Two weeks after UN Security Council “Acts” on Darfur: Diplomatic paralysis

Khartoum’s military offensive accelerates, humanitarian operations are in “freefall,” civilians continue to die in ever-greater numbers

By Eric Reeves

September 14, 2006 — The cataclysm of human suffering and destruction in Darfur continues to grow, with no end or even mitigation in prospect. The Khartoum regime is currently accelerating its vast military offensives in North Darfur and eastern Jebel Marra, with large-scale civilian casualties and displacement. Evidence of deliberate, ethnically-targeted human destruction—particularly among the Fur communities—is reported almost daily. At the same time, Khartoum continues to defy the international community, adamantly refuses to accept the peacekeeping force specified in UN Security Council Resolution 1706 (August 31, 2006), and insists that a crumbling and demoralized African Union observer mission may accept neither a UN mandate nor UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations funding. For its part, China has made emphatically clear, as has the Arab League, that no UN force can deploy without Khartoum’s consent, ensuring that the accommodating language of Resolution 1706 (guaranteeing that Khartoum’s claims of national sovereignty will not be “affected” by the resolution) paralyzes any further UN action. And indeed, since passage of the US-British-sponsored resolution two weeks ago, there has been nothing but exhortation.

This paralysis continues even as humanitarian assistance is, according to Jan Egeland, in “freefall”:

“‘In many ways we are in a freefall in Darfur at the moment,’ UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland [said]. [Egeland also said that] if insecurity forces aid agencies to pull out of Darfur, a region the size of France, hundreds of thousands of people would be left with absolutely nothing. ‘There is still a possibility to avoid that, but we have very little time, in my view, to avoid a collapse in Darfur.’ Egeland urged China as well as Arab and Islamic states to help convince the Khartoum-based government that ‘we need this UN force to avoid a collapse.’” (Associated Press [dateline: Nairobi], September 13, 2006)

But there is simply no current prospect of this UN forces deploying, let alone in the “very little time” that Egeland rightly argues remains. And even were a UN force to deploy as soon as possible, this would likely not be until January or February 2007 without major assistance from “first-world” military powers. Moreover, even immediate deployment—by a large, robust force, armed with an appropriate mandate for civilian protection—could do nothing to save the hundreds of thousands who have already perished in three and a half years of genocidal conflict. Nor could it provide for more than the very gradual alleviation of current suffering among a massive population of over 4 million conflict-affected persons in Darfur and eastern Chad (the most current UN figure for the conflict-affected population in Darfur is 3.78 million; in eastern Chad, Darfuri refugees, Chadian Internally Displaced Persons, and other Chadian civilians affected by the Darfur conflict have produced a population that exceeds 350,000). And in the absence of near-term provision of security, humanitarian evacuations and withdrawals will continue, leaving many hundreds of thousands with no humanitarian access, and well over a million human beings with only the most limited and tenuous humanitarian access. These numbers grow daily.

China, a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, yesterday again made its views on deployment of a UN force to Darfur cruelly explicit: Agence France-Presse reports from London (September 13, 2006):

“Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Wednesday he backed the proposed deployment of the United Nations peacekeepers in strife-torn Darfur, but warned that Sudanese government consent was vital first.”

It is precisely such consent that Khartoum repeatedly, insistently, obdurately refuses to give:

“Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Thursday [September 14, 2006] reaffirmed his refusal to accept United Nations peacekeeping troops for Darfur, saying they had a hidden agenda to ‘recolonise’ his country. Bashir, speaking at the end of a brief visit to Gambia, said the existing 7,000-strong African Union (AU) peacekeeping force in the conflict-torn western Sudanese region had been successful and should continue its mission there. ‘The UN forces have a hidden agenda in Sudan because they are not coming for peace in Darfur. They want to recolonise Sudan,’ Bashir told a news conference.” (Reuters [dateline: Banjul, Gambia], September 14, 2006)

The UN’s “Sudan sit rep” of September 10, 2006 (Khartoum) reports:

“On 9 September [2006], President Al-Bashir said during commemoration celebrations of the seventh anniversary of the AU in Sert, Libya, that Sudan is categorically opposed to [UN Security Council Resolution] 1706. He stressed that the AU Peace and Security Council has no legal ground to transfer [the African Union mission] to UN. He said if the AU fails to fulfill tasks in Darfur, then it should withdraw and hand back the affairs to the Sudanese Government. [ ] Over the weekend, local papers noted that President Bashir addressed a rally in Hameshkhoreib (Eastern Sudan), where he reiterated his rejection to UN deployment in Darfur.”

