China’s propaganda campaign can’t obscure complicity in Darfur Genocide
Khartoum’s recent acceleration of civilian destruction in West Darfur
makes clear the regime retains supreme confidence that China will block
any punitive measures at the UN
Eric Reeves
March 5, 2008 — Recent massive civilian displacement and destruction in West Darfur,
orchestrated by the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum, has been
amply chronicled by UN and nongovernmental humanitarian organizations,
as well as by journalists on the ground (see especially an excellent
overview by Lydia Polgreen of the New York Times, “Scorched-Earth
Strategy Returns to Darfur” [dateline: Suleia, West Darfur], March 2,
2008,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/world/africa/02darfur.html?em&ex=1204693200&en=d7ed1f3a93bc9c6f&ei=5087%0A. See also my two recent analyses of this brutal campaign at
http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article205.html and
http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article204.html). Hundreds have been
killed or died as a result of the violence and subsequent flight. Some
60,000 people have been newly displaced, more than 13,000 of these into
a highly insecure region of Eastern Chad. Some 20,000 civilians are
effectively trapped in the mountainous Jebel Moun region to the east of
the initial assaults, and are prey to Khartoum’s ongoing bombing
attacks, as well as ground attacks by regular army forces and Janjaweed
militias.
The ethnically-targeted destruction against the Erenga and Massaleit
people of the region bears all the hallmarks of previous genocidal
attacks against civilians, particularly in the years 2003-2004, though
never ceasing entirely (and diminishing only because the vast majority
of all African villages had been destroyed). A UN assessment team in
the towns and villages north of el-Geneina, capital of West Darfur,
found that, “in addition to the burning of homes,…schools, clinics,
water systems and aid agencies’ compounds had either been looted or
destroyed” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], March 3, 2008). The UN News
Center (March 3, 2008) also speaks of the UN assessment team finding
that “in the towns of Sirba and Sileah many homes were burned and
health clinics, schools, water systems, and aid agency compounds had
been either looted or destroyed.” Such systematic, comprehensive,
ethnically-targeted destruction is genocidal in character.
The New York Times’ Polgreen, reporting on the “brutal,
three-pronged attacks [ ] involving close coordination of air power,
army troops and Arab militias” that defined the most violent phase of
the genocide, gives a grim on-the-ground account of Khartoum’s
resumption of these barbaric tactics:
“Aid workers, diplomats and analysts say the return of such attacks
is an ominous sign that the fighting in Darfur, which has grown more
complex and confusing as it has stretched on for five years, is entering
a new and deadly phase—one in which the government is planning a
scorched-earth campaign against the rebel groups fighting here as
efforts to find a negotiated peace founder. The government has carried
out a series of coordinated attacks in recent weeks, using air power,
ground forces and, according to witnesses and peacekeepers stationed in
the area, the janjaweed, as their allied militias are known here.”
(New York Times [dateline: Suleia, West Darfur], March 2, 2008).
Water sources are again a prime target in the destruction of
livelihoods. Just as wells and water bore-holes have in the past been
systematically bombed or poisoned with human and animal corpses, those
now returning following Khartoum’s campaign of civilian destruction
(in this case in the town of Sirba) have “new problems”:
“Two of five water pumps and the main water loading system had been
destroyed. Women seeking water from less clean sources were attacked by
marauders still nearby. Some were raped.” (Reuters [dateline: Sirba],
February 22, 2008).
Nor were humanitarian facilities spared: “‘A lot of
[nongovernmental humanitarian organizations] and humanitarian compounds
were raided and a number of the NGOs also had their staff members
killed,’ [UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan Ameerah Haq] said”
(Agence France-Presse [dateline: Khartoum], March 3, 2008).
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
offered a public statement on February 18, 2008 outlining the scale of
destruction wrought by Khartoum’s ground and air forces, along with
its Janjaweed militia allies, as well as the extent of civilian
displacement and suffering in the corridor north of el-Geneina:
“Rapid assessments have revealed severe consequences from the
violence for some 160,000 civilians in the northern corridor connecting
El Geneina and Kulbus, including the 20,000 currently at risk in Jebel
Moun. The civilian population has experienced widespread displacement,
property damage, and significant trauma and loss of life. Approximately
57,000 civilians were displaced due to the offensive. Along with
countless homes, many compounds of non-governmental organizations have
been looted or destroyed. Thousands of civilians have arrived in already
overstretched IDP camps near El Geneina or across the border into
neighbouring Chad.”
