(Copyright National Post 2007)

The Darfur region of Western Sudan has been beset by a genocidal civil conflict since 2003. Now, finally, the United Nations has decided to put its members' peacemaking might behind the UN's lofty rhetoric-- sort of.

On Tuesday, the UN Security Council passed a resolution sponsored by Britain and France that would send 26,000 troops and police to Darfur. If those peacekeepers actually materialize; and if sponsoring nations agree to pay the $2-billion that such a mission would cost every year; and if the troops are able to do their job despite rules of engagement that restrict their ability to use force; and if the Sudanese government lives up to its commitment to co-operate; then the UN may finally help resolve a conflict its members have been denouncing for the last four years.

The first-blush emotional response to such a UN move is applause. More than 250,000 people have been killed in Darfur, and nearly three million more displaced. The most hideous atrocities have been committed by the Janjaweed, a militia acting in concert with the Sudanese government to subjugate locally rooted rebel groups and any villagers suspected of supporting them. Numerous NGOs and reporters have come away from the region with tales of mass slaughter and arson. On a simple humanitarian level, anything that the UN (or anyone else) can do to stop the killing would be welcome.

But national governments do not have the luxury of acting on first-blush emotional responses. If they did, then all the world's soldiers -- and then some -- would be deployed on humanitarian missions somewhere around the globe. What is happening in Sudan is horrible. But horrible events are also unfolding in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia's Ogaden region, Somalia, Chad, the Central African Republic and dozens of the other places. How does one decide where to help?

In some cases -- such as Iraq, Afghanistan and southern Lebanon - - the West has dispensed peacekeepers and humanitarian aid workers in large part because the region at issue is strategic. But in Darfur, as in the other African examples cited in the preceding paragraph, that simplifying factor is not at play: There are no strategic interests at work in Darfur, except the West's interest in regaining credibility by making good on four years worth of empty rhetoric. Indeed, to the extent that a Western mission there would be interpreted by some Muslims as an exercise in "neo-colonialism," a Darfur deployment might be strategically counterproductive.

The only real argument for an intervention, then, is purely altruistic.

Altruism is a wonderful human quality. But we must be hard- headed about indulging it. In the case of Darfur, we must ask ourselves whether this truly is the greatest human rights crisis in the world today, and therefore the best use of limited peacekeeping troops. Even if the answer to that question is yes, which it arguably is, we must also make sure that we do not send a poorly armed, token force that can do nothing to alleviate local suffering. What happened in Rwanda 13 years ago -- when a tiny, isolated contingent led by Canadian Lieu-tenant-General Romeo Dallaire helplessly stood by as Hutu hatemongers began a genocide that killed 800,000 people -- must never be repeated. If the civilized nations of the world have decided that they will intervene militarily in Sudan to prevent mass slaughter, it must be done full force, as in Kosovo and Bosnia during the 1990s -- or not at all. We must not be humanitarian dilettantes.

Unfortunately, the Western approach to Darfur has, till now, been the very model of humanitarian dilettantism. There's been lots of words and meaningless sanctions, but no real action. At their annual gathering last month, in fact, G8 leaders ruled out armed intervention, saying emphatically in their final communique: "we underline that there is no military solution to the conflict in Darfur." Similarly, for at least the past two years, China has used the threat of its veto at the Security Council to thwart any nation that dared suggest a peacekeeping force. China needs Sudan's oil, so it has been more than willing to overlook a few hundred thousand dead bodies. Nor were nations willing to offend the African Union, which in the past has been opposed to non-African soldiers patrolling Darfur.

Even now, with Tuesday's UN resolution having been passed, lots could still go wrong. The peacekeepers could sit idly by while genocide continues, as they did in Rwanda. Or they might end up supervising a protracted (but violent) stalemate, such as in Iraq. Such an outcome would only discredit the very notion of humanitarian intervention, while doing nothing to pacify the region.

Darfur has seen horrors on an epic scale, and it would be a great blessing if we could bring those horrors to an end. Having embarked on this UN-sponsored peacekeeping project, Western nations must ensure it is done right. Darfur cannot be permitted to become another Rwanda.

Credit: National Post