There has been no dissent from these views by any senior member of the Khartoum regime or its “political party,” the National Islamic Front (aka National Congress Party). On the contrary, al-Bashir’s position been repeatedly and insistently echoed in all quarters, most ominously today by a senior military official:

“A senior Sudanese army officer on Thursday [September 14, 2006] said the deployment of UN peacekeeping forces in the war-torn Darfur region could jeopardize a May [2006] peace agreement between the government and a rebel group. ‘The Abuja peace agreement has not provided for any role by the UN in implementation of the agreement, except a humanitarian role,’ armed forces operations chief Gen. Ismat Abdel Rahman Zeinal Abdin told reporters in Khartoum. ‘The deployment of international forces in Darfur is tantamount to abrogation of the Abuja peace agreement,’ he said.” (Associated Press [dateline: Khartoum], September 14, 2006)

This intransigent refusal to accept a UN forces leaves the African Union mission as the only international guarantor of security for more than 4 million human beings in an immense and difficult region—amidst accelerating violence, deteriorating security for humanitarian operations, and the growing prospect of annihilating attacks on camps for displaced persons

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE AFRICAN UNION MISSION IN DARFUR?

Khartoum has given the severely limited, indeed disintegrating African Union force currently in Darfur an ultimatum: “leave by September 30, 2006 or remain on our terms, which include refusing UN funds and refusing conversion to a force with UN authority” (see my September 7, 2006 account of this ultimatum, http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article123.html). Just as there is no evidence that Khartoum will yield on the issue of deploying a UN force per the terms of Security Council Resolution 1706, so there is no evidence that the regime will yield on the terms of this brutal ultimatum to the AU. Again, the most recent evidence is unambiguous:

“Sudan formally called on the African Union Wednesday [September 13, 2006] to pull its peacekeepers out of Darfur by the end of the month if it continues to support a UN takeover of the mission. A 7,000-strong AU force is now in the western region of Sudan but is understaffed, starved of cash and eager to hand over to the UN. Its mandate expires at the end of the month. ‘If the AU wants to transfer the mission to the UN, then they have to pack up their troops and leave by the September 30, [2006]’ Al-Samani Al-Wasila, Sudan’s junior foreign affairs minister, told journalists after meeting with AU officials in Addis Ababa.”

“Sudan first took this stance last week, with Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Kerti saying the AU force can remain in Darfur only if it accepts Arab League and Sudanese funding. He gave the AU a week to agree or get its troops out, according to a September 4, [2006] government [of Sudan] statement.” (Associated Press [dateline: Addis Ababa], September 13, 2006)

Khartoum’s strategy in moving so quickly and peremptorily is clearly governed by the fact that,

“the AU’s Peace and Security Council will meet September 18, [2006] in New York, just before this year’s General Assembly meeting, to discuss how to break the deadlock in Darfur. Said Djinnit, the AU Peace and Security commissioner, said at the end of the closed door talks that the Sudanese wanted to make their position clear before the New York meeting.” (Associated Press [dateline: Addis Ababa], September 13, 2006)

“The Sudanese wanted to make their position clear before the New York meeting”—and Khartoum has certainly done so: there will be no accommodation of any new AU strategy to change the terms of the ultimatum Khartoum has issued. A Reuters dispatch from Addis Ababa (September 13, 2006) makes the starkness of Khartoum’s terms ferociously clear:

“Al-Samani al-Wasiyla, minister for state for foreign affairs, said: ‘All the African Union can do if its mission failed for any reason is to withdraw from Sudan and it cannot hand over its duties to any party except the government.’

