by Ross Edgar

Created on: May 17, 2008

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" Edmund Burke.

Whenever the mass-killing of an ethnic group begins, one of the first reactions of the international community is guaranteed to be to gather together and debate whether the killing amounts to genocide'. In the field of conflict resolution and peacekeeping there seems to be a deliberate ignorance to the dark reality of what is taking place and a larger concern for the theory of the events such as terminology. This happened in Rwanda in 1994 and is happening again now in relation to the Darfur region of Sudan.

The second step almost guaranteed to be taken by the international community is to put in place a blanket arms embargo against the entire country, without exception. These embargoes simply do not distinguish between government forces, murderous militias on the rampage and local defence paramilitary forces. It results in the killers going underground to source their weapons which usually isn't a problem to them. More importantly, it completely isolates the people who are trying to defend themselves from any means of protection. This happened both in Bosnia in 1995 and Sierra Leone in 1999.

When a conflict has killed an estimated 200,000 400,000 people, displaced 2,500,000 people and has been ongoing for 5 years without progress, the question of intervention seems to have an obvious answer. Of course intervention is required and should be provided without delay. The more pressing matter is who should provide the forces with which to intervene and what form should the intervention take?

In the past the United Nations has attempted to prevent killing on a large scale and more often than not it has failed in a rather splendid manner. This was the case in Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone to name a few. Providing the Darfur region with the usual United Nations peacekeeping force with absolutely unbelievable rules of engagement is certainly not the solution. The result would most probably be a continuation of mass murder and further humiliation and undermining of the United Nations.

One solution would be to provide a NATO contingent to protect the region or simply a British or French or American army presence. However, the presence of a country's armed forces under its own auspices would be interpreted as an occupation force and despite NATO's rapid expansion, Sudan is outside its area of interest and influence.

The most obvious solution is to provide troops from the surrounding

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