Why Darfur? International Responses to Civil Wars, Humanitarian
Intervention orms, and the Power of Grafting, Frames, and Analogies
Paper by David Lanz*
Prepared for the annual conference of the Swiss Political Science Association
Geneva, 7-8 January 2010
*DRAFT, DO NOT CIRCULATE OR CITE*
Introduction
The region of Darfur in western Sudan has caught the attention of the world. When reports of
mass atrocities started to filter through in late 2003, an unprecedented wave of outrage and
solidarity, animated by extensive media coverage and vocal advocacy campaigns, swept
through North America and Western Europe. The governments of these countries heeded the
call for action to alleviate the suffering of the victims of the Darfur conflict. Short of a nonconsensual military intervention, the entire array of instruments of conflict intervention has
been brought to bear: Darfur hosts the world’s most expensive and soon to be largest UN
peacekeeping mission, even as the European Union (EU) deployed its largest ever military
crisis management mission outside of Europe across the border in eastern Chad. One of the
world’s largest and most expensive humanitarian operations with over 10,000 staff currently
operates in Darfur. Darfur also constitutes the first situation that the UN Security Council
referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), leading to the consequential indictment
against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Moreover, significant resources have been
invested to facilitate peace negotiations in Darfur. Complementing the joint mediation efforts
of the UN and the African Union (AU), the U.S., Russia, China, the U.K., France, the EU – to
name but the most significant players – have appointed special envoys to Darfur.
As such, the international engagement in the Darfur conflict eclipses all other responses to
contemporary civil wars in Africa and, with the notable exception of Iraq and Afghanistan,1
across the world. This statement may appear surprising for Darfur does not offer compelling
*
David Lanz ([email protected]) is a PhD candidate at the University of Basel as well as a researcher with
the Swiss Peace Foundation, swisspeace.
1
Iraq and Afghanistan are arguably different from other conflict settings for they constitute external invasions,
rather than interventions during or after civil wars. For a strong argument in this regard, see Roland Paris and
Timothy D. Sisk, “Introduction: Understanding the Contradictions of Postwar Statebuilding” in Roland Paris
and Timothy D. Sisk, eds., The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace
Operations, New York, NY: Routledge, 2009, pp. 1-20, at 11-12.
1
geopolitical advantages. Neither are there significant natural resources, nor are transnational
terrorist networks operating from Darfur. The current level of violence in Darfur is also not
on the same scale as crises in other parts of the world, such as the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC), Somalia, Iraq or Afghanistan/Pakistan. From January 2008 to March 2009, the
Darfur conflict generated some 2,000 violent deaths, leading the then joint head of the UNAU peacekeeping mission, Rodolphe Adada, to refer to Darfur as a “low-intensity conflict.”2
Taking these propositions into account, Darfur represents a phenomenon in world politics
that poses a number of puzzles for students of international relations. Two questions in
particular come to mind: Why has the Darfur conflict triggered such a far-reaching
international response? And more specifically: why has Darfur triggered a more extensive
response than similar contemporary humanitarian crises? As an attempt to clarify the
international engagement in Darfur, this paper turns to international relations theories. It
derives a series of propositions from different theoretical frameworks and examines them
against the empirical analysis of the evolution of international engagement in Darfur since
2003. The empirical data that the paper draws on emanates from the author’s personal
involvement in the Darfur peace process – as a staff member of the UN in Sudan and later the
Swiss Peace Foundation – as well as from secondary sources.
In terms of theories, the paper first considers structural realism. Applied to Darfur, this theory
emphasizes the material interests of, and competition between intervening states as the
decisive factor of engagement in Darfur. The paper then examines propositions derived from
liberal internationalists as well as progressive representatives of the so-called ‘English
School’. According to these theories, the far-reaching response to the Darfur conflict can be
interpreted as an attempt to improve international society by building a world order based on
justice and human rights. The paper argues that realism is pertinent to explain why no fullfledged military intervention such as in Kosovo took place in Darfur, whereas world order
theories usefully point to the importance of international norms in the global reaction to the
Darfur crisis. However, both frameworks are insufficient to fully answer the abovementioned puzzles. Finally, the paper engages with constructivist theory. In this perspective,
the response to the Darfur conflict can be seen as the outcome of an ongoing process of
2
Statement by Rodolphe Adada to the UN Security Council, 27 April 2009. Available from:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2009/sc9644.doc.htm. (All websites cited in this paper were accessed on
22 December 2009).
2
‘norms cascade’ that has fostered the institutionalization of international norms pertaining to
humanitarian intervention. Constructivist theory has the most explanatory potential as far as
the international engagement in Darfur is concerned. Accordingly, the normative structure of
world politics, an important vector of the behavior of states in the international realm, has
recently changed in such a way that the exercise of sovereignty incorporates a notion of
responsibility. This means that when governments are unable or unwilling to offer minimal
protection to their populations, it becomes legitimate for third states to intervene. Darfur has
become a test case for this conception of world politics – which explains the exceptional
magnitude of the response.
However, the second puzzle – why Darfur goes beyond comparable crises, e.g. in Sri Lanka,
the DRC, or Somalia – remains unsolved. The key factor here is that the Darfur conflict,
more than any other conflict before, triggered massive civil society mobilization, most
importantly in the U.S., the U.K, and France. To understand why such mobilization became
possible, the paper revisits the literature on the role of transnational advocacy networks
drawing on concepts derived from sociological institutionalism. Three mechanisms in
particular contributed to the leverage of transnational campaigns around Darfur. First, the
issue of Darfur was successfully ‘grafted’ to already established norms related to human
rights, anti-genocide and global justice. Second, the activists proved highly skilful in
‘framing’ the Darfur conflict in unambiguous moral categories. Finally, from the outset, the
Darfur campaigns invoked historical analogies and, in a sense, offered the possibility for
redemption from past mistakes, in particular the failure to stop the Rwanda genocide in 1994.
These mechanisms contributed to the resonance of the issue of Darfur with public opinions
and decision-makers across North America and Western Europe, although there are
dissimilarities between countries.
This paper first establishes empirical facts by providing a detailed account of the international
response to the Darfur conflict since 2003. It then turns to an assessment of different theories
of world politics, examining how they contribute to making sense of the current international
engagement in Darfur. The paper then explores three specific mechanisms – grafting,
framing, and creating analogies – that explain the resonance of transnational campaigns
around the issue of Darfur. The conclusion formulates a number of theoretical and practical
implications of the analysis of this paper, before proposing avenues for future research.
3
Part I: Synopsis of the international response to the Darfur conflict
Darfur was an independent political entity until 1916 when the British incorporated it into
Sudan. Since then, Darfur held an unequal position in the Sudanese state, as the region was
deprived of resources for economic development as well as political autonomy. In the 1980s,
and again the 1990s, armed conflict flared up in Darfur as a result of land disputes, spill-over
effects from the war in Chad, and Khartoum’s divide-and-rule tactics. After 2000 a rebellion
began to ferment in Darfur, eventually leading to the escalation of violence in early 2003.3
More precisely, the point of no return was reached in April 2003 when a coalition of rebel
groups attacked the airport of El-Fasher, killing 30 government soldiers, destroying two
Antanov transport bombers and three combat helicopters and taking the air force base
commander hostage.4 The scale and success of the attack brought home to the Sudanese
government that the situation in Darfur was beyond control. In reaction, they armed an
existing militia force made up of young men from Arab, mostly nomad tribes in Northern
Darfur – the infamous Janjaweed.5 These forces were then unleashed, carrying out a vicious
counter-insurgency campaign aimed at destroying the civilian support base of the rebels.6 The
violence reached its peak between summer 2003 and 2004 resulting in the destruction of
hundreds of villages of mostly non-Arab tribes, the death of over 130,0007 and the
displacement of 1.5 million Darfurians.
