Khartoum adamantly refuses urgently required UN forces in Darfur
Khartoum Adamantly Refuses Urgently Required UN Forces in Darfur; At the same time, the National Islamic Front regime also misses key deadlines in the “Darfur Peace Agreement”
By Eric Reeves
June 24, 2006 — For those vaguely hopeful that genocidal destruction in Darfur might
somehow be halted by a UN peace support operation, or that there would
be good faith observance of the terms of the Abuja (Nigeria) “Darfur
Peace Agreement,” this has been a very bad week. Blaming a conspiracy
of Jewish groups for the large chorus now calling for humanitarian
intervention in Darfur, President Omar al-Bashir felt particularly
unconstrained in expressing his views about a UN peace support operation
in the increasingly violent region:
“Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has escalated his rejection of the UN
deploying peacekeepers in Darfur, saying they would be neo-colonialists
and accusing Jewish organizations of pushing for their deployment.” [ ]
Speaking of a UN deployment, al-Bashir declared:
“‘This shall never take place,’ al-Bashir told reporters at a press
conference with South African President Thabo Mbeki Tuesday. ‘These are
colonial forces and we will not accept colonial forces coming into the
country.’ ‘They want to colonize Africa, starting with the first
sub-Saharan country to gain its independence. If they want to start
colonization in Africa, let them chose a different place.'” (Associated
Press [dateline: Khartoum], June 21, 2006)
“‘We do not reject the United Nations, but in no way will we accept UN
troops because…these troops have an imperial and colonial agenda.
Changing this mission to the United Nations will never happen, never
ever happen,” [al-Bashir] said.” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], June 20,
2006)
There was also explicit comment from Foreign Minister Lam Akol on UN
deployment under Chapter 7 authority of the UN Charter (such authority
is essential, and all that could provide a UN peace support operation
with the necessary resources and mandate). In an interview with
London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat (June 17, 2006) Khartoum’s foreign
minister declared:
“[Akol]: The Sudanese government has categorically rejected a role by
the UN under Chapter 7. But it is possible for the UN to play a role in
supervising the implementation of the peace agreement after holding
negotiations with us.”
“[Question]: Will rejection of the UN troops under Chapter 7 be valid
tomorrow as it was valid yesterday?”
“[Akol]: This is completely rejected and out of the question after
signing the peace agreement (on Darfur).”
As the International Crisis Group reports in an important new study of
the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), there is a significant and revealing
context for Khartoum’s adamant rejection of a UN force and any
consideration of a UN Chapter 7 mandate:
“A meeting in Brussels on 8 March [2006] achieved a breakthrough
between the AU, Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha, and key
international partners of the AU, including the European Union, US and
UN. Taha committed Khartoum to consider the handover of the AU
peacekeeping mission in Darfur to the UN if a peace agreement was
reached in Abuja and indicated the UN could begin to plan for such a
mission.” (International Crisis Group “Darfur’s Fragile Peace Agreement,”
June 20, 2006, at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=4179)
Of course despite Taha’s promise Khartoum continued to refuse entry to
a UN peacekeeping assessment mission for months, and only a May 16 UN
Security Council resolution, passed under Chapter 7 authority, succeeded
in gaining access for the UN mission. Significantly, the one-week
deadline set by the resolution was (deliberately) not met by Khartoum,
which has taken considerable comfort in the words of the Chinese deputy
UN Ambassador, who declared on the occasion of the vote for Chapter 7
authority that, “[this vote] should not be construed as a precedent for
the Security Council’s future discussion or adoption of a new resolution