‘There is no provision in the protocol establishing the African Union Peace and Security Council that allows the African Union to transfer its mandate to the United Nations,’ he added.”

In other venues, Khartoum’s senior officials often expediently praise the effectiveness of the AU force, this as a crude means of forestalling criticism from those, such as the Arab League, who clearly wish to be misled about Darfur’s realities. But on the ground in Darfur, it is clear that Khartoum has nothing but contempt for the AU and has even begun commandeering its resources for the present military offensive. In an extraordinarily important dispatch today from Darfur, Craig Timberg of the Washington Post ([dateline: Gereida, South Darfur], September 14, 2006) reports, inter alia:

“This week, the government [of Sudan] seized a tanker full of African Union jet fuel in El Fasher and used it to fill its own military aircraft, African Union sources said, speaking on condition their names not be published.”

It is certainly no coincidence that today’s (September 14, 2006) UN “sit rep” for Sudan reports:

“From 11-13 September [2006], fighting continued between [Khartoum’s regular] Sudan Armed Forces [and] Armed Militia/Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction that has signed the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) [i.e., that of Minni Minawi] against the SLA faction that has not signed the DPA in Jebel Marra. Reportedly, six helicopters, four Antonovs [from el-Fasher air base], and 50 Land Cruisers were observed in the area. The attacked areas of Dugo Alomada, Dugo, Almadrasa, Dirbat, Katur, Debbanaira and Ahara were reported as severely hit. The number of casualties is unknown. A large number of the civilian population was displaced.”

Khartoum is diverting critically needed fuel from the AU monitoring force for its own military needs, just as it has for more than two years used the manipulation of aviation fuel supplies as a means of keeping AU investigators grounded. Further, the Washington Post’s Timberg also reports today (dateline: Gereida, South Darfur]:

“Investigations of major breaches of the cease-fire, meanwhile, have been stymied. That includes an incident Saturday [September 9, 2006] in which villagers who had been attacked by Janjaweed militiamen two weeks earlier gathered near the ruins of their homes in South Darfur to speak to AU investigators set to arrive by helicopter. But the helicopter turned back because of severe rain, and the Janjaweed attacked again, killing 18 of the survivors of the earlier assault and dispersing as many as 25,000 into a remote southern region far from humanitarian assistance or military protection, rebel leaders here said.”

Lydia Polgreen of the New York Times had earlier reported on Khartoum’s sabotaging of AU efforts by means of stealing aviation fuel:

“At the airstrip next to the headquarters of the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur in El Fasher [North Darfur], the first job of the day for the workers who keep the mission’s helicopters running is to check how much jet fuel is missing. Some days it is just dozens of gallons. Sometimes it is hundreds. At sundown, African Union soldiers must turn over control of the airstrip to the Sudanese government, whose troops guard the airfield all night. In the morning, the fuel is gone, according to senior African Union officials and airfield workers.” (New York Times [dateline: Tawilla, North Darfur], September 8, 2006)

As the New York Times’ Polgreen rightly observes:

“The missing fuel and the struggle over who controls the main military airstrip in Darfur lays bare just how little autonomy the African Union force actually has as it struggles to keep a fragile peace in this war-wracked region, where the government and its allied militias are fighting rebels seeking greater autonomy.” [ ]

“[The Khartoum government has] proposed keeping the African Union force in place, and from interviews with dozens of officers and soldiers at camps in Darfur, it is easy to see why. African Union officers repeatedly spoke of the frustrations of what has become an impossible mission—to oversee a peace deal most of the militants in this brutal conflict have signed and to monitor a cease-fire that hardly anyone respects. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about African Union activities. ‘We are frustrated and feeling so useless,’ said one major from southern Africa based in Kebkabiya, a government-controlled town that is home to thousands of people displaced by the conflict. ‘We are not able to move freely and do our work. Sometimes I wonder if there is any reason for us to be here at all.’”

