The Chronicle Editorial LiveJournalists decided to think big today — much bigger than that first Pulitzer that has eluded the newspaper — and go for the Nobel Peace Prize!
Their contribution to world peace? In only nine short paragraphs, the Editorial LiveJournalists lay out their plan to end genocide in Darfur. Here are some excerpts:
Darfur is not the only place where repressive leaders or civil war are slaughtering civilians. Darfur is distinctive, though, because the U.S. Congress, the State Department and the president have all deemed the conflict there a genocide: violence aimed at liquidating a whole people.
State governments and universities are trying to end the killing with an economic tool: targeted divestment. Texas should be at the forefront of the movement. Targeted divestments involve purging public pension portfolios of firms that do business in Sudan without challenging the genocide, and whose economic benefits only help those in Khartoum’s control zone.
[snip]
Above all, the immediate goal of targeted divestment is precise. It would pressure Sudan to allow on the ground a complete, fully active force of peacekeepers sent by the United Nations, rather than the sprinkling of technical advisers Khartoum currently allows.
The divestment move is a measure that will likely make academics feel better, but it’s a little naive to think that the divestment move in itself is going to have much of an effect on Khartoum’s behavior. Indeed, just this week, the Washington Post pointed out that the two main enablers of Khartoum’s ongoing misbehavior are state actors:
THE DARFUR crisis has demonstrated the limits of U.S. influence. President Bush and administration officials have described it as genocide and pushed intermittently for sanctions, peacekeeping deployments, and a deal between Sudan’s government and its rebel opponents, but their efforts have been hampered by the hesitancy of other players. Sanctions resolutions in the U.N. Security Council have been delayed and diluted because Russia sells weapons to Sudan’s government and because China has a large stake in Sudan’s oil. Efforts to deploy a serious peacekeeping force have been undermined partly by foot-dragging within the Security Council, partly by the indifference of Sudan’s Arab neighbors to the suffering of Darfur’s Muslim victims and partly by the ambivalence of the African Union, which has veered between brave efforts to supply soldiers and a misplaced deference to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Yesterday brought a small victory in the effort to force action. Now a bigger test follows.
Yesterday’s victory occurred at the summit of the African Union. For the second consecutive year, Mr. Bashir sought the presidency of the union, even though its chief achievement has been the Darfur peacekeeping operation made necessary by Mr. Bashir’s own support for genocide. In the days before the meeting, reports suggested that Mr. Bashir might succeed in his ambition, an outcome that would have destroyed the African Union’s credibility not only in Darfur but in conflict mediation elsewhere. Fortunately, Africa’s leaders balked at this prospect and chose a rival candidate.
The next test involves Chinese President Hu Jintao, who today begins a 12-day tour of Africa that includes a stop in Sudan. Mr. Hu’s main goal is to do business: China’s trade with Africa is booming. But he may also be ready to push Sudan’s leadership to accept the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force that would build on the existing African Union contingent. A Security Council resolution already calls for such a deployment, but Mr. Bashir has been resisting it. Yesterday a Sudanese spokesman indicated that his government no longer objected, perhaps signaling an awareness of the limits to China’s willingness to provide diplomatic cover.
The Editorial LiveJournalists probably do not want to concede that diplomacy has its limits, and that Western diplomatic efforts to stop the genocide in Sudan specifically have been constrained by the fact that China is Sudan’s largest investor, and views its investment in Sudan in strategic terms.
It would be helpful if China could be convinced to pressure Khartoum to end the genocide, and no doubt Western diplomats continue to try to convince their Chinese counterparts. It’s not clear, however, that the divestment approach favored by the Editorial LiveJournalists is going to have much impact. The Nobel will likely prove as elusive as the Pulitzer.