against [sic] Sudan.” China may have permitted Chapter 7 to be invoked
on this occasion; but when it comes to deploying actual troops to
Darfur, Chapter 7 authority will not be an option. Russia has indicated
a similar unwillingness to consider Chapter 7 authority for a UN peace
support mission in Darfur:
“Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Konstantin Dolgov, told reporters there
was strong Sudanese opposition to putting a peacekeeping force in Darfur
under Chapter 7, ‘and we have to respect this position, because we have
to have consent and agreement of the government.'” (Associated Press
[dateline: Khartoum], June 6, 2006)
In short, having pocketed the Darfur Peace Agreement, and the
international praise that came for signing this deeply flawed agreement,
Khartoum now gives no sign of seriously considering an appropriate UN
force or mandate, and every sign of confidence that with Russian,
Chinese, and Arab diplomatic support, it will be able to ignore
indefinitely the UN’s self-abasing pleas. UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan has promised to talk again with al-Bashir at next week’s African
Union summit in Banjul, Gambia (July 1-2). But this new importuning has
as its conspicuous context repeated UN and AU declarations that any
mission to Darfur will be only with Khartoum’s consent:
“The UK’s UN ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, who is leading the UN
mission [to Sudan], said the council underlined to president [Omar
al-Bashir] that a UN takeover of peacekeeping in Darfur ‘could only
happen with the consent of the government.'” (Associated Press
[dateline: Khartoum], June 6, 2006)
“Jan Pronk, the top UN envoy in Sudan, said in a statement Wednesday
that [head of UN peacekeeping Jean-Marie] Guehenno and the Security
Council delegation had stressed that ‘the UN will not intervene in the
country,’ nor will it deploy troops, without the consent of the Sudanese
government.” (Associated Press [dateline: Khartoum], June 21, 2006)
“[Jean-Marie Guehenno] also insisted that UN peacekeepers would ‘only
go to Darfur in full cooperation from the Sudanese government.'”
(Associated Press [dateline: Khartoum], June 22, 2006)
“So long as the government of Sudan is not prepared to accept a
peacekeeping operation in Sudan, there is no peacekeeping operation in
Sudan—just as simple as that,’ [Guehenno] said.” (UN transcript of
press conference by the AU and UN Technical Assessment Mission to Darfur
[Khartoum], June 22, 2006)
“The AU’s top diplomat, Alpha Oumar Konare, visited Darfur on Tuesday
and said nothing could be done without the consent of the Sudanese
government. ‘Nobody can impose anything on Sudan,’ he told reporters in
El Fasher.” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], June 20, 2006)
Convinced by these repeated professions that it may reject any UN
deployment that has a real ability to halt the violence in Darfur—or
to undertake the various critical tasks of civilian and humanitarian
protection, or to arrest war criminals and genocidaires on behalf of the
International Criminal Court—Khartoum has the luxury of contemplating
a range of responses, presciently outlined in the recent International
Crisis Group (ICG) report:
“Over the longer term, Khartoum’s delaying tactics seem intended to
achieve one of three possible outcomes, all of which would be disastrous
for the people of Darfur:
“[1] Prevent a transition from [the AU mission] to a UN mission.
Khartoum is aware that this is probably not realistic, given the
international environment, but continues to hedge, presumably to extract
concessions on the mandate, composition and operations of the eventual
UN force.
“[2] Limit a UN mission to a Chapter VI mandate, which would severely
compromise its capacity to protect civilians and probably render
compliance with the DPA entirely voluntary, while denying the force
meaningful capacity to prevent or respond to ceasefire violations. Given
the likely persistence of violence in Darfur for the foreseeable future,
it would also expose peacekeepers to higher risk.