As Darfur went up in flames, the Sudanese government led by the National Congress Party
(NCP) was negotiating a peace deal in Kenya with the Southern insurgents, the Sudan
People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M). Promising an end to Africa’s longest and
bloodiest civil war, international actors were entirely focused on the negotiations, as was the
attention of the international press. Therefore, at the outset there was almost no response to
the escalating violence in Darfur. Two non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the
3
For details, see Alex de Waal and Julie Flint, Darfur: A "ew History of a Long War, London: Zed Books,
2008.
4
Gérard Prunier, Darfur: 21st Century Genocide, 3rd ed., Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008, pp. 95-96.
5
For background on the Janjaweed, see Julie Flint, Beyond ‘Janjaweed’: Understanding the Militia of Darfur,
Geneva: Small Arms Survey, June 2009.
6
Alex de Waal, “Counter-Insurgency on the Cheap”, London Review of Books, 5 August 2004.
7
Death numbers in the Darfur conflict are contested. The Government Accountability Office, a U.S.
Government agency, examined the various sources of data on mortality in Darfur and concluded that the
numbers of the Belgium-based and Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) affiliated
with the World Health Organization were the most reliable. CRED estimated that between 158,000 people had
died in Darfur between September 2003 and June 2004, of which 131,000 were excess deaths. (U.S.
Government Accountability Office, Darfur Crisis: Death Estimates Demonstrate Severity of Crisis, but Their
Accuracy and Credibility Could Be Enhanced, November 2006).
4
International Crisis Group (ICG) and later Amnesty International, published reports that
raised red flags over Darfur.8 Towards the end of 2003, the violence in Darfur continuing
unabated, Eric Reeves, a professor of English literature in the U.S., denounced on his blog the
“ethnic cleansing” in Darfur,9 echoing Jan Egeland, the head of UN humanitarian affairs, who
had said that Darfur constituted “one of the worst humanitarian situations in the world.”10
However, these statements remained without effect. This changed in March 2004 when the
outgoing UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, stated that
Darfur was “the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis” and that “the only difference between
Rwanda and Darfur is now the numbers involved.”11 The inference that genocide was
occurring in Darfur had a strong impact. It was picked up by newspapers in the U.S in the
context of the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. From late March 2004 onwards,
editorials and op-eds about the war in Darfur multiplied,12 with most authors comparing
Darfur to Rwanda and describing the violence as genocide perpetuated by Arabs tribes
associated with the Sudanese government against Darfur’s African population.
The growing media attention put Darfur on the radar screen of Christian organizations and
the Congressional Black Caucus that had campaigned for South Sudan for many years. As a
result of their efforts, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate unanimously passed a
resolution declaring the Darfur conflict to be genocide in June 2004. The genocide label gave
impetus to the nascent Darfur advocacy movement, bringing together human rights, faithbased and student groups under the umbrella of the Save Darfur Coalition established in July
2004.13 As for the U.S. government, in May the State Department opened an investigation to
determine whether the atrocities in Darfur were genocide. Based on interviews with
Darfurian refugees in Chad, the investigators’ answer was affirmative.14 Consequently, in
September 2004, the then Secretary of State Colin Power stated that genocide was occurring
8
See International Crisis Group, Sudan’s Other Wars. 25 June 2003; Amnesty International, Sudan: Looming
Crisis in Darfur, July 2003.
9
Eric Reeves, Human Destruction and Displacement in Darfur: War, Humanitarian Access, and “Ethnic
Cleansing”, 12 December 2003. Available from: http://www.sudanreeves.org/Sections-article296-p1.html.
10
UN News Centre, Humanitarian and security situations in western Sudan reach new lows, U" agency says, 5
December 2003. Available from: http://www.un.org/apps/news/storyAr.asp?NewsID=9094&Cr=sudan&Cr1=
11
IRIN press dispatch, 22 March 2004.
12
See Deborah Murphy, “Narrating Darfur: Darfur in the U.S. Press, March-September 2004” in Alex de Waal,
ed., War in Darfur and the Search for Peace, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007Darfur, pp. 314336.
13
For a comprehensive account of the emergence of the Save Darfur movement see Rebecca Hamilton and
Chad Hazlett, “‘Not on Our Watch’: The Emergence of the American Movement for Darfur” in Alex de Waal,
ed., War in Darfur, pp. 337-366.
14
See a book on this topic by the lead investigator, John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond, Darfur and
the Crime of Genocide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
5
in Darfur – the first time the U.S. government used this category to qualify an ongoing
conflict – although he insisted that this determination did not carry implications for U.S.
policy in Sudan. European countries were a bit more reluctant in terms of semantics, although
the then U.K. foreign minister, Chris Mullin, in April 2004 said that genocide “may have
occurred”,15 while the European Parliament in September of the same year passed a
resolution calling the crimes committed in Darfur “tantamount to genocide.”16
Against the backdrop of growing attention to Darfur, the world’s largest humanitarian
operation was set up in western Sudan. Fostered by generous contributions by international
donors, Darfur has hosted up to 13,000 humanitarian and one hundred relief agencies at a
time since mid-2004. Their activities have concentrated on camps for internally displaced
persons (IDPs), whose numbers have risen from 1.5 million in 2004 to 2.7 million in 2008.17
Another form of early international engagement concerned the facilitation of peace
negotiations between the Darfur rebels and the Sudanese government. Under the auspices of
the Chadian government and supported by the AU and a number of international facilitators,
such as the Geneva-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, the Darfur rebels and the
Sudanese government signed the N’Djamena Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement in April
2004. The parties kept fighting and the agreement was never implemented. Its only tangible
achievement concerned the establishment of a Ceasefire Commission as well as the African
Union Mission (AMIS) as a monitoring force. AMIS initially had only a few hundred African
peacekeepers, successively however, thanks to significant EU funding their numbers
increased up to 6,000 soldiers in 2005. As a result, AMIS went beyond monitoring and took
on a range protection tasks, in particular around IDP camps. Despite a few tangible
achievements,18 AMIS was eventually judged inapt, as advocates in the U.S. and Europe
called for a more robust UN replacement mission that could better protect vulnerable
populations in Darfur.19
15
Cited in Chris Marks, “Sudan links genocide claim to US poll”, The Scotsman, 11 September 2004.
European Parliament, Motion for a Resolution on the Humanitarian Situation in Sudan, 16 September 2004.
Available from: http://www.europa-eu-un.org/articles/en/article_3810_en.htm.
17
Fabrice Weissman, Humanitarian Dilemmas in Darfur, July 2008. Available from: http://www.msfcrash.org/crash/drive/b4d8-fw-2008.humanitarian-dilemmas-in-darfur.pdf.
18
See William G. O’Neill and Violette Cassis, Protecting Two Million Internally Displaced: The Successes and
Shortcomings of the African Union in Darfur, Washington, D.C., Bern: Brookings-Bern Project on International
Displacement, November 2005.
19
For a critical account of this process, see Mahmood Mamdani, “Blue-hatting Darfur”, London Review of
Books, 6 September 2007.
16
6
Calls for a UN peacekeeping mission made Darfur a prominent issue in the corridors of the
UN headquarters in New York. However, even before these debates, Darfur was high on the
agenda of the then Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In April 2004 in a speech before the UN
Commission on Human Rights, Annan issued a firm commitment to take measures to prevent
genocide and in this context, expressed great concern about the situation in Darfur.20 Amidst
growing civil society mobilization around Darfur, the UN Security Council in September
2004 set up an International Commission of Inquiry to investigate the nature of the crimes
committed in Darfur and more specifically to determine whether genocide had occurred. Led
by the eminent Italian judge Antonio Cassese, the Commission within three months produced
a detailed report that received much acclaim. Its verdict was that there was insufficient proof
for genocide in Darfur, but that the crimes that were committed were “no less heinous than
genocide.”21 The Commission also transmitted to the UN a list containing the names of 51
people suspected to be involved in the atrocities in Darfur. Finally, it recommended that the
Security Council refers the situation in Darfur to the ICC. This proved a difficult endeavor,
provided the US government’s fundamental opposition to the court as well as China’s and
Russia’s reluctance with regards to global justice norms. Nonetheless, after intense lobbying
campaigns by NGOs, the U.S. was persuaded to abstain, as the Security Council for the first
time made use of its prerogative to refer situations to the ICC.22 The ICC Prosecutor Luis
Moreno-Ocampo quickly opened investigations, despite the protest of the Sudanese
government. As a result, Moreno-Ocampo decided not to investigate in Darfur itself and
instead drew most of his evidence from interviews with Darfurian refugees, in particular
those residing in Chad. After roughly two years, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber in April 2007
issued two arrest warrants: one against a minister in the Sudanese government, Ahmed
Haroun, the other one against a senior Janjaweed leader by the name of Ali ‘Kushayb’.
