Topic: Containing and De-Escalating Sectarian Conflict
Country: Sudan
Delegate Name: Joshua Lohrke
School: Forest Hills Central High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Sudan position papers GLIMUN 2015 committees
Sectarian conflict is an issue that has received a lot of attention over the past few decades. With the war in Syria, the spread of ISIS, and the attempted building of a Kurdish state, these issues have grown into prominence as many accusations are tossed around about unethical tactics of war and other such alleged atrocities. The UN has established a habit of intervening in these conflicts, halting their continuation while failing to resolve any issue being fought over. Peacekeeping forces of many thousand are often pressured into the countries in question to keep groups from fight each other, but often these forces are intrusive and fail at both maintaining order and easing the concerns from either side committed to these conflicts
Like most sensible governments, Sudan believes in national sovereignty and the ability of its own forces to deal with threats to national stability and the general populace. The UN disrespects both our national independence and the right for us to protect our citizens from domestic threats such as the terrorists in the Darfur region (the groups SLM and JEM), who have ,for the past 12 years, been raping and killing innocent civilians in the region to gain political power and destabilize the Sudanese government. The UN peacekeeping force currently attempting to mediate the conflict has done nothing to ease tensions and has only managed to slow our progress of the destruction of these hostile terrorist groups. These “peacekeeping” actions are simply a power play by those countries who have offered troops to the cause, as the existence of rebel groups there threatens the stability of Sudan and wrongly tests the power of our president, who members of the coalition have obvious agendas against. There are other places with conflicts like those in Darfur, but because some countries see only political gain from interfering, they would pressure us into releasing our national sovereignty and open our state to outsiders, while not doing the same to the others, where there would be no gain or the gain to be made would be “too risky.”
Sudan suggests that the UN stop deciding to interfere with internal conflicts inside of third world countries, especially when such conflicts are against what the governing powers consider terrorist organizations with corrupt agendas. Sudan would also like to see the decline and eventual removal of UN peacekeeping forces in the Darfur region of Sudan to allow the war on internal terrorism to continue. Internal conflict is part of the sovereignty of a nation and its right to decide how to deal with hostile belligerents within its own borders should not be hindered by a biased, western, UN ruling class.