“[3] Postpone deployment long enough for the DPA to unravel or become
unenforceable. Khartoum enjoys military superiority and has divided the
rebels during the negotiations. It may seek to buy time and relative
freedom of action to alter the situation on the ground significantly
before UN deployment.” (page 16)
THE DARFUR PEACE AGREEMENT ALREADY COMPROMISED
Al-Bashir’s vicious bombast of this past week did much to obscure what
is perhaps the more significant news: the Khartoum regime has missed the
first key deadline stipulated in the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA),
signed in Abuja on May 5, 2006 (with additional days added to the
“starting time” as the AU futilely sought to make the agreement more
inclusive of the Darfuri rebel movements). Thus by June 22, 2006
Khartoum’s National Islamic Front regime was obliged to,
“present to the Ceasefire Commission a comprehensive plan for
neutralising and disarming the Janjaweed/armed militia specifying
actions to be taken during all phases of the Ceasefire. This plan shall
be presented before the beginning of Phase 1 (i.e., within 37 days of
the signing of this Agreement [i.e., June 22, 2006]) and implemented
within the timeframes specified in this Agreement.” (Paragraph 314,
Darfur Peace Agreement)
“This plan shall include milestones to be achieved by the Government of
Sudan and certified by the AU Mission in Sudan in accordance with the
timelines in this Agreement. These milestones shall include, but not be
limited to, the following:
“[a] The Government of Sudan shall restrict all Janjaweed/armed
militia and [the paramilitary] Popular Defense Forces to their
headquarters, garrisons, cantonment sites or communities and take other
steps to contain, reduce and ultimately eliminate the threat posed by
such forces.
“[b] The Government of Sudan shall completely disarm the above forces
of heavy weapons.
“[c] Consistent with Article 30, paragraph 457, the Government of
Sudan shall ensure that no Janjaweed/armed militia pose a threat to the
Movements’ assembly and disarmament.” (Paragraph 315, DPA)
Not only has this “comprehensive plan” not been presented by Khartoum,
two days after the deadline—and almost two years after the UN Security
Council first “demanded” that Khartoum disarm the Janjaweed—but there
is no sign that such a detailed “plan” will be forthcoming. And if a
“plan” is eventually presented, there is simply no reason to believe
that it will govern Khartoum’s actions any more than an explicitly
stipulated deadline of the DPA has. In its predictable fashion,
Khartoum is testing the international waters to see what the response
will be to missing the first significant deadline in the peace
agreement. Given the resounding silence from the UN, the EU, and the
US, the regime will draw the only conclusion possible: the DPA is a
document that needn’t be taken seriously, and it changes military
realities in Darfur only on paper.
Other DPA deadlines have slipped as well, further reflecting a lack of
AU administrative capacity and Khartoum’s notorious ability to stall and
forestall meaningful international action. June 22, 2006 was also to
have marked the date for demilitarized zones to have been set up around
camps for more than 2 million acutely vulnerable internally displaced
persons; this is nowhere close to being achieved. The UN’s Integrated
Regional Information Networks provides a useful overview of the rapid
collapse of the Darfur Peace Agreement:
“‘There is nothing, there is no progress on the implementation of the
DPA,’ Hafiz Mohamed, Sudan programme director for the London-based
advocacy group Justice Africa, said. ‘That is a great worry—a lot
needs to be done.'”
“A Transitional Darfur Regional Authority was to be launched and a
rebel leader was to be nominated as Senior Assistant to the President on
16 May [2006] and a complete ceasefire was set to begin on 19 May
[2006]—but both deadlines passed without action. A 15 June [2006]
deadline for the setting up of a Darfur Reconstruction and Development
Fund and a Preparatory Committee for the Darfur Dialogue and
Consultation was missed as well.
“‘For there to be peace, the deadlines set by the Darfur Peace
Agreement must be followed,’ said Maureen Byrnes, Executive Director of
Human Rights First. ‘It is now more than a month since the agreement was
signed and there has been no announcement of any action on any of the
key provisions. Despite a signed peace agreement, the people of Darfur
still live in a violent limbo, and their confidence in the process
continues to fall.’