Although these people do not belong to the most senior leadership within the Sudanese
government, Khartoum remained completely intransigent with regards to the ICC.23
20
Kofi Annan, Action Plan to Prevent Genocide, Speech at the UN Commission on Human Rights, 7 April
2004.
21
Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the UN Secretary-General, 25 January 2005,
p. 4. Available from: http://www.un.org/news/dh/sudan/com_inq_darfur.pdf.
22
See Zachary Kaufman, “Justice in Jeopardy: Accountability for the Darfur Atrocities”, Criminal Law Forum,
Vol. 16, 2008, pp. 343-360.
23
See Alex de Waal, “Darfur, the Court and Khartoum: The Politics of State Non-Cooperation” in Nicholas
Waddell and Phil Clark, eds., Courting Conflict? Justice, Peace and the ICC in Africa, London: Royal African
Society, March 2008.
7
Meanwhile, international efforts were under way to end the Darfur conflict through a political
settlement between the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebel movements, principally
the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and the Justice and Equality Movement
(JEM). After the failure of the N’Djamena Ceasefire Agreement, a new process was
instigated in Abuja in 2004. The AU acted as the main mediator, along with a number of
international observers from the U.S. and European governments that funded the peace
negotiations. The process advanced slowly until July 2005 when the parties adopted a
Declaration of Principles, laying out the cornerstones of a more comprehensive agreement in
the future.24 The mediation team subsequently stepped up its efforts, but failed to reach an
agreement between the parties. As a result, the patience of the sponsors of the Abuja talks
gradually ran out. The U.S. and the U.K. were particularly keen to achieve a settlement in
order to please their respective public opinions. In this context, an artificial end date for the
conclusion of the Abuja talks was set, while coercive “deadline diplomacy” was used to
persuade the parties to sign an agreement.25 The effect of such pressure was to divide the
rebel movements. JEM and the SLM/A faction of Chairman Abdel Wahid thus opted out,
whereas the SLA/M faction led by Minni Minawi, after a tumultuous finale, finally signed the
Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) together the Sudanese government on May 5, 2009.26
One of the reasons that the U.S., the U.K. and others were so eager to bring the Abuja talks to
a close is that they wanted to deploy a UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur, and such a
mission needed clear guidelines in the form of a peace agreement. Indeed, the establishment
of a robust UN-led peace mission, replacing the overstretched AMIS, was a major concern
for advocacy groups in the U.S. and elsewhere. Most activists abandoned their initial calls for
a non-consensual military intervention, but they upheld the claim that a humanitarian
intervention was needed as part of the international community’s ‘responsibility to protect’
the people in Darfur. A strong UN peacekeeping force with a robust mandate under Chapter
VII of the UN Charter was seen as the appropriate mechanism for this purpose.27 To satisfy
the advocates, the U.S. government since 2005 invested significant political capital in
negotiating the deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur, despite the initial
24
See Sean Brooks, “Enforcing a Turning Point and Imposing a Deal: An Analysis of the Darfur Abuja
Negotiations of 2006”, International "egotiation, Vol. 13, pp. 413-440.
25
See Laurie Nathan, "o Ownership, "o Peace: the Darfur Peace Agreement, LSE Working Paper, September
2005.
26
On the vicissitudes of the Darfur peace talks, see also Alex de Waal, “I Will not Sign”, London Review of
Books, 30 November 2006.
27
For a strong argument in this regard, see International Crisis Group, To Save Darfur, 17 March 2006.
8
resistance of the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). The peace talks in
Abuja were merely seen as a means to this end. They therefore needed to produce a
settlement as quickly as possible – this mindset led to the usage of coercive methods to
compel the parties to sign the DPA, at the expense of a sound negotiation process.28 Despite
its conciliatory stance in Abuja, the Sudanese government was strongly opposed to a new UN
peacekeeping mission in Darfur, which it (absurdly) portrayed as an imperial project to recolonize Sudan. With the support of China, Khartoum managed to stalemate the negotiations
for a while. However, in August 2006, the Security Council via Resolution 1706 authorized
the deployment of a UN mission in Darfur, albeit by inviting the Sudanese government’s
consent. This provision subsequently allowed Khartoum to block the deployment of
peacekeepers and it took another year of negotiations to move forward. Only when Beijing
weighed in in favor of the mission, after NGO campaigns chastising China’s “genocide
Olympics,”29 was the Sudanese government overridden. It did, however, achieve significant
concessions. Resolution 1759 of July 2009 established a joint AU-UN Mission in Darfur
(UNAMID) the as well as stipulating that it should be of “predominantly African character.”
Nonetheless, the Security Council authorized the deployment of 19,555 military personnel as
well as 6,432 police with a budget of approximately USD 1.5 billion – as such, UNAMID
was to become the UN’s largest and most expensive peacekeeping force ever. UNAMID
became operational on 1 January 2008 and faced serious delays in the deployment of troops
and equipment. As of October 2009, roughly 75% of the authorized military personnel were
present in theatre.30
Not only as a result of its strong support for UNAMID, the U.S. emerged as the country with
the toughest stance against its former Cold War-ally Sudan. Student activists associated with
the Save Darfur Coalition spearheaded a successful Sudan divestment campaign, akin to the
anti-apartheid campaigns targeting South Africa in the 1980s. Particularly noteworthy in this
regard is the unanimous passage in both houses of the US Congress of the 2007 Sudan
Accountability and Divestment Act, which required companies applying for US government
28
This point is made by Alex de Waal, who participated in the Abuja negotiations as part of the mediation team:
Alex de Waal, “Darfur and the Failure of the Responsibility to Protect”, International Affairs Vol. 83, No. 6,
2007, pp. 1039-1054.
29
See Helen Cooper, “Darfur Collides With Olympics, and China Yields”, "ew York Times, 13 April 2007.
30
Facts and figures about UNAMID are available from:
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unamid/facts.shtml.
9
contracts to prove that they were not conducting business in Sudan.31 The executive level
reacted to advocacy campaigns as well: in 2007, then President Bush announced sanctions
against high-ranking officials of the Sudanese government and companies operating in
Sudan.32 Such confrontation is somewhat contradicted by the collaboration of the Sudanese
government with the U.S. on anti-terrorist matters. The extent of this cooperation is unclear,
although it appears that the then head of intelligence in Khartoum and one of the architects of
the government’s counter-insurgency campaign in Darfur, Salah Gosh, was invited to
Washington D.C. by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in April 2005.33 However, the
general attitude of the U.S. government with regards to Sudan continued to be antagonistic.
Although also concerned about Darfur, European countries were less forceful than the U.S.
