Angelina on Darfur

Let’s take Angelina Jolie seriously for a moment, shall we? She had an interesting (and important) piece in yesterday’s Washington Post on the situation in Darfur — from a refugee camp (Oure Cassoni) in Bahai, Chad. Here are a few key passages:

– “By every measure — killings, rapes, the burning and looting of villages — the violence in Darfur has increased since my last visit, in 2004. The death toll has passed 200,000; in four years of fighting, Janjaweed militia members have driven 2.5 million people from their homes, including the 26,000 refugees crowded into Oure Cassoni.”

– “When I was in Chad in June 2004, refugees told me about systematic attacks on their villages. It was estimated then that more than 1,000 people were dying each week. In October 2004 I visited West Darfur, where I heard horrific stories, including accounts of gang-rapes of mothers and their children. By that time, the UNHCR estimated, 1.6 million people had been displaced in the three provinces of Darfur and 200,000 others had fled to Chad.”

– “Until the killers and their sponsors are prosecuted and punished, violence will continue on a massive scale. Ending it may well require military action. But accountability can also come from international tribunals, measuring the perpetrators against international standards of justice.”

Angelina does not back away from military intervention — and I tend to think that only military intervention by NATO (and not just the U.N. and/or the A.U. would have any chance of halting the genocide and securing Darfur and Chad — but she is right that “there will be no enduring peace without justice”. And this means that an empowered International Criminal Court can be an effective vehicle in bringing some semblance of justice to the region, investigating the many criminal acts and prosecuting the perpetrators of the horror. But the ICC will only be “as strong as the support we give it”. With military action unlikely, there is no good reason not to empower the ICC.

“This might be the moment we stop the cycle of violence and end our tolerance for crimes against humanity. What the worst people in the world fear most is justice. That’s what we should deliver.”

Powerful words backed up by first-hand experience of what many of us in the comfort of our prosperous liberal democracies would rather pretend isn’t happening.

Whatever else one can say about Angelina Jolie, she’s emerged as a significant public figure in the fight for justice.