This is not a sophisticated geopolitical analysis, but in the four years I have been campaigning against the genocide in Darfur, I have realised that the rules of the schoolyard apply to international relations. Unless nations come together to call the bullies’ bluff, the thugs will continue to divide and rule, to terrorize, and to make the rest of us look like irresolute fools.
In Darfur, the ‘international community’ allows the Sudanese junta to run rings around it. Time and again the West’s diplomats refuse to acknowledge the true nature of the Khartoum regime, patronisingly assuming we can ‘manage’ them.
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