This changed when Bernard Kouchner was appointed foreign minister after Nicholas Sarkozy
won the French presidential elections in April 2007. A long-standing advocate of
humanitarian intervention, Kouchner was active in campaigns around Darfur coordinated by
the NGO coalition Urgence Darfour. When he joined the government, Kouchner
immediately took up Darfur. After an initial misconceived idea to enforce humanitarian
corridors in Darfur, Kouchner proposed the establishment of a peacekeeping force in eastern
Chad and north-eastern Central African Republic (CAR) with the aim of containing the war
in Darfur across the border.34 After making a number of concessions to Chadian President
Idriss Déby, France convinced the Council of the European Union to sponsor a peacekeeping
mission in the region, despite the opposition of Germany.35 Consequently, the EU Force
(EUFOR) Chad/CAR was deployed in March 2008 for one year, before handing over to a UN
follow-on force. EUFOR Chad/CAR was the EU’s largest and most expensive military
mission outside of Europe ever: it included 3,700 troops, 60% of which came from France,
and cost at least € 800 million.36 The current UN Mission in CAR and Chad (MINURCAT)
31
For details on the divestment campaign, see an account by two Darfur activists: Colin Thomas-Jensen and
Julia Spiegel, “Activism and Darfur: Slowly Driving Policy Change”, Fordham International Law Journal, Vol.
31, No. 4, 2008, pp. 843-858.
32
See Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Bush Tightens Penalties Against Sudan”, "ew York Times, 29 May 2007.
33
See Wasil Ali, “Sudan Says Cooperation with CIA Prevented US ‘Destructive’ Backlash”, Sudan Tribune, 31
October 2007. Available from http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=24527.
34
See Antoine Glaser and Stephen Smith, Sarko en Afrique, Paris: Plon, 2008, pp. 62-64.
35
For details, see David Lanz, EUFOR Chad/CAR: A Regional Solution for a Regional Problem? Chapter
forthcoming in 2010.
36
For a comprehensive assessment of EUFOR, see Frédéric Mérand and Haingo Mireille Rakotonirina, “La
force européenne au Tchad et en Centrafrique: le baptême du feu In: Politique africaine”, Politique Africaine,
Vol. 114, 2009, pp. 105-125.
10
features 3,000 troops (of 5,200 authorized military personnel) as of October 2009 with a
budget of USD 690 million per annum.37
As the world got increasingly interested in Darfur, the context of the war changed. After the
peak in 2004, the violence gradually began to diminish. Also, the influx of aid allowed for the
stabilization of the humanitarian situation. Mortality rates in Darfur were brought back to prewar levels, although pockets of excess mortality continue to exist.38 Fighting between armed
groups intensified in the aftermath of the DPA in May 2006, as non-signatory rebel
movements and their signatory colleagues, who (paradoxically) were now allied with the
Sudanese government, attacked one another.39 At the same time, banditry and attacks against
humanitarian organizations increased, as did inter-tribal clashes. The fragmentation of the
rebel movement proved to be an insurmountable impediment for international efforts to relaunch the peace process.40 Despite significant resources and an inclusive approach, the AU
and the UN’s efforts to bring the parties back to the negotiation table failed in 2007. In 2008
the peace process was taken over by Djibril Bassolé, as the joint AU-UN mediator, although
his efforts have not yet bore fruit. One of Bassolé’s biggest challenges was to manage an
awkward coordination with countries of the Arab League, in particular Qatar, who have
increasingly gotten involved in the Darfur peace process in 2009.41 At the same time, the
peace process was further complicated by Moreno-Ocampo’s announcement in July 2008 to
charge Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir with war crimes, crimes against humanity and
genocide at the ICC. In March 2009 the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber confirmed the indictment,
albeit discarding the genocide charges, and issued an arrest warrant against al-Bashir.
Moreno-Ocampo’s controversial initiative had more profound ramifications than any other
international response to the Darfur crisis.42 Khartoum reacted angrily by temporarily
suspending cooperation with international agencies and by expelling 13 international
humanitarian NGOs from Darfur. Most western countries including the U.S. welcomed the
ICC’s decision, even as it obscured their relations with Khartoum. In the African context, the
37
For facts and figures about MINURCAT, see
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minurcat/facts.shtml.
38
See Weissman, Humanitarian Dilemmas.
39
See Abdul-Jabbar Fadul and Victor Tanner, “Darfur after Abuja: A View from the Ground,” in Alex de Waal,
ed., War in Darfur, pp. 284-313.
40
See Victor Tanner and Jérôme Tubiana, Divided They Fall: The Fragmentation of Darfur’s Rebel Groups,
Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2007.
41
See Julie Flint, forthcoming report on the Darfur peace process.
42
For a critical perspective, see Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, “Case Closed: A Prosecutor without Borders”,
World Affairs, Spring 2009.
11
indictment caused a backlash against global justice norms: at the AU summit in June 2009 a
resolution was passed in which African governments announced their refusal to cooperate
with the ICC in the Bashir case. The AU also mandated a panel of eminent persons led by
former South African President Thabo Mbeki to explore avenues for reconciling peace and
justice in Sudan. The Mbeki Panel delivered its final report in October 2009, proposing the
establishment of hybrid courts and a truth commission in Sudan.43
Part II: Darfur in the Context of International Relations Theories
The previous section described the international response to the Darfur conflict since 2003,
showing its multifaceted dimensions. This response has not always been consistent; indeed,
different interventions in Darfur have at times undermined each other.44 The purpose of this
section is to make sense of the exceptional magnitude of the international response to the
Darfur crisis by putting it into the larger context of international relations theories, i.e.
different conceptions of what drives world politics and how it can be understood in
abstraction. This chapter will thus consider Darfur through the lens of structural realism,
liberal internationalism coupled with elements of the English School, and constructivism.
Structural realism
Building on the earlier political thought of Thucydides, Machiavelli and in particular Hobbes,
realism emerged as a theory of international relations in the 20th century with the writings of
Carr and Morgenthau.45 Most of the recent research within the realist school goes back to
Kenneth Waltz’s formulation of ‘structural realism’ in 1979. Waltz argued that the
phenomena of world politics fundamentally depend on the structure of the international
system in which they are embedded. Thus, international order, contrary to domestic order, is
anarchic in the sense that there is no world government capable of enforcing its will on its
subjects.46 Anarchy as the prevailing structural constraint of world politics has two
implications: states, the principal actors in international relations, are primarily interested in
their survival, and they balance against other states and are therefore interested in relative,
rather than absolute gains of power. Waltz’ propositions have been nuanced by subsequent
43
A list with recommendations issued by the Mbeki Panel is available from:
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article32880.
44
See Kurt Mills, “Vacillating on Darfur: Responsibility to Protect, to Prosecute, or to Feed?” Global
Responsibility to Protect, Vol. 1, No. 4, 2009, pp. 532-559.
45
For an overview, see Jack Donnely, “Realism”, in Scott Burchill et al., eds., Theories of International
Relations, 4th ed., New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 31-56.
46
See Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1979.
12
authors, such as Walt, who found that states counter threats, rather than power as such,47 as
well as Mearsheimer, who as the leading exponent of ‘offensive realism’ argued that “states
seek to survive under anarchy by maximizing their power relative to other states.”48 It is not
so easy to make sense of realism as a theory in the specific context of external interventions
in civil wars. Fearon and Laitin offer a strong argument in this regard. According to them,
“Even before September 11, the world was changing in such a way that the main security
threats and problems now emerge not from great power security competition … but from the
consequences of political disorder, misrule, and humiliation in the third world.”49 From a
realist perspective external intervention in fragile context is thus required in order to
eliminate safe havens for terrorists, to prevent ‘rogue’ states from acquiring nuclear weapons,
or to fight organized crime, among others.
Applied to Sudan, a realist framework is useful first and foremost to explain why there was
no full-fledged military intervention after violence broke out in Darfur in 2003. The only
country that would have been capable to carry out such an intervention is the U.S., either
unilaterally as in Iraq or leading a multilateral mission like in Kosovo. Indeed, it appears that
there were serious discussions about this option within the Bush Administration: the Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, argued for air strikes, whereas Robert
Zoellick, the Deputy Secretary of State in charge of the Sudan dossier, favored the diplomatic
track.50 In the end, Zoellick prevailed for two reasons. First, a military intervention in Darfur
would have been very costly, in particular provided that the US military was already
overstretched. This is compounded by the experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, where US
military interventions led to protracted crises that required a costly long-term presence.
