Debate shows poor Arab response to Darfur crisis

Doha: A hot debate between Sudanese opposition and government representatives on Darfur ended with a non-confidence vote by the audience against the Arab governments' stance on the crisis.

Doha Debates' Chairman Tim Sebastian moderated the programme, an initiative of the Qatar Foundation, to be broadcast on BBC World on Saturday and Sunday.

Eighty-one per cent of the public attending the latest of the Doha Debate Series here on Wednesday, voted for the motion under debate, which stated that "Arab Governments could not care less about Darfur."

Supporting the motion, Ahmad Ebrahim Diraige, former Governor of Darfur and head of the opposition National Redemption Front Alliance, and Nadim Hasbani, a specialist at the International Crisis Group, said Arab governments are unconditionally supporting Sudanese authorities in a "state-sponsored massacre."

Debating against the motion, Ambassador Sirajuddin Hamid Yousuf, director of the Crisis Management Department at the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Arab League specialist Zeid Al Sabban, said Arab countries have actively mediated to solve a Sudanese "domestic issue", which Western media and the US propaganda have blown out of proportion.

"The role of the Arab countries in Darfur has been minimal if not absent ... Arabs prefer to give money, rather than getting involved [in Darfur] and take a positive step towards solving the crisis," said Diraige citing also lack of reliable information on the tragedy and an unspoken discrimination of the black populations who do not belong to the Arab ethnicity.

Mediation

Yousuf argued that Arabs were directly involved in the mediating process and blamed the US for mounting a media campaign against the Sudanese Government to shift the public attention from its failures in Iraq.

"Arabs have given a significant contribution to solving the crisis because threats to the stability and integrity of Sudan are threats to the collective security system of the Arab world." Asked by moderator Tim Sebastian to comment on the findings of a 2007 UN report blaming Sudanese government of large scale war crimes and human rights abuses, Yousuf said the UN report was "baseless".

Quoting UN data, Hasbani attacked the Arab Governments saying they remain silent in front of the massacre of 200,000 from Darfur and the displacement of over 2 million.

He accused Arab regimes of collaborating with the Sudanese Government in "silencing and censoring" Arab media that try to report on the issue.

Zaid Al Sabban listed the engagements of Arab countries in the mediating process starting from their 2004 involvement in a fact finding mission of the Arab League.