VOICES ON GENOCIDE PREVENTION

Another response to Alan Kuperman's oped on Darfur...


VOICES ON GENOCIDE PREVENTION: "Wednesday’s New York Times had an interesting example of what happens when an iffy academic theory collides with reality. The results were not pretty. Alan Kuperman, a young academic at the University of Texas, concluded in an op-ed that the proper course of action in Darfur is to

let Sudan's army handle any recalcitrant rebels, on condition that it eschew war crimes. This option will be distasteful to many, but Sudan has signed a peace treaty, so it deserves the right to defend its sovereignty against rebels who refuse to, so long as it observes the treaty and the laws of war.

Unfortunately, there are a few facts that interfere with this strategy. First, Sudan’s army will not “eschew war crimes,” as its very strategy for dealing with rebels is to commit war crimes – that is, the strategy it has been pursuing for fully three years. Second, Sudan has such a well-documented track record of not honoring peace treaties it signs (including agreements related to Darfur), that giving it the benefit of the doubt for having signed yet another one is a little, well, naive."