Second, the gains from a military intervention in Darfur would have been minimal, for Darfur
does not host terrorist networks nor does it have lucrative natural resources. Moreover,
another US-led invasion of a Muslim country would have been likely to have negative
repercussions, providing terrorist groups with propaganda material to incite further violence
against the U.S.
47
See Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.
John Mearsheimer, “’Back to the Future’: Instability in Europe After the Cold War”, International Security,
Vol. 15, No. 1, 1990, p. 12. (Emphasis of the author)
49
James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Neo-trusteeships and the Problems of Weak States”, International
Security, Vol. 28, No. 4, Spring 2004, pp. 5-43, at p. 6.
50
For a journalistic account of the debates about Darfur within the Bush Administration, see Ben WallaceWells, “Darfuristan”, Rolling Stone, 11 December 2009.
48
13
While realism offers a plausible explanation for what the U.S. did not do in Darfur, it is less
compelling to explain what it actually did, and it even poses paradoxes. In a realist
perspective, the U.S.’ primary interests in Sudan are to ensure that the country does not
become an operating ground for terrorists, as it was the case during the 1990s when Osama
bin-Laden lived in Sudan.51 A secondary interest could be to gain access to oil contracts, the
most lucrative of which are currently held by China, currently Sudan’s principal ally. Given
these interests, the most rational strategy would be for the U.S. to foster a positive
relationship with the Sudanese government who both controls oil contracts and is able to
deliver in the fight against terrorism. Realism prescribes that the U.S. should handle Sudan
similar to, e.g., Saudi Arabia. This was indeed the case during the Cold War, when Sudan
was a close US ally and as such, the largest recipient of US foreign aid in Sub-Saharan
Africa.52 Today however, the U.S. is pursuing a contrary strategy based on confrontation
rather than cooperation with Khartoum. A similar paradox characterizes the Sudan policy of
other governments, such as France and the U.K. To understand the international response to
the Darfur crisis it is therefore necessary to go beyond realism and contemplate alternative
theories.
Liberal internationalism and the ‘solidarist’ branch of the ‘English School’
Liberal theory offers an alternative approach to realism. While realists see the behavior of
states conditioned by the structure of the international system, liberals believe the domestic
order to be the determinant factor for states’ international behavior. Going back to Kant’s
idea of the Perpetual Peace, one central tenant of liberal theory is that liberal democratic
states are less likely to fight wars since in these states the power of state elites is constrained
by common people, who have no appetite for war.53 A more modern version of this argument
is Doyle’s claim that democracies do not fight wars against each other, although they do
behave aggressively towards authoritarian states.54 Clear policy prescriptions can be deduced
from Doyle’s Democratic Peace Argument: in order to build a more peaceful world it is
crucial to promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, in particular in states
emerging from armed conflict.55
51
See Alex de Waal, ed., Islamism and its Enemies in the Horn of Africa, London: Hurst, 2004.
See Robert O. Collins, A History of Modern Sudan, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
53
See Scott Burchill, “Liberalism” in Scott Burchill et al., eds., Theories of International Relations, pp. 57-85.
54
See Michael Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 12,
1983.
55
For an articulation of this approach, see Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in
the 21st Century, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004; for a more critical analysis of the liberal legacy of
52
14
The so-called ‘English School’ of international relations is in some ways closer to realism
than liberalism, as it takes as its starting point the realist observation that international
relations are a power struggle under the condition of anarchy. Contrary to realists however,
English scholars, foremost Hedley Bull, were struck by the high level of order in world
politics, despite the absence of world government.56 Therefore, states form an international
society, where limited progress is possible, although not a perpetual peace, as utopian liberals
claim. According to the English School, world politics is characterized by recurrent tensions
between order and justice – which led Bull to formulate two distinct conceptions of
international society. In the ‘pluralist’ perspective, going back to the 18th century
international lawyer Vattel, order within international society is generated by states’ respect
of certain ground rules, such as sovereignty and non-intervention, guaranteeing their coexistence. The ability to achieve justice in world politics is therefore limited. ‘Solidarists’, on
the other hand, invoke Grotius’ legacy, and argue that order and justice are complementary. It
is therefore desirable for states to strive towards greater justice within international society,
for example by extending their solidarity to human beings all over the world and recognizing
them as members of international society in their own right.57
Liberal internationalism and the solidarist branch of the English School are different theories
for all intents and purposes, as they exhibit different worldviews and propose different
conceptual tools to explain world politics. Nonetheless, this paper will treat them together
since they both make a normative case for humanitarian intervention. This refers to the idea
that when mass atrocities are perpetuated against a population whose government is unable or
unwilling to offer protection it is permissible for international actors to intervene to stop the
atrocities, if necessary by using military force. The roots of this idea go back to the just war
doctrine,58 but it is only in the post-Cold War period that humanitarian intervention has
become a legitimate practice in world politics. This is exemplified by the international
interventions in Iraq (1991-93), Somalia (1992-93), Kosovo (1999), and East Timor (1999).
None of these interventions were entirely ‘humanitarian’, as egoistic motives of the
intervening states played a role in all of them. However, along with growing concern for
contemporary peacebuilding practices, see Roland Paris, At War’s End, New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press, 2004.
56
See Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, London: Macmillan, 1977.
57
See Hedley Bull, “The Grotian conception of International Society” in Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight,
eds., Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Relations, London: Allen & Unwin, 1966.
58
See Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 4th ed., New York, NY: Basic Books, 2006 [1977].
15
human rights, they signaled an erosion of the absolute principle of sovereignty and noninterference. This development gained further momentum when in 2001, when the Canadiansponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty released its report
The Responsibility to Protect, which expanded and re-branded the concept of humanitarian
intervention.59 Subsequently, efforts were undertaken to advance the acceptance of the rebranded humanitarian intervention norms on the international scene. The 2005 World
Summit’s endorsement of the responsibility to protect counts as a success in this regard,
despite the recent backlash against the norm among non-western countries.60 Humanitarian
intervention has traditionally been promoted by liberal internationalists, who appreciate it as
a contribution to a world based on good governance and human rights.61 Likewise, solidarists
see in the concept the realization of the idea of justice in international society.62 For both of
them, putting norms pertaining to humanitarian intervention into practice constitutes a sign of
progress, and even an element of a new, more just world order.
It is interesting to note that most observers, in particular those that are liberal-minded, see
Darfur as a failure of humanitarian intervention. The recurrent narrative is that the
international community did not live up to their responsibility to protect the civilian
population in Darfur, who was at the mercy of the genocidal, Khartoum-sponsored Janjaweed
militia. Thus, the international intervention in Darfur was too little too late.63 However, in an
alternative reading, the international response to the Darfur conflict could be described as a
sign for the growing acceptance by states of norms pertaining to humanitarian intervention.
Although refraining from intervening militarily, international actors in Darfur did more than
59
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect, Ottawa:
International Development Research Centre, 2001; for the state of the art of the doctrine, see Gareth Evans, The
Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All, Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution Press, 2008.
60
See Thomas G. Weiss and Ramesh Thakur, The United "ations and Global Governance: An Unfinished
Journey, Bloomington, IN: Indian University Press, 2009.
61
See, e.g., Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian Intervention, London: Pluto Press, 2007.
62
For a strong argument in this regard, see Nicholas Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in
International Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. For a challenge of Wheeler’s argument
from a pluralist perspective, see Robert Jackson, The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
63
See, e.g., Paul D. Williams and Alex J. Bellamy, “The Responsibility to Protect and the Crisis in Darfur”,
Security Dialogue, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2005, pp. 168-183; Alex J. Bellamy, “Responsibility to Protect or Trojan
Horse? The Crisis in Darfur and Humanitarian Intervention”, Ethics and International Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 2,
2005, pp. 31-53; Nick Grono, “Briefing – The International Community’s Failure to Protect”, African Affairs,
Vol. 105, No. 421, 2006, pp. 621-31; Roberto Belloni, “The Tragedy of Darfur and the Limits of the
‘Responsibility to Protect’”, Ethnopolitics Vol. 5, No. 4, 2006, pp. 327-346; Cristina G. Badescu and Linnea
Bergholm, “The Responsibility to Protect and the Conflict in Darfur: The Big Let-Down”, Security Dialogue,
Vol. 40, No. 3, 2009, pp. 287-309.