IMPLICATIONS OF THE WEST DARFUR MILITARY CAMPAIGN
The question the international community must ask itself is at once
obvious and fundamental to any resolution of the Darfur conflict: What
gives Khartoum the confidence to engage in the worst sort of atrocity
crimes before the very eyes of the international community? What
convinces this regime that it may continue to defy numerous UN Security
Council resolutions, as well as the nominal authority of the UN/African
Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), authorized by Security Council
Resolution 1769 in July 2007? Why have exhortations from the UN
Secretary-General, UN humanitarian organizations, and distinguished
human rights organizations been so utterly inconsequential? This in
turn forces the corollary question: Why have various powerful members of
the international community refused to speak out forcefully against
Khartoum’s actions, knowing that their silence will be construed as
acquiescence?
[These questions could, and should, be asked in the context of
Khartoum’s evident use of the Abyei crisis in southern Sudan as a
pretext for resumed north/south civil war, a war that will quickly
engulf all of Sudan, with catastrophic consequences for the people of
Sudan and the region as a whole. See, for example, a very recent UN
dispatch,
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EVOD-7CDJ7D?OpenDocument,
a superb column by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times (“A Genocide
Foretold,” February 28, 2008),
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html?em&ex=1204347600&en=77af6a414e7439a1&ei=5087%0A],
and a detailed study from the ENOUGH Project by Roger Winter and John
Prendergast (“Abyei: Sudan’s ‘Kashmir,’”
http://www.enoughproject.org/abyei).]
Although the history of Sudan during the past 19 years of National
Islamic Front tyranny yields various explanations of the regime’s
defiance, and involves many actors, nothing does more to account for the
extraordinary confidence of Khartoum in resuming large-scale genocidal
destruction than the unrivaled diplomatic, military, and economic
support that comes from China. Even support from the Arab League, and
from altogether too many countries in Africa, can’t work to explain
the regime’s brazen contempt for international law and international
institutions. Without protection from China, in various forms, Khartoum
would have long since faced the distinct possibility of consequential
punitive actions.
To be sure, the relation between recent violence in Darfur and the
complex military and political realities across the border in Chad does
much to account for the timing of the current West Darfur offensive (see
a superb account by Jerome Tubiana, “Echo Effects: Chadian Instability
and the Darfur Conflict,” Small Arms Survey, February 2008,
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/portal/spotlight/sudan/sudan_publications.html).
But only the strongest possible insulation from international pressure,
of the sort repeatedly provided by Beijing at the Security Council, can
account for the obdurate defiance shown by Khartoum, not only in
resuming its genocidal counter-insurgency military campaign, but in
contemptuously ignoring a raft of UN Security Council resolutions (see
below). Again, this does nothing to mitigate the failure of countries
such as the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan,
African countries, Latin American countries, the Benelux countries, and
many others: the voices of these countries have been all too silent, or
exceedingly tepid, in responding to massive violations of international
humanitarian law. But it is China that has singular influence with the
regime by virtue of its unstinting and critically important economic,
political, and military support.
CHINA’S DARFUR PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN IN HIGH GEAR
Conscious that the image of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing
has already been seriously damaged by advocacy efforts highlighting
China’s role in sustaining the Darfur genocide, China is energetically
engaged in a propaganda campaign to recast itself as a “friend of
Darfur.” The primary instruments of this propaganda campaign have
been diplomatic efforts at home and abroad, and a prodigious stream of
“news” reports that deliberately distort or patently misrepresent
China’s role in the Darfur crisis. The spokesman for China’s
distortions is special envoy for Sudan, Liu Guijin. Close examination
of scores of dispatches from Xinhua, the state-controlled Chinese
“news agency,” reveals a number of distinct themes, particularly
in Liu’s statements. Unchallenged, Beijing will be encouraged to
believe that it can succeed in shedding its larger responsibility for
Darfur by a disingenuous representation of critical issues.
