Rays of Light for Darfur

Just in time for the Yom HaShoah season, President Bush has rediscovered the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Bush threated to apply additional sanctions on the Sudanese government should they fail to take action to stop the violence. Bush's speech should be applauded, for no other reason than the possibility that positive reinforcement might spur him into serious action. However, in order to be worthy of anything louder than a golf clap or two, Bush needs to translate his strong, if sporadic rhetoric into concrete action. It is long past time that discussions of establishing a no-fly moved from the realm of the hypothetical.

Two other recent developments give cause for more hope than the recent stirrings from the White House. The first is the recent discussions between the various rebel militia groups and representatives of Darfur Arab tribes about forming a common front against the Sudanese government. While there is something unseemly about the whole process (especially given the leading role the Arab tribes of Darfur have had in committing the janjaweed massacres), a radical change in the political order of Darfur would likely stem the tide of the genocide. The rule of thugs who do not commit genocide is surely preferable to the rule of thugs that do commit genocide.

Even more promising however, is the first sign of the Chinese government's reevaluating its position of providing diplomatic cover for the Sudanese regime.

A senior Chinese official, Zhai Jun, traveled to Sudan to push the Sudanese government to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force. Mr. Zhai even went all the way to Darfur and toured three refugee camps, a rare event for a high-ranking official from China, which has extensive business and oil ties to Sudan and generally avoids telling other countries how to conduct their internal affairs.

So what gives? Credit goes to Hollywood — Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg in particular. Just when it seemed safe to buy a plane ticket to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games, nongovernmental organizations and other groups appear to have scored a surprising success in an effort to link the Olympics, which the Chinese government holds very dear, to the killings in Darfur, which, until recently, Beijing had not seemed too concerned about.

In an op-ed in the WSJ, Farrow had warned Spielberg, who is a serving as an advisor to China for the games, that he could "go down in history Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games." Spielberg immediately noted his concerns to the Chinese government, who in turn dispatched Zhai to Sudan to pass along the word that China was no longer agnostic about genocide.

If the Chinese are indeed serious about removing their political cover for their Sudanese clients, the idea of international diplomatic pressure actually impacting Sudanese policy is no longer farcical. Genocide for the Sudanese regime is a counter-insurgency tactic, not a theological commitment. Real pressure very well may result in real results. If so, we should thank the courage of Mia Farrow, and the anonymous Chinese official who fondly recalled watching their first pirated video of Raiders of the Lost Ark.