Tallying Death in Darfur

Darfur is regularly called the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster.” Google returns 13,100 hits for a search of the phrase with “Darfur”; pairing it with "Iraq," a much larger killing field, yields only 544 results.

As a politically useful bloodbath which can be used to demonize Arabs and Muslims, exaggerated fatality estimates in Darfur are generally not subjected to serious scrutiny. In contrast, the most serious mortality estimates for Iraq, in particular the 2006 Lancet study, are disparaged and far lower estimates are regularly circulated in the commercial press.

A recent op-ed in the New York Times by Time Magazine's Africa writer Sam Dealey regarding a ruling of the British Advertising Standards Authority broke the pattern. The case concerned ads placed by the Save Darfur Coalition in Britain and the United States in 2006 claiming that 400,000 innocent people had been killed in Darfur.

The subsequent ruling ordered Save Darfur to alter the ads to present the 400,000 figure as opinion rather than fact and “concluded that there was a division of informed opinion about the accuracy of the figure contained in the ad and it should not have been presented in such a definitive way.”

Death toll estimates as high as 400,000 are often cited (though a much lower figure of 200,000 is most common; there is rarely any attempt to explain the discrepancy). As early as April 2006, Eric Reeves ventured that excess mortality in Darfur “significantly exceeds 450,000.”

As the Times piece points out, there is considerable justification for skepticism of the higher estimates. Reviewing a Government Accounting Office study that convened a panel of experts to review six prominent estimates, Dealey concludes that the current death toll is probably around 200,000, which, as he notes, is “just half of what Save Darfur claimed a year ago in its ad and still claims on its Web site.” A September 2006 article in the prestigious journal Science provided a range of 170,000-255,000 total deaths (including natural causes; counting only deaths attributable to the violence would yield a somewhat lower figure).

Alex de Waal, a respected expert on the region, wrote of the numbers controversy, “there is no certainty in these figures. The reality could be different. But the pattern is both clear and familiar, and the best guess is approximately 200,000 excess deaths, plus or minus.”

The debate is not academic. Dealey points out:

Inaccurate data can also lead to prescriptive blunders. During the worst period of violence, for example, the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster estimated that nearly 70 percent of Darfur’s excess deaths were due not to violence but to disease and malnutrition. This suggests that policy makers should look for ways to bolster and protect relief groups — by continuing to demand that the Sudanese government not hamper the delivery of aid, to be sure, but also by putting vigorous public pressure, so far lacking, on the dozen rebel groups that routinely raid convoys.

As de Waal observes, “In Darfur, the figures have become more politicized than any in recent history.” Inflating the death toll in Darfur does not further the cause of those seeking an end to the crisis but rather brings discredit to the movement. Moreover, it provides further illustration of the ease with which Darfur activists draw favorable attention and support while activists with causes of no utility to establishment interests or, worse, that are opposed to those interests are by turns ignored and ridiculed.

Weekly Commentary - A No-Fly Zone for Darfur

The chattering classes of liberal politics have spoken. From all the front-runner candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, to the Save Darfur Coalition, important political figures and organizations are publicly advocating a "no-fly zone" as a means to alleviate suffering in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Yet before more ink (and money) is spent on urging the U.S. government to implement such a measure, activists must consider the potential consequences of a no-fly zone in Darfur - beyond the feeling it may give us that we are "doing something" - and the distinct possibility that it could make the situation on the ground even worse.

First, it is important to understand what is being called for in regards to a no-fly zone. By declaring one, the responsible party or parties (likely the U.S. and/or France, due to their nearby air bases) are obliging themselves to "shoot down their [Khartoum's] planes" if they enter into the restricted airspace. Aside from the concern that planes being used for humanitarian purposes could be mistakenly targeted in the no-fly zone, as they are "indistinguishable" from the planes used by Khartoum, the actual shooting down of one of Khartoum's planes could lead the Sudanese government to unleash their fury on the AU presence in Darfur, or the supposed AU/UN contingent that may be deployed in the future.

Yet what will a no-fly zone accomplish for Darfurians, to whose plight the West claims such steadfast commitment?

• In the immediate short-term, Sudan could very well respond to the implementation of a no-fly zone by turning Darfur's long-running tragedy into an outright catastrophe. As noted by the International Crisis Group, "Khartoum might respond by escalating its actions on the ground against civilians, not unlike what happened in the initial days of NATO's actions in Kosovo in 1999."


• Though Khartoum does still drop bombs on Darfur, "the vast majority of attacks are executed by forces on the ground." Accordingly, a no-fly zone "would only weaken a very small piece of Khartoum's killing machine."
  


• A no-fly zone may very well pull the plug on Darfur's massive relief operations. As the Sudan specialist Julie Flint argues,
  

  In the last three and a half years, humanitarian aid has stabilized conditions for the more than 4 million people who currently depend on relief. Mortality and malnutrition have fallen, significantly. If a no-fly zone were imposed, Khartoum would not go belly up. It would in all likelihood retaliate by grounding humanitarian flights. Its proxies in the Janjaweed militias would show their displeasure in the only way they know. Relief workers might be expelled or forced to evacuate the region. People who are now being kept alive would die.
  
  The current emphasis on coercive measures conceals the fact that the US and its friends have no clear plan of political action, no sensible project for peace to go hand in hand with pressure on the Khartoum regime.

Moreover, there is a clear double standard involved in the question of funding a no-fly zone vis-à-vis other measures. As the Sudan analyst Eric Reeves notes, enforcing a no-fly zone would be "extremely resource-consumptive." On the other hand, tellingly, the African Union (AU) mission in Darfur has been severely underfunded, its troops enduring months without pay.

Where are the calls from the crème de la crème of the Democratic Party and the Save Darfur Coalition for ramping up funding the AU - with 7000 troops actually on the ground in Darfur - instead of a financially costly no-fly zone that knowledgeable commentators predict would have even costlier effects in terms of human lives?

Indeed, while it may make activists feel better to think that their advocacy for a no-fly zone is "doing something" for Darfur, the most likely outcome of their activism may be a severe deterioration in the conditions on the ground in Darfur.