[1] China argues that deployment of the UN-authorized UNAMID force is
being held up by merely “technical” problems.
Liu recently declared, “Of course, there are still some technical
problems [with the deployment of the peacekeepers], but what China
thinks is that we cannot politicize the technical problems”
(Associated Press [dateline: Khartoum], February 24, 2008).
This is not only a highly misleading characterization of the obstacles
to UNAMID deployment, but an exceedingly dangerous one, absolving
Khartoum of responsibility for having made what is by all accounts
precisely a political decision to obstruct the UN/AU force. This was
the explicit conclusion of the British ambassador to the UN, John
Sawyers, following a January 6, 2008 briefing of the Security Council by
head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guéhenno (Deutsche Presse Agentur
[dateline: UN/New York], January 9, 2008). It is certainly the
conclusion within the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UN
DPKO).
There is nothing “technical”—and everything political—in
Khartoum’s refusal to accept the UN-proposed roster of troop-,
engineering-, and civilian police-contributing countries. The
regime’s refusal to accept an engineering battalion from Sweden and
Norway, special forces units from Nepal, and a fully-equipped battalion
from Thailand reflect nothing other than a political decision to deny
UNAMID the personnel determined by UN DPKO to be essential for an
effective mission in Darfur.
Khartoum accepted deployment of UNAMID on the basis of its having a
“predominantly African in character.” This is not the same as a
force “exclusively African in character,” and yet that is what
Khartoum now insists upon. For this reason, UN Secretary-General is
left to continue his complaint that:
“With respect to the critical issue of the composition of the force,
and the list of troop-contributing countries sent by the United Nations
and the African Union to the Government of the Sudan on 2 October 2007,
[National Islamic Front President Omar al-Bashir’s] response was not
definitive. While the African Union and the United Nations are committed
to continuing these discussions with the Government of the Sudan, the
primary objective of the two organizations remains to deploy a balanced
and impartial force, with the required capabilities and readiness to
deploy in a timely manner. We have also sought to assemble a force which
would unquestionably meet the ‘African character’ criteria referred
to in resolution 1769 (2007). Troop-contributing countries now require
urgent confirmation from the Government of the Sudan that their
contributions to UNAMID are welcome. The speed of UNAMID deployment
depends critically on this issue being resolved as soon as possible.”
(“Report of the Secretary-General on the Deployment of the African
Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur,” paragraph 47,
February 14, 2008)
For China to describe this defiant refusal to accept troops per the
terms of a UN Security Council resolution as a “technical problem”
reveals the deeply disingenuous character of Beijing’s diplomacy.
Nothing could do more to encourage Khartoum to remain defiant, and thus
obstruct in critical ways the appropriately sequenced deployment of
personnel required by UNAMID. Lack of engineering resources has been
particularly consequential, forcing unconscionable delays in the
deployment of troops and civilian police for lack of barracks, water
supplies, operations centers, bridges, and other transportation
infrastructure.
[2] Beijing asserts that here are no “differences in principle”
between China and the US government on Darfur policy, only
“differences in approach.”
But the claim by China is belied in the same Xinhua dispatch
([dateline: Khartoum], February 27, 2008):
“‘For China, we oppose sanctions and embargoes because we think if
others impose sanctions and embargoes against a certain nation, the
consequence would be the suffering of the people. Sanction and embargo
can’t solve the problems,’ said Liu.”
Liu deliberately confuses the comprehensive sanctions that have long
been imposed by the United States with current call for targeted
sanctions—those that would impose travel restrictions and asset
freezes on members of the regime responsible for violations of
international law and who have ignored the demands of various UN
Security Council resolutions. But most significantly, by sending
Khartoum the signal that there will be no consequences, no punitive
actions, no matter how blatant the regime’s non-compliance, Beijing
gives the green light to the massive atrocity crimes we’ve seen
recently in West Darfur, as well as the relentless obstruction of
UNAMID. Knowing full well the consequences of China’s categorical
rejection of punitive measures, Khartoum feels it has nothing to fear
from the UN Security Council.
