A new secretary-general, a new day on Darfur

A new secretary-general, a new day on Darfur

Ban Ki-moon has no more important mission at the U.N. than stopping the slaughter in western Sudan
"The suffering of the people of Darfur is simply unacceptable."
Those were South Korea's Ban Ki-moon's words Thursday in his first news conference after being sworn in to succeed Kofi Annan as the United Nations' secretary-general come January. They're not particularly exceptional words or meaningful words -- the world generally says the suffering is unacceptable yet continues to accept the suffering there -- but they're still important and hopeful words.
Why? Well, we'd like to believe that Ban will move heaven and earth and the hell unfolding in Darfur to end the U.N.'s acceptance of what the United Nations itself says is the world's worst humanitarian disaster, and the United States says is genocide. We also find it difficult to believe he could do worse than Annan has done since the killing and dislocation began in 2003.
Ban has a staggering to-do list at the U.N. He says he's a man on a mission and that mission could be dubbed "Operation Restore Trust" -- "trust in the organization and trust between member-states and the secretariat." That will take some doing after all the malfeasance and misfeasance in the $64 billion oil-for-food program for Iraq and U.N. procurement programs. Yet, important as they are, Ban's housekeeping chores pale next to the task of actually making the "unacceptable" actually unacceptable.
Darfur is a scandal of a different order -- an epic and moral scandal not only in terms of what's happening there, but also what hasn't happened in terms of the U.N. and the world's response to the death and dislocation in Darfur. The U.N. itself estimates that some 200,000 people have died and more than 2 million have been forced to flee their homes.
The incoming U.N. secretary-general said last week he plans to "make himself directly and personally engaged" in the search for a Darfur settlement. Excellent. The more engagement the better. As Ban recognizes, there's "no military solution" to the problem. His burden will be to find some way to overcome the Sudan government's objections to allowing U.N. forces into Darfur, where rebels and government-backed militias are fighting. The troops there now from the African Union are simply not up to the job.
In the end, saving Darfur would probably do more to make Ban Ki-moon's "Operation Restore Trust" a success than any institutional reforms he might put in place at U.N. headquarters. However belatedly, it would show the United Nations can be trusted to end mass genocide and a humanitarian catastrophe.