16
in most previous civil wars to address to plight of affected populations: peacekeepers with a
robust mandate were deployed to offer some protection to civilians; the ICC was given a
mandate to prosecute those responsible for crimes in Darfur; sanctions were taken against the
Sudanese government as a result of its intransigence; much effort was put into negotiating a
peace settlement; and a humanitarian operation was set up in order to secure the livelihoods
of those who lost their homes in the war. In other words, the far-reaching magnitude of the
international reaction to the Darfur crisis can be interpreted as an imperfect, but significant
step towards a more just world order. However, there are two facts that contradict the notion
that states have internalized humanitarian intervention norms in Darfur. First, the
international community only became interested in Darfur when most of the atrocities were
already over, namely in the second half of 2004. During the most brutal phase of the conflict
from mid-2003 to mid-2004, there was practically no international reaction. Second, states
did not automatically respond to the Darfur conflict. Their response was in fact a reaction to
civil society pressure, as exemplified by the U.S.’ genocide determination, US sanctions
against Khartoum, the ICC referral, China’s shift of position with regards to UNAMID, and
France’s sponsorship of EUFOR. In sum, liberal internationalists and English School
solidarists correctly point to the role of international norms to understand why Darfur
generated so much attention. To get a more complete picture, it is crucial to consider the role
of non-governmental groups acting as norm ‘activators’. For this purpose, the paper now
considers constructivist explanations of international relations.
Constructivism
The constructivist school of thought in international relations emerged in the late 1980s as a
direct challenge to rationalist theories, foremost realism and liberalism. These theories
assume states’ interests to be exogenous of social interaction – which means that they are
determined by the constraints of the environment in which they operate. Constructivists, on
the other hand, assume interests to be endogenous in the sense they are socially constructed.
In the words, of Wendt, “material resources only acquire meaning for human action through
the structure of shared knowledge in which they are embedded.”64 Consequently,
constructivists have paid particular attention to the ideational and normative structures of
world politics, in addition to material conditions. Accordingly, systems of shared ideas and
values play an important role in states’ behaviors in the international realm by shaping their
64
Alexander Wendt, “Constructing International Politics”, International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1, 1995, p. 73.
17
social identities. A significant body of research within constructivism thus addresses the
diffusion of international norms, defined as “collective expectations about proper behavior
for a given identity,”65 with the aim of explaining how these norms affect change on the
domestic level. In this regard, Finnemore and Sikkink have conceptualized the ‘life cycle’ of
a norm. Thus, a norm emerges by competing with alternative normative constellations; it is
then institutionalized on the international level, before states broadly comply with the norm
as a result of a process of peer pressure and socialization.66 Norms do not emerge from a
vacuum; rather, they are “actively built by agents having strong notions about appropriate or
desirable behavior in their community.”67 These agents, often called norm entrepreneurs, are
often non-governmental groups that promote a particular normative project, e.g. human
rights, the environment, women’s rights. These groups engage in alliances with likeminded
groups and individuals to form ‘transnational advocacy networks.’68 Deploying symbolic as
well as limited material resources, these networks have been influential by reconfiguring
states’ interests with regards to a number of ‘principled issues’, ranging from human rights,69
the struggle against apartheid,70 and the ban of anti-personnel landmines.71 All of these cases
exemplify the mutual constitution between agents and structures – which represents a core
proposition of constructivist theory. According to Christian Reus-Smit, “Normative and
ideational structures may well condition the identities and interests of actors, but those
structures would not exist if it were not for the knowledgeable practices of those actors.”72
Darfur is a case in point for agent-structure interactions in world politics in that the
magnitude of the international response to the Darfur conflict has been made possible by the
above-mentioned evolution of the normative structure of world politics in favor of
65
Ronald M, Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. Katzenstein, “Norms, Identity, and Culture in National
Security” in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of "ational Security: "orms and Identity in World Politics,
New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1996, p. 54.
66
See Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change”,
International Organization Vol. 52, No. 4, 1998, pp. 887-917.
67
Ibid, p. 896.
68
For conceptualization, see Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy
"etworks in International Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998; see also Richard Price,
“Transnational Civil Society and Advocacy in World Politics”, World Politics, Vol. 55, 2003, pp. 579-606.
69
See Kathryn Sikkink, “Human Rights, Principles-Issue Networks, and Sovereignty in Latin America”,
International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 3, 1993, pp. 411-441.
70
See Audie Klotz, "orms in International Relations: The Struggle Against Apartheid, Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1995.
71
See Richard Price, “Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines”,
International Organization, Vol. 52, No.3, 1998, pp. 613-644.
72
Christian Reus-Smit, “Constructivism” in Burchill et al., eds., Theories of International Relations, pp. 212236, at p. 221.
18
humanitarian intervention. However, this structure alone is insufficient to spur international
action; it first needed to be ‘activated’ by a determined advocacy movement. Thus, specific
civil society platforms were created to coordinate advocacy activities around Darfur: the Save
Darfur Coalition in the U.S., Urgence Darfour in France, and the Darfur program of the NGO
Aegis Trust in the U.K.73 These groups spearheaded a broad coalition of interested
organizations, ranging from human rights organizations, faith-based groups, conflict
resolution practitioners, student groups, Hollywood celebrities, and liberal pundits. What
united these groups was their belief in the rightness of humanitarian intervention – indeed,
two US activists called the doctrine of the responsibility to protect the “intellectual
underpinning” of their movement.74 The activists perceived the Darfur conflict as a test case
for a more just world order and they very effectively lobbied states to respond to the atrocities
there. For example, Save Darfur created scorecards, rating each Congressperson’s voting
performance on issues relevant for Darfur.75 Such mechanisms were instrumental in
Congress’ passing of the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act in 2007. Civil society
groups concerned about Darfur also lobbied the members of the UN Security Council, in
particular the U.S., to permit the situation in Darfur to be referred to the ICC.76 In France, the
campaigns on Darfur paved the way for Kouchner’s idea to send peacekeepers to protect
Darfurian refugees in Chad.77 China, finally, was compelled by activists to abandon its carte
blanche support of the Sudanese government.78
These insights allow for the resolution of the first puzzle outlined in the introduction of this
paper, namely, why the Darfur conflict has generated such a far-reaching response. This
response was made possible by the growing acceptance that states have a duty to respond to
mass atrocities, regardless of their material interests. Against this backdrop, states’ actions
have been triggered by extensive civil society mobilization around the issue of Darfur.
Reports of mass atrocities have triggered extensive civil society mobilization around the issue
73
For background on the emergence of the Darfur advocacy movement in the U.S., see Hamilton and Hazlett,
“‘Not on Our Watch’”; for a vigorous critique of Darfur advocacy campaigns, see Mahmood Mamdani, Saviors
and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror, New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 2009; for a
commentary regarding Mamdani’s contribution, see David Lanz, “Commentary – Save Darfur: A Movement
and its Discontents”, African Affairs, Vol. 108, No. 433, pp. 669-677.
74
Spiegel and Jensen, “Darfur and Activism”, p. 205.
75
See Joseph Uscinski, Michael S. Rocca, Gabriel R. Sanchez and Marina Brenden, “Congress and Foreign
Policy: Congressional Action on the Darfur Genocide”, Political Science and Politics, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 489496.
76
See Kaufman, “Justice in Jeopardy.”
77
See Glaser and Smith, Sarko en Afrique.
78
See Small Arms Survey, Arms, Oil, and Darfur: The Evolution of Relations between China and Sudan, July
2007.