“More than being underfunded, however, the peacekeepers here lack the ability to stand up to the Sudanese government, according to senior officers, analysts and diplomats. [ ] A lack of authority is precisely what many African Union officers here lamented. ‘A peacekeeping force must assert its authority, so when I arrived and saw that a party to the conflict had control of the airstrip I knew this mission was in trouble,’ said one senior African Union military official who has served in peacekeeping missions in Europe, Africa and Asia.”

“Gen. Collins Ihekire, the Nigerian who commands the African Union forces in Darfur, acknowledged in an interview that the force has not had always has the freedom and support it needs to carry out even its limited mission. ‘We have not always had the ability to move as freely as we would like,’ he said, ‘but we are not here to force a confrontation with anyone. We are here as monitors of a cease-fire, not to make war.’”

“In the past week [following passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1706], as the showdown over an international force has mounted, African soldiers have curtailed their already limited patrols, often at the insistence of Sudanese officers stationed in their bases as monitors of a tattered cease-fire agreement.” (New York Times [dateline: Tawilla, North Darfur], September 8, 2006)

This is the force that Khartoum insists remain in Darfur, without either UN authority or funding. It could not be more evident that the regime is in the last stages of destroying any residual effectiveness the AU mission may have, even as these canny genocidaires wish to preserve the fig-leaf of a nominal “international presence.”

Khartoum’s ultimatum to the AU creates an acute dilemma for the organization: will it accept these eviscerating terms of deployment? will it withdraw? will it have the diplomatic nerve to defy Khartoum and accept “re-hatting” as a UN force, and demand UN peacekeeping resources? Certainly there is no current AU plan for deployment out of Darfur, although this reflects primarily a lack of planning, resources, and leadership. Nor is there any evidence of an AU willingness to defy Khartoum without explicit and robust diplomatic support from actors throughout the international community: at the UN, in the Western democracies, and throughout Africa. The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference have already fully sided with Khartoum, which creates severe political difficulties for many countries within the African Union, particularly Arab countries in Africa and those with majority or significant minority Muslim populations. In the absence of very strong diplomatic and political support, as well as credible commitments to provide substantial military, transport, and logistical resources, the AU will in all likelihood capitulate, and remain precisely the weak, demoralized, and ineffective force Khartoum wishes for.

THE NATURE OF KHARTOUM’S MILITARY OFFENSIVE IN DARFUR

In addition to warning that humanitarian operations in Darfur are in “freefall,” UN aid chief Jan Egeland spoke dramatically about the nature of violence on ground, violence that has brought humanitarian aid to the very verge of “collapse”:

“‘In Darfur, in many ways, we are in freefall,’ said UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland in Nairobi. ‘Mass murder, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing—that’s very visible on the ground.’” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], September 12, 2006)

Much of the violence has a terrifying similarity to the worst stages of genocidal violence in 2003-2004:

“Sudan’s government is bombing civilians in Darfur in an operation reminiscent of the early stages of a conflict that has killed tens of thousands since 2003, the European Union’s special envoy said on Tuesday [September 12, 2006]. Pekka Haavisto said after a three-day visit to the region that he had witnessed Antonov planes loading up in Darfur in preparation for an attack. He had also seen children as young as three years old injured by bombings. ‘The messages we are getting … are very clear—there are attacks which are affecting civilians, bombing of villages in which there are civilians,’ he told reporters in Khartoum. ‘I could see Antonovs loading to attack,’ he said. ‘This reminds me very much of the early 2003 pictures of Darfur,’ he added.” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], September 12, 2006)

UN High Commission for Refugees Antonio Guterres declared this week that “millions of people are already at grave risk.” He continued: “If things don’t improve, we’re heading for a major catastrophe” (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks [dateline: el-Fasher, North Darfur], September 11, 2006).

