification.

The Darfurians are hopelessly divided — expert opinion varies from 12 to 20 on the number of different rebel groups. They spend as much time killing each other and robbing humanitarian organizations as fighting the current military coalition of regular army, militias and ex-rebel Sudan Liberation Army elements who have signed last year’s internationally brokered Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA).

Darfur is a complex war but does not mean that the suffering must be allowed to continue, especially as the rest of Sudan is now facing disastrous flooding.

The road to peace does not necessarily run solely through Beijing, but only China has enough leverage with Khartoum to make a political agreement stick.

There are two tracks to a solution. First is the recent United Nations resolution to set up a AU-U.N. hybrid force by the end of the year. Nineteen thousand U.N. troops will augment and then supplant the ineffective current force of around 7,000 AU troops and police.

U.N. and AU optimists believe that the extra troops could come from Africa.

None of the fresh African states can remedy current deficiencies, except in sheer numbers.

The crucial advanced components are to be provided by NATO — airlift for bringing in troops, communications, and training command staff. Washington is supposed to pay 27 percent of the costs. It has been tardy with previous commitments, with fatal consequences for AU performance.

China is sending a small contingent of military engineers. At the Beijing conference I chaired, some western experts suggested that China supply what is really needed: 100 helicopters (plus 1,000 support staff.)

The hybrid force faces many technical military problems, which are not insurmountable. The real issue is the second track: forging a peace for the peacekeepers to keep. The flawed DPA treaty in 2006 could have worked. The key Darfurian recalcitrant, Abdul Wahid, almost signed. A few extra million dollars could have done the trick.

In the recent peace summit at Arusha, Tanzania, much progress was made, but the same problem remains — getting all the rebel leaders to form a joint working group to negotiate with Khartoum. Arusha absentees, especially Abdul Wahid, have to be persuaded, bribed or coerced into boarding the peace train.

The 2006 agreement was rushed. And although Khartoum signed up, its implementation has been criticized. This is where China counts. Khartoum pays attention to Beijing, because of China’s dominant position as oil-for-weapons dealer and diplomatic defender.

China has been proved right on Darfur. It abstained on, or blocked, a number of totally impractical U.N. measures — for example, an earlier stipulation that Khartoum disarm all militias in Darfur within 30 days, an impossible task, even with the best will in the world.

Compared with perceived western adventurism in the Middle East, Beijing’s ultra-cautious diplomacy looks positively Jeffersonian. China’s policy in Africa is largely self-serving — but Beijing also knows that the security of its oil supplies in the longer term depends on political stability. And, short term, it is sensitive about possible boycotts of the Beijing Olympics next year.

China’s ambassador to the U.N., Wang Guangya, has done a splendid impersonation of a contortionist in trying to explain the opaque shifts in Beijing policy. But the change is real.

China must be asked to play a full role with the western powers in the DPA political track. It was so close last year. China was then a missing link. Only China can strong-arm Khartoum into making it all work, not least in preventing a renewed military offensive.

Washington’s strategic policy is gridlocked by Iraq. But that does not mean that humanitarian intervention in special cases is impossible. Prime Minister Gordon Brown cares about Darfur. With the help of the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, the renewed western impetus at the United Nations could now make the secondary track of peacekeeping work.

The United States has reconfigured its strategic posture by setting up its new Africa Command, aimed at limiting Chinese influence as much as al Qaeda’s. But only Western recognition of China’s current goodwill can square the circle in Sudan. Washington has to accept the reluctant superpower’s role in ending the agony of Darfur.

Paul Moorcraft is director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Analysis.