Aegis- Sudan’s expulsion of AU force form Darfur could lead to genocide
AegisTrust
Media Release
Sudanese expulsion of AU Darfur Mission could lead to genocide on scale of Rwanda 1994
September 2, 2006 — Disturbing reports in the past 48 hours indicate that the Sudanese Government is on the point of expelling the African Union Mission from Darfur.
According to a report yesterday in London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Sudan’s Vice-President, Ali Osman Mohammed Taha, on a visit to Kordofan, stated that Khartoum had asked the AU to withdraw its troops immediately, and told them that their withdrawal should be finished by 30 September.
“Their troops are no longer required”
“We will write to all African countries with troops in Darfur,” he is quoted as saying. “We thank them for their previous work, but at the same time we say that their troops are no longer required in Sudan. This is because they are trying to change into being a UN force. This clearly contradicts their original mandate. Omar Bashir himself has told the AU before that if it agreed to a UN takeover, he would ask its countries to remove their troops immediately. However, we leave the door open for the rebuilding of confidence between Khartoum and the AU if it withdraws its support for UN Resolution 1706.”
Resolution 1706, passed Thursday 31 August, authorised a transferral from the AU mission in Darfur to a UN peacekeeping mission comprising 17,000 troops, on condition of Khartoum’s acceptance. Khartoum immediately rejected the resolution.
Late Saturday, senior AU representatives stated that though they had seen media reports indicating Khartoum was ordering the AU mission to leave Darfur, they had received no official notification from the Government of Sudan.
“Genocide could be on scale of that in Rwanda 1994”
“If the threatened expulsion of AU forces from Darfur is carried out by Sudan, this will put millions of lives in grave and immediate danger. It is the worst possible scenario,” says Dr James Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust. “The AU is there to protect civilians, along with the humanitarian aid provision on which they rely for survival. Ejecting the AU would point towards intent to destroy African civilians, particularly the Fur and the Massaleit, who were not favoured by the Darfur Peace Agreement [DPA]. This would amount to genocide, and could be on the scale of that in Rwanda in 1994. The Government of Sudan would bear full responsibility for lives lost, whether through starvation or further violence.”
Sudan is already conducting a major new military offensive in Darfur, in contravention of the DPA and numerous previous commitments. Even without AU expulsion, the resumption of hostilities between the Government and rebel groups that have not signed the DPA may lead to the UN World Food Programme and other humanitarian agencies being forced to withdraw from Darfur. Over three million people are reliant on international food aid because of the crisis. Further withdrawal of aid agencies, which are already unable to reach hundreds of thousands of those in need, would leave them with very little access to food. Many have been unable to plant crops, having been herded into camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
At least 250,000 people, possibly more, have been killed in deliberate acts of violence in past three years, and up to a third of Darfur’s African women have been raped. The concentration of 2.5million Darfuri Africans in IDP camps renders them extremely vulnerable to Janjaweed and Government attack, particularly if there is little or no AU or other international presence. Claims that the IDP camps are strongholds for African rebels who did not sign the Darfur Peace Agreement could be used by the Sudanese Government to justify devastating attacks on these population centres.
Day for Darfur – 17 September
The Aegis Trust is part of a global coalition behind the ‘Day for Darfur’, scheduled for 17 September, which will see activists in New York, Abuja, London, Nairobi, Paris, Berlin, Kigali and a string of other major cities demonstrating in support of the proposed UN peacekeeping force for Darfur and calling on Sudan to accept the resolution. Organisers are calling on the public to don ‘blue hats’ on the day as a sign of their support. See www.dayfordarfur.org for more information.
ENDS
For more information, contact Aegis Media Officer David Brown, mobile: +44 (0)7812 640873, email: [email protected]
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