Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly members on both sides of the House are in screaming agreement with the sentiments expressed in the motion on Darfur. As others have recognised, the honourable member for Cook has raised this issue on many occasions.

The latest statements from the World Food Program, the UN authority dealing with the food crisis, are certainly alarming. Three million people in Darfur and three million others in south and east Sudan are currently having their rations reduced by half. James Morris, the executive director, described this order as ‘one of the hardest decisions’ of his life. It is a season in the year when rains would normally hit, but obviously no food is growing and crops are not available.

Many members have criticised the government of President OmarHasan Ahmad al-Bashir. Even recently it tried to delay an assessment team from entering the region; it refused to respond to their requests. I represent an electorate with a historically very high Sudanese population. I have attended functions celebrating the overall national peace treaty as opposed to what is happening in the Darfur region. I have been very involved with members of my community who were very pleased that the forces of John Garang were able to come to an accommodation.

However, I was impressed by an article very recently in the Guardian Weekly by Jonathan Steele which said that, whilst we have all been very critical—including me—of the actions of the Janjaweed, a militia which has close connections with the Sudanese regime in essentially destroying villages, poisoning wells, raping, taking cattle et cetera, the situation has become somewhat more complex in the last year or so. Even Jack Straw, the former UK foreign minister, urged the rebel forces in Darfur to be more accommodating and reasonable in negotiations. It is interesting to note that, when the Security Council last put international travel bans on four people, two of them, I think for the first occasion, came from rebel forces. In his article, Jonathan Steele made the point:

One-sided international media treatment of the crisis may have emboldened the rebels to increase their demands. In many forgotten conflicts, the TV and commentary spotlights help to sound the alarm and bring pressure for action. In the Darfur case, they could be having a pernicious effect and be delaying the chance of ending the killing.

So, whilst historically there is no doubt about the guilt of the central authorities in Khartoum and their proxy militias, we have to be aware that, in some senses, in recent months there have been some indications of atrocities committed by the rebel forces. We have to try to ensure that there is a balance and a continuing pressure for negotiations. The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said on 16 February in Abuja during negotiations that ‘an end to the haggling and posturing and a start to real action’ was necessary.

There are, of course, a number of issues here. There is the need to expedite the supply of food. The logistics sometimes require many months and transportation costs are incredible. At the moment, it would seem that the Western world has not been supportive enough. Because of a very strong pro-Darfur lobby in the United States, the US has been more proactive in providing foreign aid than they usually are, and that should be recognised. However, whilst we sit here and talk about the food crisis, I think we have to be also mindful of the need for the Western world to act with regard to armaments.

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