Impunity in Sudan

It’s a bleak day for humanity when one of the architects of the genocide in Darfur gets a promotion. In a gesture of supreme defiance of decency and international law, the Sudanese government announced Monday that it had appointed Musa Hilal, a militia leader who recruited and mobilized the janjaweed militias responsible for the carnage in Darfur, to be a special advisor to the president on ethnic affairs.

It gets worse. Hilal is the third alleged war criminal to be elevated to a government post. He is under United Nations and U.S. State Department sanctions; the other two have been indicted by the International Criminal Court. In an especially cynical move, one of the indicted has been put in charge of humanitarian aid to Darfur. Sudan also has been doing everything possible to obstruct the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers, including shooting at a clearly marked U.N. convoy this month.

Appeasement and negotiation from a position of weakness have not and will not stop the thuggery of the oil-rich Sudanese regime. Only muscle will do. But the “civilized” world has done next to nothing to enforce meaningful economic sanctions, hasn’t even moved to arrest the indicted war criminals and, disgracefully, has yet to provide even one of the helicopters that U.N. peacekeepers need. It’s time to face facts: Unless the U.N. gets far more political, economic and military support from its posturing but so-far feckless members, it may as well pack up its blue helmets and go home.

Monday’s announcement appears calculated to send yet another message of contempt for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is scheduled to fly to Sudan at the end of the month to meet with President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir. Ban should cancel that trip and instead fly to Beijing, which persuaded Sudan to accept the peacekeepers in the first place, and ask again for Chinese help in pressuring Bashir. While there, he should announce that the mission cannot go forward until the United Nations receives the helicopters. Ban has been too diplomatic to note publicly that the U.S. military has plenty of spare choppers but does not want to send its pilots to a Muslim nation. Instead, Washington has shamefully suggested that the U.N. accept an offer of outdated Jordanian helicopters that cannot be flown at night -- which is precisely when the Sudanese fly their nefarious missions. But the U.S. could easily lend or lease its helicopters to the U.N., which could then recruit pilots from other nations.

Either the world is willing to help the Darfurians, or it isn’t. If the latter, it’s even more cruel to promise help that will never arrive.