“According to the DPA, the Sudanese government was also supposed to
present a comprehensive plan for disarming the Janjawid militia on
Thursday and the AU mission was expected to produce a final map
indicating areas of control, buffer zones, demilitarised zones, and
redeployment zones—but the plans for these key security arrangements
have not been put forward so far. ‘In the month since the peace
agreement was signed, the people of Darfur have not seen a cessation of
violence. Instead, in some parts of Darfur there’s actually been a major
escalation of the violence,’ Byrnes noted.” (June 23, 2006)
Reuters notes that, “Implementation of the deal has already fallen
behind schedule as a Darfuri presidential adviser has not been appointed
and the transitional regional authority has yet to be formed”
([dateline: Khartoum], June 18, 2006).
Moreover, even were there signs of commitment to the agreement on the
part of Khartoum—and there are none—the opportunities for reneging
are all too many. As ICG observes, any “plan for neutralizing and
disarming the Janjaweed/armed militia” is all too easily circumvented,
including by means that Khartoum’s genocidaires have already begun to
utilize:
“[The term] ‘Janjaweed’ remains poorly defined. The government has
already hidden considerable numbers by admitting them into the formal
security services, like the Popular Defence Forces, the Border
Intelligence Units, and the Central Reserve Police (the riot police).
One observer estimates that nearly half the Janjaweed have already been
disguised this way. Although the DPA requires downsizing of these
forces, with the exception of the riot police, to their pre-conflict
level, it leaves responsibility solely to the government, with no
provisions for monitoring compliance.”
“Concerns about the potential for the Janjaweed to act as spoilers were
validated almost immediately. On 8 May [2006], Janjaweed militia
reportedly attacked villages near Buram, in South Darfur. On 15 May
[2006], Janjaweed killed eleven civilians in attacks against villages
around Kutum, North Darfur. The following day, they burned villages
around Donkey Dereisa, south of Nyala in South Darfur. On 17 May [2006],
Janjaweed fired at an AU patrol. The UN and the AU said on 21 May [2006]
that at least 60 people were killed the previous week in attacks for
which the Janjaweed were primarily responsible. The SLA/Minni Minawi
faction accused the government of breaching the peace agreement,
claiming that Janjaweed and government forces jointly attacked its
positions at Dar es-Salaam in North Darfur on 21 May [2006].” (page 5)
Julie Flint, an extraordinarily well-informed source on Darfur and
co-author of “Darfur: A Short History of a Long War,” noted recently:
“The government’s behavior in the 40 days since it signed the agreement
has been equally deplorable. On June 10, [2006] as the United Nations
Security Council met in Fasher, government forces and Janjaweed attacked
Galol in central Darfur. One of the founders of the SLA, a man who
supports peace, e-mailed me that day: ‘Thirty civilians have been killed
and many injured while the UN ambassadors are in Fasher. The government
does not respect or care about the international community.'” (Daily
Star [Lebanon], June 20, 2006)
It is not simply that Khartoum does not “respect or care about the
international community”: the regime has nothing but contempt for the UN
and other international actors. A brutally destructive attack on
civilians the very day the UN Security Council was meeting in el-Fasher
(capital of North Darfur) is entirely in character. As ICG notes in its
report, despite Khartoum’s signing of the DPA the regime continues to
flout its terms and previous international commitments:
“The Janjaweed and other government-supported militias remain the most
pressing threat to security in Darfur, and civilians will not begin to
feel safe until they are dealt with. The government has agreed in
writing to identify, neutralise and disarm its proxy militias on five
previous occasions and has been ordered to disarm them in multiple UN
Security Council resolutions since July 2004. However, it continues to
arm and recruit militias and support their operations even in the weeks
since signing the DPA. Likewise, the government’s support for the
attempted coup in Chad on 13 April 2006 and its continued backing of
Chadian rebels are clear indications that it still regards a military
solution to the conflict as a viable option. ‘Why should we be impressed
that the National Congress Party [i.e., the National Islamic Front] has
just committed to disarm the Janjaweed for the sixth time?’, an observer
asked Crisis Group. ‘Is there a new reason to believe they’ll implement
it this time?'” (page 4)
Of course there is no reason to believe that Khartoum will respect its
obligations, nor any reason to doubt ICG’s judgment that Khartoum “still
regards a military solution to the [Darfur] conflict a viable option.”