Violence and insecurity have had a devastating effect on the ability of the UN World Food Program’s ability to feed the people of Darfur, particularly hundreds of thousands of civilians in North Darfur (where Khartoum’s military offensive has been concentrated) who have now gone three months without food delivery:

“[Kenro Oshidari, WFP’s representative in Sudan, warned on Monday, September 11, 2006] that insecurity had cut off 355,000 people from food aid in August—all of them in North Darfur. ‘Most of these people have now gone three entire months without our help. Their situation is even more desperate because we’re in the middle of the “hunger season”—the period right before the harvest—so they have very little chance of finding food elsewhere,’ Oshidari said.” (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks [dateline: Khartoum], September 11, 2006)

But even as the people of North Darfur are almost entirely cut off from aid (except for the large camps near the capital, el-Fasher), so civilians to the west are also victims of a blunt-instrument military offensive that is now expanding into the eastern Jebel Marra region (Jebel Marra is administratively within West Darfur). The UN’s Integrated Regional Information Networks reports from el-Fasher (September 11, 2006):

“In an apparent widening of its military offensive against rebels in North Darfur State, the Sudanese military have used Antonov planes to bomb another seven villages in the volatile region, sources in the region say. ‘On Saturday [September 9, 2006], Antonov planes were bombing seven villages south of Tawilla town, focusing on Tabarat and Tina,’ a local source, who declined to be named, said. ‘On Sunday, about 45 vehicles carrying government troops moved through Tina.’” [ ]

“Although [Khartoum’s] offensive initially targeted villages north of the state capital El Fasher, last weekend’s attacks extended the campaign to the eastern Jebel Marra mountains, southwest of Tawilla town and about 50 kilometres west of the capital.”

The implications of Khartoum’s military offensive are immense, and various. Not only are civilians being killed and displaced (Antonov bombings are too inaccurate to be militarily purposeful: they are designed to create civilian terror); not only does a collapsing humanitarian operation face ever greater danger, with daily retrenchment; but the final collapse of whatever was attained in the Darfur Peace Agreement (Abuja, Nigeria; May 5, 2006) appears imminent. The rebel commanders of the SLA faction nominally led by Minni Minawi (now the titular “special assistant” to National Islamic Front President Omar al-Bashir) have made clear that they are no longer prepared to participate in genocidal destruction. Today’s dispatch from Darfur by Craig Timberg of The Washington Post is of critical importance, with enormous implications for the military situation on the ground (key excerpts here):

“Commanders from the only rebel group that signed a peace accord in May [2006] for Sudan’s Darfur region are prepared to resume fighting if African Union peacekeeping troops leave as scheduled at month’s end and are not replaced by a United Nations force, according to more than a dozen senior rebel officials interviewed Wednesday [September 13, 2006]. Rebel commanders predicted that such a resumption of combat would spell the end of Darfur’s tattered peace agreement and quickly escalate fighting to an intensity not seen since the early days of the conflict in 2003 and 2004. Abdulrahaman Abdallah, a commander of the rebel group’s military police, said that without a strong international force here, ‘the government will go back to its strategy, which is genocide, and inevitably we will go back to the bush.’”

“Since the fighting began in 2003, war and disease have killed as many as 450,000 people in Darfur and driven more than 2 million from their homes. Sudan’s impoverished western flank has become a patchwork of military positions and ragged camps for families displaced by war.”

“The commanders interviewed Wednesday [September 13, 2006] said they were so angry about recent attacks on civilians, including the bombing of villages by Antonov planes and rocket attacks by Mi-24 helicopter gunships, that they were prepared to abandon the peace deal. They said they would not be swayed even if Minnawi decided to keep his senior job with the government in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. [Minawi’s] group, while having less political support than the most popular rebel group in Darfur, was widely regarded as the most potent fighting force among the rebels. It remains strong in Darfur’s southern and western areas. ‘It’s not our desire to go back to the bush, but if there is no choice, we will go,’ said rebel Gen. Ali Marmar, speaking in Graida [also Gereida], a rebel stronghold in South Darfur. Marmar said Minnawi would be replaced if he broke with the will of his commanders: ‘We have thousands like Minni.’” [ ]

“Rebel commanders say they will not tolerate such attacks and deprivations much longer. Minnawi’s group has about 50 senior commanders. Asked how many would resume fighting if an effective international force did not arrive soon, Marmar said, ‘All of them.’” (The Washington Post [dateline: Gereida, South Darfur], September 14, 2006)

Having been the victims of Khartoum’s previous genocidal offensives, these SLA commanders have come to understand from the nature of present fighting that they are simply being used, and that they will themselves eventually become the targets of genocidal destruction when their military usefulness to Khartoum has ended.

