KEY POINTS:
I once went for dinner at the British embassy in Khartoum. The walls were hung with oil paintings, the gin was iced and the velvety interior suggested a Belgravia drawing room. Not far away, women held bone-thin babies who would die soon. The then ambassador to Sudan knew
little of such scenes. He did not seem to get out much. No doubt communications have improved.
No one need to move far now to witness desolation. Hollywood loves Africa and almost every multiplex is showing one or more lament on civil war. Blood Diamond and The Last King of Scotland, the two latest examples, have gathered Oscar nominations and plaudits for their assault on Western consciences. Both also carry an unmeant subtext of exploitation.
Like The Constant Gardener, they depict an Africa whose job it is to kill, to suffer and to supply a backdrop for a white man's odyssey. The Last King, the better film, offers the tale of a Scottish doctor caught up with Idi Amin. Blood Diamond, set in Sierra Leone, is the vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio and enough military hardware to provoke envy in any ordnance-starved general in today's Afghanistan.
Still, there is much to be said for the popcorn branch of foreign policy. Blood Diamond has sent a shiver through a gem industry that has reportedly offered Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Lopez US$10,000 each for charity to flaunt sparkling rings and repel any public-relations disaster.
Although Sierra Leone, like most exporters, has cleaned up its trade, conflict diamonds worth $23 million recently reached international markets from the Ivory Coast. Consumers will ask more questions and Global Witness, the charity that publicises the link between natural resources and war, is justly proud. Maybe now someone will make a film about blood oil, blood timber or blood tin.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair must have wished, as he spoke in Davos last week, that he had a film star's power. Like Hollywood, Blair is in love with Africa. At the World Economic Forum, he reported progress since Gleneagles and placed the continent at the top of his agenda. On Darfur, there was no good news. It was, Blair said, "a scandal, not a problem".
An estimated 400,000 have died there and thousands more face genocide.
Aid agencies are on the brink of leaving after the murder and rape of staff by the government-backed Janjaweed militia and rebel groups. Moves to get UN peacekeepers in to help an impotent African Union contingent have been frustrated by President Bashir, who has reportedly bombed villages in the last few days. The response is international silence. No one is queuing to make a film about Darfur.
Sudan's vile leader does not take kindly to scrutiny. A genial host to Osama bin Laden, Bashir has been less receptive to the pleas of the world.
Blair was uncertain, on the eve of his Davos speech, about how tough to sound. Is this the moment for the West to tell Bashir that he must make good his promises or face the consequences? Blair's eventual call for better peacekeeping institutions will do little for those whose lives are measured in days or hours.
Bashir's claims to the presidency of the African Union, deferred last year because of the war, have been defeated again. Archbishop Desmond Tutu had pleaded with Africa to block his wish. "Stand up to tyranny and stand by the people of Darfur," he said, urging "tough and effective sanctions".
This is where Hollywood comes back in. In September last year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law forbidding state investment, including California's huge public pension funds, in firms dealing with Sudan. By his side were actors George Clooney and Don Cheadle, the star of Hotel Rwanda, whose enthusiasm for disinvestment spread to the campuses and boardrooms of America.
Last week, German technologies group Siemens pulled out of Sudan, citing moral grounds. The British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee recently urged British businesses to do likewise and Sudan Divestment UK is targeting firms such as Rolls-Royce.
When Hollywood and industry have such sway, world leaders should cringe at their own lack of progress in Darfur. Despite the oratory, and the advocacy of charities such as Oxfam, the blood still flows, the bombs still fall and the West looks the other way. Crisis Action reports from Berlin that Bashir is barely on Angela Merkel's radar.
Meanwhile, Darfur lacks everything, including time. Lawrence Rossin, a former US ambassador and head of the Save Darfur Coalition, warned last week that more genocide looks imminent, and there "are still plenty of people left to kill". As Rossin told a London seminar, the luxury of "slow-rolling" is past.
The situation demands a no-fly zone and an arms embargo.
Sanctions are vital to a political solution and getting more peacekeepers on the ground. But when politicians prevaricate, and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has hit the ground dithering, there is also a case for pressuring big business. In an age when the ethical consumer goes to the barricades over shrink-wrapped turnips, it is worth asking more questions about how company money, and ours, is invested in Sudan.
A region is close to annihilation at the hands of violence and inertia, the twin agents of genocide. The women and children I saw dying were the unlucky ones. In Darfur, there may soon be no lucky people left. If nothing is done, then in 10 years' time, a film crew might resurrect its ghost villages and deserted farms.
And people of good conscience and short memory will buy their tickets and vow to change the world as they weep over what need not have been.
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