Indeed, even the head of UN peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno, noted
following his recent assessment mission to Darfur that the risk “of a
new cycle of violence, especially after the rainy season, is quite real”
(transcript of June 22, 2006 interview, Khartoum). The International
Rescue Committee, with an active humanitarian presence on the ground in
Darfur, also notes that “there are signs that both the Government of
Sudan and the rebels are re-arming and re-stocking weapons and
ammunition” (“Darfur, Sudan,” June 2006, page 1).
Even in the face of ongoing and threatened violence, the only force on
the ground remains the woefully inadequate AU mission. The AU’s already
well-chronicled weaknesses have been further highlighted in the wake of
the DPA. A dispatch from North Darfur by the Financial Times (UK)
offers some telling details:
“It started as a typical market day for refugees in a camp in north
Darfur. Adults busy trading, children playing in the sandy terrain. But
it was a day that was to turn into tragedy. A group of boys was playing
football on the camp’s fringes when eight Arab militiamen, known as
Janjaweed, rode by on camels and horses. Two of them stopped and began
shooting, killing a four-year-old and a 10-year-old. Sudanese police and
unarmed AU police were stationed at the camp, but took no action, the
camp’s residents say. Instead, the incident last year came to symbolise
what they see as the AU’s impotence.” (June 22, 2006)
The same dispatch notes:
“Western military personnel attached to the AU say poor leadership has
exacerbated the pan-African body’s problems, adding that the mission’s
impact could have been greater. They say that while there are some good
commanders on the ground, the operation has lacked a sound overall
command structure and suffered from incompetence.”
Certainly the people of Darfur, particularly those in camps for
displaced persons, have long since lost patience with AU impotence and
lack of capacity. Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of UN peacekeeping, has
made it clear that his assessment mission found strong support for a
robust international force to replace the AU. This is even more true
for the many hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than 1 million
conflict-affected persons in Darfur and eastern Chad, who have no access
to humanitarian aid, or only extremely tenuous access.
It has not been sufficiently remarked of the Darfur Peace Agreement
that it actually stipulates a new civilian protection role for the AU
force; in responding to violence by recalcitrant parties, the AU may
resort to a number of “strategies”:
“In addition to the non-military means described above, these
strategies [for dealing with armed groups and militia] shall include
interdicting supplies of arms and ammunition; the creation of additional
buffer zones; concentrated deployment of AU personnel; strengthening the
capabilities of the AU mission; forcible disarmament; and robust
protection by the AU mission of civilians, humanitarian organizations,
and humanitarian supply routes.” (DPA, Paragraph 337)
But this new mandate, superseding the extremely narrow mandate of the
AU as a purely monitoring mission, is conspicuous mainly by virtue of
its being unexercised. There is no evidence whatsoever that the newly
empowered AU mission has any capacity to undertake these tasks, in
particular the “robust protection of civilians and humanitarian
organizations.” Nor is there any evidence that the AU has the
administrative capacity or communications and transport abilities to
fulfill the plethora of organizational tasks stipulated in the DPA.
Again, ICG offers all too telling an overview of the fundamental
limitations to the AU mission:
“The DPA’s greatest failing is its lack of modalities and
implementation guarantees for disarmament of the Janjaweed militias and
the voluntary and safe return of refugees and internally displaced
persons to their villages. Its comprehensive ceasefire and security
arrangements require the parties to disarm themselves, a task usually
left for peacekeepers, while authorising the AU mission to verify and
monitor the processes of their redeployment, assembly and disarmament.
This requires robust monitoring but the African Union mission has too
few troops, with too little mobility and firepower and inadequate
intelligence capabilities, to do it properly. Members of the AU
mediation team and AU mission officials in Abuja admitted openly that
the AU mission as currently constituted cannot fulfill these tasks.”
