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Wednesday, 14 October 2009 07:43 |
Des Moines Register
October 11, 2009
Des Moines Register
October 11, 2009
www.desmoinesregister.com
Ambassador RICHARD S. WILLIAMSON served as U.S. special envoy to Sudan, 2008-2009. Contact: rwilliamson@winston.com
It is tragic: For five years, according to the United Nations, Darfur has been the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The "genocide in slow motion" has been carried out with cold brutality. Government helicopters strafed villages shooting randomly and pouring out 55-gallon drums of burning oil. Then flatbed trucks tore through the villages with soldiers shooting. Next, the Arab Janjaweed, the devils on horseback and camel, rode in, burning crops and stealing livestock, poisoning wells and torching homes. They killed males - from old men to young boys - and beat, gang-raped and branded with red-hot knives women and little girls.
More than 300,000 dead. Some 2.7 million displaced, living in desperate conditions in refugee and internally displaced person camps. The violence today is less only because the targets of opportunity are fewer. No one who has visited these innocent victims and listened to their heartwrenching stories can deny that there is evil in the world. No one who has witnessed such needless suffering can fail to be committed to end the cycles of violence that plague innocent people.
Those who opened the gates of hell in Darfur were cold, calculating and seeking to hold onto their position, privileges and power. They played upon ethnic and religious divisions. And, as happens too often around the world, the combustible kindling they set on fire was, in part, a result of food shortages.
Desertification spread the Sahara deep into Darfur. Traditional Arab nomads were driven south to find water for their livestock, onto the lands of African agriculturalists. Food shortages and flashes of violence grew. This set the table for the massive murder, mayhem and misery that followed.
As stated in "Renewing American Leadership in the Fight Against Global Hunger and Poverty," the recent report from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs: "Hunger and poverty are humanitarian issues, but they can quickly become political flash points." Food shortages create insecurity that too often leads to violence.
Each conflict is unique. Each has particular characteristics and causes. But there are common contributing factors that often are part of the mix such as a weak government with fading authority, corruption, marginalization, hunger and a failed economy, which, in most less-developed states, means a failure to achieve agricultural development.
A World Bank report, "Economic Causes of Civil War and Their Implications for Policy," points out that while grievances such as "inequality, political repression, and ethnic and religious divisions" contribute to social unrest and political conflict, they are not reliable in predicting civil war. It is economic characteristics that are "significant and powerful predicators of civil war."
In many areas of conflict, economic deprivation, hunger, agricultural underdevelopment and desperation are critical factors that enable violence to begin and which sustain it. Following conflict, without agricultural development there can be no successful return and reintegration of those displaced. Post-conflict areas cannot become self-sustaining with no productive work available and there will be little productive work without agricultural development. As a result, peace accords often cannot be fully implemented and warfare will reignite.
In many conflict areas agricultural development is critical to sustainable peace. And in fragile states vulnerable to violence, agricultural development will create the required economic opportunity, help alleviate hunger, improve health and contribute to infrastructure development.
Following the Holocaust, the world pledged, "Never again." Since World War II we've seen ethnic cleansing, mass murder and genocide with a quickening pace: the Cambodian killing fields, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and now Darfur. To finally give meaning to the pledge, "Never again," we must provide agricultural development worldwide. We must feed the hungry.
Symposium
WIlliamson will be speaking at the Borlaug Dialogue international symposium on Oct. 15.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200910110405/OPINION01/910110308
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