A final terrifying note is struck in The Washington Post dispatch (at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/13/AR2006091301996.html):

“Combat has escalated sharply in recent days, with heavy bombing and clashes near the North Darfur town of Kutum and in an area north of El Fasher where, according to African Union reports, government forces sustained heavy losses this week.”

While not surprising, given the determination of the non-signatory rebel groups, Khartoum’s “heavy losses” are a very likely catalyst for vicious retribution by both the regular armed forces and their brutal Janjaweed militia allies—and that retribution, according to highly informed sources on the ground in North Darfur, will at some point be directed against camps for displaced persons. These camps are completely undefended, except by the African Union, which even when present can do little more than serve as witnesses to slaughter. In those increasingly numerous places where there is no AU presence, or highly irregular patrolling—or in the aftermath of an AU withdrawal—a vast bloodbath is a virtual certainty. As the New York Times’ Polgreen reported last week from Tawila, North Darfur:

“They call this place Rwanda.”

“A year ago it was a collection of straw huts, hastily thrown together in the aftermath of battle, hard by the razor-wire edge of a small African Union peacekeeper base. Today it is a tangle of sewage-choked lanes snaking among thousands of squalid shacks, an endless sprawl that dwarfs the base at its heart. Pounding rainstorms gather fetid pools that swarm with mosquitoes and flies spreading death in their filthy wake. All but one of the aid groups working here have pulled out.”

“Many who live here say the camp is named for the Rwandan soldiers based here as monitors of a tattered cease-fire. But the camp’s sheiks say the name has a darker meaning, one that reveals their deepest fears.”

“‘What happened in Rwanda, it will happen here,’ said Sheik Abdullah Muhammad Ali, who fled here from a nearby village seeking the safety that he hoped the presence of about 200 African Union peacekeepers would bring. But the Sudanese government has asked the African Union to quit Darfur rather than hand over its mission to the United Nations. ‘If these soldiers leave,’ Sheik Ali said, ‘we will all be slaughtered.’”

When we consider the dilemma that the Khartoum regime has thrust upon the AU, and how little has happened diplomatically since the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1706 two weeks ago, we should bear in mind these further searing words from the New York Times dispatch:

“Tawila is an apocalyptic postcard from the next and perhaps the grimmest chapter in Darfur’s agony, a preview of the coming cataclysm in the conflict the United Nations has called the world’s gravest humanitarian crisis. Thousands of people in this squalid camp fear that their annihilation will be the final chapter in this brutal battle over land, identity, resources and power, which the Bush administration and many others have called genocide. ‘We beg the international community, somebody, come and save us,’ Sheik Ali said. ‘We have no means to protect ourselves. The only thing we can do is run and hide in the mountains and caves. We will all die.’” (New York Times [dateline: Tawilla, North Darfur], September 8, 2006)

KHARTOUM DEFIANT

In the absence of concerted diplomatic and other pressures, Khartoum feels entirely unconstrained in its current brutal campaign. Assured that there will be no force deploying to Darfur without their consent, buoyed by self-interested diplomatic support from China, Russia, and the Arab League, the regime’s genocidaires are calculating that they will be able to complete the final, apocalyptic phase of Darfur’s ethnically-targeted destruction before any meaningful international action is contemplated. Meanwhile, in order to ensure that there are as few witnesses as possible, Khartoum has also begun a full-scale crackdown on news reporting, both by Sudanese and international journalists. The high-profile month-long arrest of Pulitzer Prize-winning Paul Salopek of the Chicago Tribune has largely obscured the arrests of other international journalists, and the rapid re-institution of rigid news censorship:

“Sudanese authorities confiscated all copies of the independent newspaper Al Sudani on Saturday, the latest move in a resurgence of censorship since the beheading of a journalist earlier in the week. The journalist, Mohamed Taha, editor of the newspaper Al Wifaq, was seized from his home on Tuesday, and his decapitated body was dumped in a street on Wednesday. Since then, censors have moved into newspapers’ offices to restrict the work of journalists, ending months of press freedom in Sudan.” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], September 9, 2006)

Reporters Without Borders reports (September 13, 2006):

“A wave of government censorship that has affected four Arabic-language daily newspapers—Al-Ayam, Al-Sahafa, Al-Sudani and Rai-al-Shaab—in the past week is without precedent since President Omar Al Bashir announced the lifting of state of emergency laws in July 2005, Reporters Without Borders said today.

‘Last year we highlighted a gradual improvement in press freedom in Sudan but arrests and attacks on journalists have been mounting in recent weeks,’ the organisation said. ‘Despite its solemn promises, the Sudanese government is now using the 6 September [2006] murder of Mohamed Taha, the editor of the privately-owned daily Al-Wifaq, as a pretext for reinstating censorship for articles of a political nature. The international community, which is very concerned about the situation in Sudan, should also pay attention to the situation of press freedom there.’”

This harsh crack-down on news-reporting creates yet more strains within the merely notional “Government of National Unity” (GONU), which remains completely dominated by the National Islamic Front. The NIF has paid no attention whatsoever to the views of Darfuris or southern Sudanese members of the GONU, either on Darfur or a series of other important national issues. In response to the move toward aggressive news censorship, Yasir Arman, a highly distinguished representative of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), has threatened to resign from the government:

“A senior Sudanese politician threatened to resign on Tuesday over what he said was the resurgence of censorship against Sudanese newspapers since the assassination of a journalist last week. Yasir Arman, deputy secretary-general of the former southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), said he could no longer enforce Sudan’s constitutional rules on freedom of the press. ‘As the chairman of the information committee in the parliament I find it difficult and ridiculous to carry out my duty,’ he told Reuters. ‘I’d prefer to resign than violate my mandate of ensuring the freedom of the press,’ he added.

Arman, a member of parliament, is one of the most senior and well-respected SPLM officials in Khartoum.” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], September 13, 2006)

This brazen contempt for Sudan’s new constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press is entirely consistent with Khartoum’s attitudes towards the north/south Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) (January 9, 2005; Nairobi, Kenya). Associated Press gives an overview of a recent report on CPA implementation by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

“Many of the most important promises made under a peace deal that ended a 21-year civil war in Sudan’s south have not been met, threatening to plunge the long-suffering region back into violence, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report Tuesday [September 12, 2006]. The dire assessment of the situation in Sudan’s south said the Khartoum-based government and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which signed the deal with great fanfare in January 2005, have fallen well behind on plans for elections and are not sharing power and wealth as called for.”

“‘While they are observing their security commitments reasonably well, the implementation of several other major provisions of this agreement has fallen behind schedule,’ Annan said in the report. ‘Disappointingly, implementation of the (Comprehensive Peace Agreement) provisions appears to be selective.’”

“There has also been little progress in establishing human rights commissions and disarming fighters. Sudan’s parliament has shown little inclination to pass a raft of legislation necessary for the peace deal to be carried out fully. [ ] Throughout the 14-page report, Annan criticized Sudan’s government for its behavior toward civilians and the peacekeeping force itself.” (Associated Press [dateline: United Nations], September 13, 2006)

Annan’s report concludes by declaring that a north/south peace will be unsustainable if Khartoum does not negotiate a good-faith peace agreement in Darfur; there is no evidence of either the regime’s good faith or an intention to honor any of the important terms of the Darfur Peace Agreement of May 2006.