19
of Darfur. Not surprisingly, the states that host the strongest Darfur advocacy movements, i.e.
the U.S. and France, have shown the strongest response, even as they resisted calls to
intervene militarily. The second puzzle, however, remains unsolved. Why has Darfur, as
opposed to another contemporary armed conflict, generated such massive civil society
mobilization? The following chapter will thus examine why the Darfur conflict had particular
resonance with public opinion in western countries.
Part III: The Darfur narrative and the power of grafts, frames, and analogies
Darfur is not the only civil war around which civil society has mobilized. There are a number
of NGOs, e.g. the ICG and Human Rights Watch, and journalists, e.g. Nicholas Kristof, who
have made it their mission to lobby states to respond to armed conflicts worldwide. However,
none of their efforts to draw the attention of public opinion to the suffering of civilians in
neglected parts of the world, most recently e.g. the DRC, Guinea-Conakry, or Sri Lanka, have
been even closely as effective as the campaigns for Darfur. One important reason for this is
that advocates have – consciously and unconsciously – created a highly compelling narrative
of the Darfur conflict and its remedies, which has generated exceptional resonance with
public opinion as well as decision-makers. In this account, Darfur is a place of good and evil,
victims and perpetrators, villains and heroes: The evil Sudanese government mobilized
vicious “Arab” tribal militias and induced them to commit genocide against innocent
“African” victims. The forces of evil still run havoc and in order to save the victims and bring
the perpetrators to justice, the West needs to do what it failed to do in Rwanda in 1994,
namely, to intervene militarily. This summary is obviously a caricature, but it accurately
captures the main features of Darfur’s portrayal in early opinion pieces that appeared in major
US newspapers since the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in spring 2004.79 As the
conflict in Darfur progressed and violence diminished, and as common knowledge of Darfur
grew more sophisticated, nuances were added to the initially very crude depiction of the
situation in Sudan. Nonetheless, the main elements of the Darfur narrative – i.e., genocide,
Arab vs. African, and the need for external intervention – have been perpetuated over the
years. The narrative has enhanced the agency of Darfur advocates via three mechanisms that
derive from existing research on transnational advocacy networks: grafting, framing, and
analogies. The following chapter will consider them in turn.
79
See Murphy, “Narrating Darfur.”
20
Grafting
A first mechanism concerns what Richard Price has termed ‘grafting’, that is, the association
of a new norm with a pre-existing, broadly accepted norm.80 Thus, Darfur advocates have
from early on referred to the Darfur conflict as genocide – in terms of semantics, they
systematically replaced references to “the Darfur conflict” with “the Darfur genocide.”81
Discussions about whether Darfur really constitutes genocide or whether genocide has ended,
as the violence diminished since 2004, were brushed away by advocates.82 Their insistence
on genocide represents an attempt to associate their cause with the pre-existing anti-genocide
norm. Enshrined in the 1948 Genocide Convention, which defines genocide as acts
committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious
group, this norm stipulates that states have a duty to undertake measures to prevent the
commission of genocide as well as to punish its perpetrators. The anti-genocide norm has
recently gained momentum as a result of legal and political developments that resulted from
the promotion of ‘transitional justice.’83 Not surprisingly, many supporters of anti-genocide
norms have become keen advocates of international intervention in Darfur. For example,
Samantha Power, whose 2002 book A Problem from Hell was instrumental in popularizing
the anti-genocide norm,84 was active from the outset in the Darfur advocacy movement. Her
field research-based report about the Darfur conflict in The New Yorker in August 2004 had
a significant impact on the nascent Darfur activism.85 Generally speaking, the effect of
associating Darfur with anti-genocide norms was to create buy-in among groups that have a
particular interest in preventing genocide. Thus, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington D.C. played an important role in putting Darfur on the map of policy-makers, as
did many Jewish organizations.86 Resonance was further created by grafting the issue of
Darfur on existing global justice norms. This refers to the idea that people who committed
acts qualifying as war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, must be held
80
Price, “Reversing the Gun Sight”, p. 617.
For a discussion, see Alex de Waal, “Reflections on the Difficulties of Defining Darfur’s Crisis as Genocide”,
Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol. 20, 2006, pp. 25-33; Scott Straus, “Darfur and the Genocide Debate”,
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 1, 2005.
82
An interesting episode in this regard was the suggestion in 2008 by Andrew Natsios, the then US
government’s Special Envoy to Sudan, in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony that the situation in
Darfur does not constitute genocide anymore, and the angry reactions of senators associated with Darfur
campaigns. (See Mamdani, “Saviors and Survivors”, pp. 34-38)
83
See Aryeh Neier, The Quest for Justice, New York Review of Books, 8 March 2001.
84
Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, New York, NY: Basic Books,
2002.
85
Samantha Power, “Dying in Darfur: Can the Ethnic Cleansing in Sudan Be Stopped”, The "ew Yorker, 30
August 2004.
86
Hamilton and Hazlett, “’Not on Our Watch.’”
81
21
accountable regardless of when and where these crimes took place.87 The call by Darfur
advocates that the perpetrators of genocide in Sudan should be brought to justice was
enthusiastically picked up by human rights organizations. They thus adopted Darfur as a
cause and successfully lobbied states regarding a number of issues, most importantly to refer
the situation in Darfur to the ICC.88
Frames
Sikkink and Keck’s seminal work Activists beyond Borders lists a variety of political
strategies that transnational advocacy networks employ in order to garner support for their
cause.89 One strategic activity of advocacy groups concerns the creation of ‘frames,’ that is,
“rendering events and occurrences meaningful … to organize experience and guide action,
whether individual or collective.”90 Thus, according to Snow and Benford, the more a frame
is coherent internally and the more it fits the broader political culture, the greater is the
“frame resonance.”91 The Darfur advocacy movement is a case in point. It achieved frame
resonance as a result of two factors pertaining to the above-mentioned Darfur narrative. First,
the Darfur conflict was described in morally unambiguous categories. In activist accounts
there is absolute clarity about good and evil, and about the identities of victims and
perpetrators. There are few attempts to provide a differentiated account of the variegated
causes of the Darfur conflict; instead, violence represents the projection of evil. It is not
surprising therefore that this narrative drew criticisms from Darfur experts. Julie Flint, for
example, complained that for the activists “Darfur is not a place with a complex history; it is
a moral high ground.”92 Nonetheless, the Darfur narrative proved to be compelling, as it
provoked widespread sympathy for the victims as well as providing a clear explanation of the
war for the broader public. The second factor of resonance is related with the remedies that
the Darfur narrative proposes, namely, the necessity of an external military intervention such
as in Kosovo in 1999. Western countries thus find themselves in the role of the saviors, as it
is suggested that their military power can be used for a good moral purpose. It is not
87
See Ellen Lutz and Kathryn Sikkink, “The Justice Cascade: The Evolution and Impact of Foreign Human
Rights Trials in Latin America”, Chicago International of International Law, Vol. 2, 2001.
88
Kaufmann, “Justice in Jeopardy.”
89
Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders, pp. 16-25.
90
David A. Snow et al., “Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation”,
American Sociological Review, Vol. 51, 1986, p. 464.
91
David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford, “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization” in Bert
Klandermas, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Sidney Tarroy, eds., From Structure to Action: Comparing Social Movement
Research across Cultures, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1988.
92
Julie Flint, “Darfur, Saving Itself,” The Washington Post, 3 June 2007.
22
surprising that this frame struck a chord among decision-makers. Many members of the US
political elites, both Democrats and Republicans, embraced Darfur as a cause, as it generated
legitimacy for their country after the unpopular invasion of Iraq in 2003. Likewise, Sarkozy
and Kouchner saw intervention in the Darfur conflict as an opportunity to reaffirm France’s
moral leadership in the world.
Analogies
The third mechanism of resonance is related to what Keck and Sikkink call “accountability
politics”: efforts by transnational advocacy networks to build support for their cause by
“hold[ing] power actors to their previously stated policies and principles.”93 In the case of
Darfur, this mechanism consisted of linking the Darfur conflict to the Rwandan genocide in
1994 and by reminding policy-makers of the promises they had made in its aftermath.
