Tom Malinowski: Repeating Clinton's Mistake (Re: Darfur)

Tom Malinowski, in the Wa Po (5-3-05):

[The writer is Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.]

In his willingness to confront evil head-on, President Bush likes to think he's more decisive than that mushy-headed multilateralist Bill Clinton. But when I look at the Bush administration's response to what it has itself called genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, I can't help thinking I've seen this movie before. It recalls the early Clinton administration (in which I served) and its initially ineffectual stand against genocide in Bosnia.

In 1993 and 1994 the United States could point to dozens of good things it had done about Bosnia: imposing sanctions, brokering peace talks, supporting U.N. peacekeepers and providing humanitarian aid. But America's commitment to end genocide was hollow, because it was not, at that point, backed by political and military muscle. The same is true in Darfur today.

In 1993 the Clinton administration sent Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Europe to urge NATO to intervene against the Serb forces committing atrocities in Bosnia. America's European allies said no, and Christopher did not insist. Last month the Bush administration sent Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Europe, where they raised the possibility of NATO help for a tiny African Union (A.U.) peacekeeping force deployed in Darfur. Without a larger and more capable force to protect civilians, the killing there will continue. But European countries were skeptical about a NATO role beyond, possibly, help with logistics. (France said that NATO should not be "the gendarme of the world.")

And if U.S. officials wanted more, they did not insist. After a key NATO meeting last week, all Rice had to say was: "The NATO Council today, as foreign ministers had lunch, discussed the situation in Sudan and in Darfur and what support NATO could give in the form of planning and logistics to support the A.U.-led effort, should a request be forthcoming or should it be necessary to help." Hardly a ringing call to action.

Before it took action in Bosnia, the Clinton administration hid behind the United Nations. Warren Christopher said in June 1994, "NATO has done [in Bosnia] whatever has been asked of it by the United Nations." The Bush administration is hiding behind the African Union, which has taken months to deploy just 2,000 troops in Darfur. Rice said last week: "We've been very active, but what we really all are focusing on now . . . is the African Union, which is taking the lead. . . . The African Union may need some help with capacity. If there is a request, I would hope that NATO would act favorably."

In the early 1990s the Pentagon resisted American involvement in Bosnia, seeing it as peripheral to U.S. interests. Today the Pentagon resists American involvement in Darfur, for the same reason. Nine slots in the African Union mission in Darfur are supposed to be filled by Americans. Of that tiny number, the Pentagon has filled at most three....