By Phyllis Spiegel

As the ongoing security and humanitarian crisis continues in Darfur, Sudan, a panel of experts convened in early February in Washington, D.C. at the National Press Club as part of a special event titled, "The Dilemma of Darfur.”' The speakers, who brought varied perspectives to the meeting, were former U.S. Senator Bill Frist '74, a visiting professor at the Woodrow Wilson School; Washington correspondent for the Economist magazine Robert Guest; Lauren Landis, Senior Representative to Sudan at the U.S. Department of State; and Darfur activist, actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow.

The program was one of a Washington-based series of events co-hosted by WWS and the Economist, designed to encourage serious debate about and analysis of policy issues that will, or should, impact the 2008 elections.

Moderator Julius Coles M.P.A. ’66, president of Africare, introduced the discussion by citing statistics and history of the mass violence and displacement of people in the Darfur region that has cost between 200,000 and 400,000 lives due to violence and disease.  Through five years, he noted, many governments and organizations have been involved but according to a recent International Crisis Group report, “access for humanitarian agencies is decreasing, international peacekeeping is not yet effective, and a political solution is still far away.” This, despite the fact that, as Mr. Coles pointed out, more than 13,000 people from 75 non-governmental organizations and some 14 U.N. agencies are working on assistance programs impacting on the Darfur region.

“Yet,” he said, “there are so many thousands that are not reached.”

Senator Frist, who has visited Sudan as a physician providing medical care to the people of the region, said that despite “an unprecedented international diplomatic mobilization, we’ve seen only very modest returns, and these efforts have generated along the way many hard lessons.”  Yet, he said, “our efforts in combination with others have had an impact, saved lives, and demonstrated a true moral resolve... I think we’ll return to this moral resolve to hold the warring parties to account.”

Frist spoke of the more than 2.5 million people forced from their homes in 2004, living in vulnerable camps in Darfur and Chad. “These suffering populations are increasingly angry, radicalized and armed,” he said. “We don’t have answers for how we are to demilitarize these camps and see the displaced return. While in the past year violence has dropped significantly, we’re seeing sporadic outbreaks of fighting. “

He spoke of the efforts of the U.S. government, its allies, the U.N. and African Union, and NGOs like Save Darfur and others, and concluded: “We need to take the long view of Darfur.  There is no magic bullet; we need a three- to five-year approach with a sustained commitment that will work incrementally on multiple fronts.”

Robert Guest, a Washington correspondent and formerly Africa editor of the Economist, spoke of how difficult it is to gain world attention for the crisis his magazine first brought to light in 2003. “The degree of calculation that’s gone into terrorizing the populations there is astonishing,” Mr. Guest said.  He defined the problem as political.  “You have a government in Khartoum that is despotic and widely loathed.  It hangs on to power by dividing and ruling, by stoking the ethnic, tribal and communal animosities that exist throughout Sudan and carrying on a program of appalling scorched earth atrocities... these animosities have deep roots,” he said.

Guest expressed that there needs to be more pressure against the reigning powers and more involvement by the U.S. and the U.N. Security Council. In addition, he asserted that the Chinese need to be shamed into pulling their weight on the Security Council, and that there be vigorous investigation and prosecution of war crimes and heightened peacekeeping efforts.

Mia Farrow who visited the region numerous times, stunned the audience with a presentation featuring photos she has taken since 2004, of men, women and children injured and killed as a result of janjaweed milita attacks, of burned villages, and of the brutal and desperate living conditions in which the displaced live.  “After the Nazi Holocaust, we all know the world vowed ‘never again,’” she said, “but how obscenely disingenuous those fine words sound today.”

Two of her photos showed a village in Darfur at first rich in fruit trees, walled gardens, and agricultural sustenance and two years later that same village, turned to ashes, like 80 to 90 percent of Darfur’s villages. Farrow explained that for cooking firewood the women in the refugee camps must travel 10 miles or more and risk gang rape, mutilation, and murder.  “Men on the road would surely be killed,” by militiamen, she said.  One photo was of a child’s drawing of bombs falling on a pregnant woman, showing the fetus inside her.  “It is a traumatized population and five years of terror is five years too long.” Another photo showed children fleeing from an attack on their village which was burning behind them.  “This is what acute malnutrition looks like,” she said, showing another photo.  “And grief: this woman had lost everything and I found her sitting under a tree, weeping.”

“I return from this horror in Africa to a largely indifferent world,” Farrow said.  She described what she called “the paralysis of the United Nations” and further noted that the United States has little to no economic or political leverage over Khartoum.  “While the U.N. accepted the responsibility to protect against genocide, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity,” she said, “their words have proved to be as hollow as ‘never again.’”

China is underwriting this genocide, several of the speakers argued. Said Farrow:  “China’s oil revenues have been used in attacking the non-Arab population of Darfur.  The vast majority of weaponry used to attack civilians across Darfur is of Chinese origin.  Beijing is committed to preserving its alliance with Sudan in order to meet its massive oil needs.  China has the power to influence the regime, to refuse to sell them weapons, could threaten to suspend oil deals with Sudan.  How can China host the Olympic Games and underwrite this genocide?”

Lauren Landis of the U.S. Department of State was involved in food distribution for Darfur in 2003.  “We’re sending about a billion dollars of assistance into Sudan annually,” she said.  “It’s the food, the water, the protection that is never quite enough but keeps a famine from occurring and we’ve avoided cholera outbreaks.”   She outlined the U.S. government’s participation in peacekeeping support, providing funds to the 9,000 AU and U.N. peacekeepers there. “We’re training and equipping African forces to do the job and supporting countries like Ethiopia and Egypt in their efforts to have peacekeepers on the ground,” she said.

“We need to make sanctions work effectively,” Landis told the audience, “and we hear from Sudanese government officials that they are feeling the pressure. The peace process is not moving anywhere quickly,” she said, “despite Secretary Rice’s meeting in Addis Ababa with all the neighboring countries in December, and the president calling for the full implementation of the peace agreement.  I think one of the challenges is to get our European partners and China to work as hard as we are, not to mention the government of Sudan and its neighbors.”

All of the speakers agreed that the solution must be long term. That China has the power to influence change was another area of agreement. “They are the largest investor there; they depend on Sudan and Sudan depends on them,” Frist said. “The U.S. is morally outraged but we need to capture this feeling in the rest of the world,” he added.

Farrow echoed Frist’s comments about China and added that the European Union should impose a moratorium on trade and investments that benefit the regime in Khartoum.  “We need a more effective U.N. that can respond quickly instead of wringing its hands for five years.  “We’re sustaining the people, yes,” she said “but we’re sustaining in them in what seems to be a hopeless situation.”

To view the the video of the complete conference, please visit the UChannel.