Representative of many similar voices, the then U.S. President Bill Clinton during a visit to
Kigali in 1998 summarized the lessons of Rwanda as follows: “The international community
... must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy. We did not act quickly enough after
the killing began ... We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name:
genocide.”94 From the very beginning of the Darfur advocacy movement – in fact, since
Mukesh Kapila’s statement in March 2004 – Darfur was compared to Rwanda. Even more:
Darfur was framed as “another Rwanda”; it therefore became a test case for the many
commitments of “never again” that states readily asserted after Rwanda.95 The effect of the
Darfur-Rwanda analogy was twofold: one was that it stimulated media attention. Liberal
pundits, e.g. Nicholas Kristof, started to write prolifically about the Darfur conflict after
Mukesh Kapila’s whistle-blowing in March 2004. Overall, between March and September
2004, 83 editorials and op-eds were published alone in the New York Times, Washington
Post and the Wall Street Journal.96
The second effect of the Darfur-Rwanda analogy pertained to the level of decision-makers. It
is notable that some of the most active promoters of international engagement in Darfur are
senior officials, whose personal experiences in the context of the Rwandan genocide left a
strong mark. To name but a few examples, Kofi Annan’s role as the head of DPKO during
93
Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders, p. 16.
Cited in Michael Barnett, Eyewitness to Genocide: the United "ations and Rwanda, London: Cornell
University Press, 2002, p. 155.
95
Darran Brunk, “Dissecting Darfur: Anatomy of a Genocide Debate”, International Relations, Vol. 22, No. 1,
pp. 25-44, at p. 38.
96
Murphy, “Narrating Darfur.”
94
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the Rwandan genocide has been critically scrutinized, and Annan has since been an ardent
supporter of humanitarian intervention.97 Susan Rice, the current U.S. Ambassador to the
UN, who was on Clinton’s National Security Council staff in 1994, said that she was “deeply
affected” by the Rwanda genocide.98 Unsurprisingly, Rice has called for strong action against
Khartoum, echoing the calls of many Darfur activists.99 Bernard Kouchner, who was
instrumental for France’s involvement in Darfur, has called the world’s failure to stop the
Rwandan genocide “the childhood sins of the right of ingérence.”100 Finally, Mukesh Kapila,
the first person to call Darfur genocide, was marked by his experience as one of the first
British government officials to visit Rwanda after the genocide in 1994.101 These examples
demonstrate the power of accountability politics in that resolute action over Darfur came to
be perceived by decision-makers as a form of redemption for the international community’s
doubtful inaction, and even their personal failings, during the Rwandan genocide.
Conclusion
The introduction of this paper outlined two puzzles related to the international response to the
Darfur crisis. The first concerned the magnitude of this response in absolute terms – Why is
the response to the Darfur conflict so far-reaching? The second puzzle called for a relative
assessment – Why does the response to the Darfur conflict go beyond comparable civil wars?
In terms of the former puzzle, this paper has argued that the magnitude of international
engagement in Darfur was made possible by the evolution of normative structures that have
shifted the borders of international legitimacy away from non-interference towards
humanitarian intervention. The response actually materialized when civil society networks
tapped into this structure and persuaded states to do something to address the suffering of
Darfurians. The answer to the second puzzle has to do with the exceptional resonance of
Darfur as a cause with public opinion and among policymakers. This resonance stems from
the political strategies of Darfur advocates, including the grafting of Darfur to existing antigenocide norms; the framing of the Darfur conflict in clear moral and political categories; and
97
See James Traub, The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the U" in the Era of American World Power, New
York, NY: Macmillan, 2006.
98
National Public Radio, “Rice to Take Lessons from Rwandan Genocide”, 23 February 2009; available from:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101038696.
99
See, e.g., Susan E. Rice, Anthony Lake, and Donald M. Payne, “We Saved Europeans. Why not Africans?”
Washington Post, 2 October 2006.
100
James Traub, “A Statesman without Border”, "ew York Times Magazine, 3 February 2008.
101
For a personal testimony by Mukesh Kapila, see the film “Moving from Words to Action: The Responsibility
to Protect”; available from: http://www.aegistrust.org/Films/moving-from-words-to-action-the-responsibility-toprotect.html.
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the creation of analogies between the war in Darfur and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Therefore, Darfur as an issue was more conducive than other contemporary civil wars, e.g.
Sri Lanka, Somalia or the DRC, to creating leverage for transnational advocacy movements.
The implications of these findings are twofold – both theoretical as well as practical. First,
the international response to the Darfur conflict raises the question of why states intervene in
far-away civil wars and what theory accurately captures such interventions. After September
11, it was frequently argued that states will increasingly intervene in civil wars and weak
states because of the potential terrorist threats emanating from these contexts. Thus, the
material interests of states in terms of their national security were seen as the most important
variable in this regard. Almost a decade after September 11, such interpretations cannot be
verified. Unless they perceive an imminent threat, like the U.S. in Afghanistan in 2001, big
powers do not seem to have fundamentally changed the way they engage with fragile
contexts; their engagement remains reactive, rather than proactive. Darfur shows that nonmaterial factors, such as norms, values and historical role models, are often more pertinent in
explaining international intervention in conflict and post-conflict contexts. This underlines
the importance of considering constructivist frameworks when analyzing such interventions.
Second, there appears to be a discrepancy between policies that activists are pushing for and
the requirements of peacemaking on the ground. There have been a number of criticisms by
Darfur advocacy groups, the most important of which come from long-time Sudan expert,
Alex de Waal. According to him, the activists’ insistence on military intervention has
crowded out political strategies to solve the crisis through peace negotiations. This has led to
a lack of focus by the international community on a sound peace process, which in turn
resulted in missed opportunities to end the war in Darfur at the negotiating table.102 As a
practical matter therefore, Darfur raises the question of how to ensure that the good intentions
of activists actually have good consequences on the ground.
In many ways, the present analysis poses more questions than answers. Three avenues for
future research seem to be particularly interesting. First, it would be very valuable to compare
Darfur with other conflict settings in order to assess the effects of narratives and frames on
external interventions more generally. Such an analysis would connect Darfur with relevant
cases studies of other conflicts. Autesserre, for example, has demonstrated how the framing
102
See Alex de Waal, “Darfur and the Failure of the Responsibility to Protect.”
25
of the Congo as the Heart of Darkness, where violence is innate, has led to a neglect of local
peacebuilding strategies in the DRC.103 Likewise, Hagmann and Hoehne have highlighted
that the framing of Somalia as a ‘failed state’ has precluded the international community from
taking a more pragmatic approach that includes the recognition of sub-national units within
the Somali territories.104 A second fascinating object of research would be the differences
between different states’ responses to the Darfur crisis. Why have some states, e.g. the U.S.
and France, been so active, while for others, e.g. Germany, Darfur has not been of
extraordinary concern? Studies examining the domestic impact of international norms would
suggest that the degree of openness of the political system to civil society input as well as a
norm’s cultural match are relevant variables in this context.105A third and related avenue for
research pertains to the reactions to the war in Darfur in non-Western regions, in particular
the Arab world. At first sight it appears that the perception of the Darfur issue in Arab
countries is mirror-inverted from that in western countries – which would point to some kind
of a ‘normative clash of civilizations.’ In any case, the question ‘Why Darfur?’ will continue
to be relevant and occupy researchers in the years to come.
*
*
103
*
See Séverine Autesserre, “Hobbes and the Congo: Frames, Local Violence, and International Intervention”,
International Organization Vol. 63, 2009, pp. 249-280.
104
See Tobias Hagmann and Markus Hoehne, “Failure of the Failed State Debate: Evidence from the Somali
Territories”, Journal of International Development, Vol. 21, pp. 42-57.
105
See Andrew P. Cortell and James W. Davis Jr., “How Do International Institutions Matter? The Domestic
Impact of International Rules and Norms”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4, 1996, pp. 451-478.
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