Prepared by Justin K. Gelfand for the Genocide Intervention Network
July 20, 2005

Overview

According to a recent series of polls, Americans and Africans overwhelmingly support further intervention in the Darfur region of Sudan. With a death toll now exceeding 400,000, PIPA approached citizens of all walks of life with the pressing question of intervention. Africans, generally believed to reject the notion of UN intervention in African conflicts, appear to have drawn the line at genocide. As the poll results reflect, seven of eight African countries polled overwhelmingly condone foreign intervention in extreme human rights abuses such as Darfur, many advocating the UN to be the most appropriate agency. Seven in ten people polled support NATO intervention.

These results are profoundly significant insofar as the world recognizes the need for countries to intervene in situations of genocide when government-backed troops are either failing at protecting innocents or perpetrating the killings themselves. In Darfur, the government-sponsored Arab Janjaweed militia has perpetrated the mass-murder of hundreds of thousands of black animist and Christian Sudanese, and the forced relocation of over four million. Meeting the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide's legal and ethical definitions of genocide, the situation in Darfur has already surpassed the horrors of the 1994 Hutu-perpetrated genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda.

The Facts

Conducted between October and December 2004, the GlobeScan poll of 10,809 Africans (margin of error: +/- 2–3%) revealed that 65% of Africans questioned believe that the UN Security Council should have the right to militarily intervene in conflicts of severe human rights violations such as genocide. The breakdown of the data is clear and significant:

As the numbers show, there is widespread support for UN intervention across the African continent. Perhaps more remarkable, Africans interviewed overwhelmingly support "the idea of multilateral military intervention in their own country in the event of a conflict 'like Darfur.'" Not surprisingly, this strongly suggests that, if polled, Darfurians would certainly support military intervention to stop the Janjaweed militia and to prevent further loss of life and forced relocation.

A poll conducted more recently by PIPA-Knowledge Networks revealed that of 812 Americans interviewed between June 22–26, 2005, 61% said that UN members should "step in with military force to stop the violence in Darfur" while 32% opposed. This support was bipartisan: 67% of Republicans favored intervention and 62% of Democrats favored it. A small majority of respondents even supported committing American soldiers to the intervention force (54%).

Given the fact that the African Union has already taken the lead in committing forces on the ground in Darfur, the poll's most revealing insight is the level of support for providing equipment and logistical support for the AU — the Genocide Intervention Network's primary purpose. The poll read: "At present there is a peacekeeping force in Darfur made up of soldiers from African countries. But this force is quite weak and its presence has not stopped the violence. The African Union has asked NATO for equipment and logistical support. Do you think that NATO, including the US, should or should not provide such help?" The answer: 71% said the US should and a mere 21% said that the US should not.

While support may vary among Americans depending on whether or not the situation is called genocide (a term President George W. Bush has already used), the poll framed the situation as "large-scale violence in Darfur, Sudan, that some, including the Bush administration, have called genocide."

The Significance

This series of polls provides profound insight into the opinions of citizens throughout the world on the genocide in Darfur. In any democratic regime, especially the United States, citizen opinion is the foundation of legitimate government. Currently, United States citizens and respondents in the vast majority of African countries polled agree on one thing: some form of multilateral military intervention is necessary to stop the Janjaweed militia from its tactics of mass-murder and forced relocation. For the first time in history, African Union troops have already been dispatched in time to make a significant difference. As it stands, the world's message to these heroic soldiers is not one of support; the United States and the UN have directed political pressure against any form of intervention by the AU, the troops have struggled to secure even the most simple resources necessary to protect innocents, and politicians throughout the United States and Europe continue to discuss intervention as the Janjaweed slaughters innocents in Darfur. These are killings on the basis of race and ethnicity, actions that fall specifically within Raphael Lemkin's earliest definition of genocide and every subsequent definition since the 1948 UN Declaration, and the world has an obligation to end it.

As history has shown, citizen action has been the key to mobilizing governments. The fact that citizens throughout the United States and the world made it so governments had to listen led to the success of the Civil Rights Movement in the US, the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa, human rights efforts in India, and the list goes on. In disappointing contrast, citizens have failed to compel their governments to end genocides throughout the past century. When Stalin starved millions of Kulaks, the world chose not to act. When Pol Pot murdered over one million Cambodians, the world chose not to act. And when Hutu extremists murdered 800,000 Tutsi Rwandans in 1994, the world chose not to act.

The Genocide Intervention Network exists to help citizens express their opinions more and in a more effective manner, providing people with access to up-to-date information, organized and effective activist efforts, and an accurate historical understanding of genocide, all in an effort to help citizens become better educated advocates for the people of Darfur.

GI-Net operates within the framework of the "Responsibility to Protect" report, produced by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty in 2001. The Commission concluded that "sovereign states have a responsibility to protect their own citizens from avoidable catastrophe ... but that when they are unwilling or unable to do so, that responsibility must be borne by the broader community of states."

As the series of recent polls indicates, citizens throughout Africa and America recognize that the Sudanese government cannot possibly meet its responsibility to protect its own citizens from the Janjaweed militia when it financially backs these perpetrators of genocide. It is the responsibility of private citizens finally to stand up against genocide and to change the course of history before it is too late. The Genocide Intervention Network strongly advocates the responsibility of governments and multilateral institutions to stop the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. GI-Net brings the Responsibility to Protect to private citizens. The catastrophe in Sudan is avoidable — if the world chooses to act.