(page 4)
ICG notes additionally that the AU, despite the urgent need to
strengthen its mission in Darfur, is politically still undecided on a UN
handover, even as it lacks the capacity to move swiftly in deploying
desperately needed additional battalions of troops:
“Without immediate support, the AU mission will fail even to begin its
multiple DPA tasks and thus indirectly endanger the peace agreement. To
meet the challenge, AU mission has indicated that it needs five
additional battalions within two months. The AU’s international partners
have agreed to provide strategic transport, train AU commanders to take
charge of the increased capabilities and troops, and certify elements
for absorption into a UN peacekeeping operation.”
“Alarmingly, some experts have now begun to argue that the inability to
agree quickly on implementation concepts may mean that the first of the
five battalions cannot be deployed before October and the final one
until February or March 2007.” (pages 15-16)
This time-frame is unconscionably dilatory in light of current
insecurity, which puts hundreds of thousands of civilians acutely at
risk of violent attack and endangers the humanitarian operations on
which almost 4 million conflict-affected persons grow increasingly
dependent in Darfur and eastern Chad.
The UN for its part is hardly a beacon of hope, given political
realities in the Security Council. ICG offers a painfully insightful
overview of these realities and the stalemate they are all too likely to
produce:
“[The UN Security Council] remains divided: China and Russia, as well
as some non-permanent members, have already echoed Khartoum’s objections
to a Chapter VII mission and repeatedly blocked strong pressure, such as
targeted sanctions against senior Khartoum or rebel officials, despite
the prolonged crisis and the evidence of non-compliance with Council
demands. The difficulties are likely to become more acute when the
mandate and the objectives of the UN mission are considered. The brittle
DPA has such an array of possible spoilers that anything less than a
large, full-fledged Chapter VII mission instructed to protect civilians
and help implement the peace agreement would multiply the risk of
failure of both the UN operation in Darfur and the peace process as a
whole. Sudan’s government can be expected to seek to exploit divisions
within the AU and the wider international community, as well as between
the two, to delay, weaken, and perhaps even derail the UN mission.”
(page 15)
Delay now equals death in Darfur, and yet the formula for delay is ever
more rigidly in place: UN and international actors assure Khartoum that
there will be no effective peacemaking mission in Darfur without the
regime’s consent, even as the regime insists ever more adamantly that it
has no intention of giving this consent. The AU is fundamentally
without the resources to enforce the terms of the DPA or demand that the
parties meet the deadlines stipulated in the agreement—and is
certainly unable to take on additional responsibilities of civilian and
humanitarian protection. Nor can the AU absorb effectively or in timely
fashion the significant resources that are required for this exceedingly
difficult mission.
Darfur’s increasing violence recently led Jan Egeland, head of UN aid
operations, to say that humanitarian organizations were on the very
brink of withdrawal:
“‘When we feel that we are gambling with the lives of our humanitarian
workers, we will leave,’ Egeland [said]. ‘I hope it will be never but it
could be next week.'” (Reuters [dateline: Paris], May 31, 2006)
This comes in the wake of his earlier declaration to the Security
Council following his assessment mission to the region:
“‘I think it’s a matter of weeks or months that we will have a collapse
in many of our operations.’ ‘As I told the Security Council today, I
don’t think the world has understood how bad it has become of late.'”
(UN IRIN, April 21, 2006)
Certainly there has been no meaningful improvement in international
response in the ensuing two months—and the collapse of aid operations
looms ever closer even as the rainy season settles more fully upon
Darfur and eastern Chad, as does the acute risk of a massive cholera
epidemic.
ECLIPSE
Darfur seems destined to garner less and less news attention, even as
it enters its season of greatest human destruction to date. As many
500,000 have already died in the course of three and a half years of
devastating conflict and murder, disease and malnutrition (see my April
30, 2006 mortality assessment at
http://www.sudanreeves.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=102).