KHARTOUM WILL NOT BE MOVED BY WORDS OF ANY KIND

Kofi Annan offered some rhetorically compelling remarks to the UN Security Council on Monday (September 11, 2006):

“As access gets harder, the humanitarian gains of the past two years are being rolled back. Unless security improves, we face the prospect of having to drastically curtail an acutely needed humanitarian operation. Can we, in conscience, leave the people of Darfur to such a fate? Can the international community, having not done enough for the people of Rwanda in their time of need, just watch as this tragedy deepens? Having finally agreed just one year ago that there is a responsibility to protect, can we contemplate failing yet another test? Lessons are either learned or not; principles are either upheld or scorned. This is no time for the middle ground of half-measures or further debate.” (Briefing to the UN Security Council [New York], September 11, 2006)

“This is no time for the middle ground of half-measures or further debate.”

It is difficult to quarrel with these uncompromising words; but it is impossible to understand their implication if Annan insists that the UN will consider only consensual deployment, will act only if Khartoum’s genocidaires give the permission that they have most insistently denied:

“But let us be clear. We all know that the Government of Sudan still refuses to accept the transition. And the Council has recognized that without the Government’s consent the transition will not be possible. Once again, therefore, I urge the Government of Sudan to embrace the spirit of resolution 1706, to give its consent to the transition, and to pursue the political process with new energy and commitment.”

Is Annan’s mere “urging” of a defiant Khartoum regime anything other than a safe “middle ground”? Has it made any difference since March 15, 2006, when the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks reports Annan saying:

“‘Although the government of the Sudan is expressing reservations at the moment [concerning the transformation of the AU force into a UN force], we hope to gain its cooperation as we carry out the planning.’”

Six months later, Annan’s “hope” has yielded nothing but obduracy and refusal from Khartoum. As hundreds of thousands of human being face destruction—the repeated and insistent prediction for Darfur by UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland—how much longer is Annan prepared to wait? How much longer are members of the UN Security Council prepared to wait? How much longer are the countries of the European Union prepared to wait? How much longer is the United States prepared to wait in leading an effort to halt what the Bush administration has repeatedly, over the past two years, called “genocide”? (For a powerfully incisive critique of Bush administration policy on Darfur, see John Prendergast [International Crisis Group] “U.S.’s deadly errors in Darfur,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 14, 2006 at http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/15512980.htm)

Not all are prepared to wait longer. A group of “eighteen international human rights, humanitarian, and conflict-prevention organizations” yesterday (September 13, 2006) “condemned the recent violence launched by the Government of Sudan in North Darfur and called for stepped up diplomatic pressure and for the rapid deployment of a robust UN peacekeeping force” (see full text of statement at Physicians for Human Rights website, http://www.phrusa.org/research/sudan/news_2006-09-13.html). These eighteen groups went further in specifying their assessments and recommendations, and concluded:

“In summary, we call on the international community to significantly intensify diplomatic efforts with the Government of Sudan while concurrently planning for the rapid deployment of an adequately funded and well-equipped UN force to protect the people of Darfur regardless of the acquiescence of the Sudanese Government.”

This courageous refusal to accept the “acquiescence of the Sudanese Government” as the prerequisite for international efforts to intervene on behalf of millions of essentially defenseless civilians, and the humanitarian operations upon which they are increasingly dependent, was signed initially (more signatories are arriving) by:

Aegis Trust (UK)

Africa Action

Amnesty International/USA

Darfur Alert Coalition

Dear Sudan

Doctors for Human Rights

Genocide Intervention Network

Genocide Watch

Human Rights First

Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies

My Sister’s Keeper

Physicians for Human Rights

Refugees International

Save Darfur Coalition

Sudanese Organization Against Torture (SOAT)

STAND (Canada)

Urgence Darfour (France)

Waging Peace (UK)

Those who await Khartoum’s eventual “acquiescence” will wait too long—much too long.

* Eric Reeves is a professor at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and has published extensively on Sudan. He can be reached at [email protected]; website : www.sudanreeves.org