But additional hundreds of thousands of human beings may die in the
coming months. These deaths will have, however, a grim sameness to
them. Moreover, we may be sure that the UN Security Council will not
again visit Khartoum, and that the sheer monotony of human suffering and
destruction will command less and less attention. Genocide by attrition
is the opposite of the “telegenic” or the “news-defining.” We may also
be sure that as circumstances permit, Khartoum will gradually restrict
news access, even as humanitarians are less and less able to bear
witness to human destruction in Darfur.
To be sure, there may be less of the ethnically-targeted mass murder
recently reported by International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis
Moreno-Ocampo:
“The Office has so far documented (from public and non-public sources)
thousands of alleged direct killings of civilians by parties to the
conflict. The available information indicates that these killings
include a significant number of large-scale massacres, with hundreds of
victims in each incident. The Office has selected several of these
incidents for further investigation and analysis. A large number of
victims and witnesses interviewed by the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP)
have reported that men perceived to be from the Fur, Massalit and
Zaghawa groups were deliberately targeted. In most of the incidents
where the OTP has collected evidence there are eye-witness accounts that
the perpetrators made statements reinforcing the targeted nature of the
attacks, such as ‘we will kill all the black’ and ‘we will drive you out
of this land.'” (“Third Report of the Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Court to the Security Council,” June 14, 2006, page 2)
“A significant number of large-scale massacres, with hundreds of
victims in each incident”; the targeting of civilians from the non-Arab
or African Fur, Massalit, and Zaghawa tribes; racial insults and
epithets hurled during murderous attacks: those resorting still to the
euphemizing phrase “ethnic cleansing” must claim here that this does not
provide evidence of “genocidal intent.”
For its part, the UN Commission of Inquiry report on Darfur, which
expressed doubt as to whether there was sufficient evidence of
“genocidal intent,” may wish to reconsider its finding in light of
what the International Criminal Court has discovered, even as the ICC
has had no access to Darfur and the UN Commission of Inquiry did. But
then the UN Commission of Inquiry had no wish to embarrass the UN
Secretariat with a genocide finding, knowing full well that the Security
Council would be stymied by Chinese and Russian blocking actions, even
were there an unambiguous finding of genocide (see my two-part analysis
of the UN Commission of Inquiry report, February 2005, at
http://www.sudanreeves.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=489&page=1
and
http://www.sudanreeves.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=488&page=1).
If we have any doubt that there is an unwillingness, in many quarters,
to confront genocide honestly, we haven’t far to look. For though
President Bush makes frequent reference to genocide in Darfur in his
speeches, we gain some sense of how attenuated the ultimate human evil
is in Bush’s eyes when he speaks of his motivation in using the term
“genocide”:
“I declared Darfur to be genocide because I care deeply about those who
have been afflicted by these renegade bands of people who are raping and
murdering” (Associated Press, June 21, 2006)
“Renegade bands” of rapists and murders? This is a disgracefully long
way from the clarity and authority with which former Secretary of State
Colin Powell spoke to the US Senate in September 2004: “genocide has
been committed in Darfur, and that the government of Sudan and the
Janjawid bear responsibility.” The Janjaweed are not simply “renegades”
in Darfur; as Human Rights Watch has compelling demonstrated, along with
many other organizations, the Janjaweed are an organized extension of
the Khartoum regime’s genocidal counterinsurgency policy in Darfur (see
especially “Entrenching Impunity: Government Responsibility for
International Crimes in Darfur,” Human Rights Watch, December 2005).
By diminishing the nature of the monstrous crimes in Darfur, even as he
curries domestic political favor by using the word “genocide” when so
many governments still profess diffidence, Bush gives us the perfect
portrait of a vast human catastrophe being managed rather than directly
addressed. But he has much company—more than enough to sustain
Khartoum’s unchanged genocidal ambitions.
Eric Reeves
– Smith College
– Northampton, MA 01063
– Email:[email protected]
– Website: www.sudanreeves.org