The same dynamic was in evidence this past December when Britain
introduced a toughly worded Presidential Statement at the Security
Council, demanding that Khartoum turn over two génocidaires to the
International Criminal Court. The first, Ahmed Haroun, who, in a
grotesque bit of irony, now serves in Khartoum’s ministry of
humanitarian affairs, is accused of having directly orchestrated many of
the vicious crimes documented by the UN and independent human rights
organizations in Darfur. Similarly, Ali Kushayb, a Janjaweed militia
leader, is deeply implicated in the most egregious violations of
international law—targeted ethnic slaughter, mass destruction of
African villages, and the use of rape as a weapon of war among them.
The Presidential Statement should have easily passed: the evidence
against both men is overwhelming, and because of UN Security Council
Resolution 1593, the ICC has jurisdiction over the matter. What ended up
happening, though, was all too familiar. China threatened to veto the
non-binding declaration unless its language was essentially gutted, and
rather than force the issue, Britain, France, Italy, and the US—as
well as the other Security Council members—quietly decided to drop the
matter. As a result, not only will Haroun and Kushayb remain free, but
the regime in Khartoum will feel that it can block the extradition of
those subsequently accused by the Court. (See my assessment of this
cowardly episode in Security Council behavior, and China’s role more
broadly within the UN, at http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article197.html).
[3] China has also consistently misrepresented, or simply remained
silent about, the extent of Darfur’s vast humanitarian crisis, as well
as the significance of its own indifferent response to this crisis:
[a] Despite the horrific human realities in Darfur, reported by the
United Nations as well as many of the world’s most distinguished
nongovernmental humanitarian organizations, China refuses to speak
honestly about these realities. Sometimes the representations are
reminiscent of crude Maoist era propaganda. A recent Xinhua dispatch
([dateline: Khartoum], March 2, 2008) reports:
“Whenever a Chinese team came to the tribe, the leader of the tribe
camp would go to collect water and food from door to door for their
Chinese friends. Although the food was quite simple, sometimes even hard
to swallow, the Chinese workers always enjoyed it and spent many
heart-warming nights in the villagers’ shanties. [ ] Sometimes, the
Chinese drilling team felt quite sorry when they found that a well with
clean drinking water could never be found in some villages.”
No mention is made of the paltry scale of Chinese humanitarian
assistance in Darfur. Nor is any mention made of the fact that so many
water sources in Darfur have been destroyed or compromised by
Khartoum’s regular forces and its Janjaweed allies. Countless
wells have been poisoned by human and animal corpses. Wells and water
sources have been relentlessly targeted by Khartoum’s Antonov bombers.
And the Janjaweed, in addition to acts of violent destruction and
poisoning, have often denied civilian access to water points, and have
raped women and girls seeking to collect water for desperate families.
Overwhelmingly, the people of Darfur despise, indeed hate the Chinese,
well aware of China’s role in their ongoing torment and destruction.
The “heart-warming nights” the Xinhua dispatch contrives are purely
propagandistic creations.
[b] In an especially grim bit of grotesquerie, Chinese special
representative for Darfur Liu cites National Islamic Front President
al-Bashir on humanitarian conditions in Darfur (Xinhua [dateline:
Khartoum], February 27, 2008):
“Liu quoted al-Bashir as saying that the Sudanese government is also
devoted to improving the humanitarian situation in Darfur and has been
trying best to facilitate humanitarian assistance by international aid
groups.”
This absurd proposition has the advantage of being an assertion by
al-Bashir, not Liu himself. But without any correction, it stands as an
assertion that Liu credits. And yet as has been repeatedly reported by
the most senior UN humanitarian officials, Khartoum has engaged in a
systematic campaign of harassment, intimidation, and abuse of
humanitarian workers and officials. This abuse continues to the
present, with humanitarian workers on the ground now facing
unprecedented levels of abuse, intimidation, and other tactics that have
brought morale among these courageous individuals to new lows.
Far from seeking to help humanitarian organizations, al-Bashir and his
junta have gone out of their way to demonize these organizations as
“Zionist” fronts, given to overstating humanitarian problems to
raise money, serving nefarious Western interests, and deliberately
misrepresenting conditions on the ground. These views were more bluntly
expressed by al-Bashir earlier in the crisis, but have not changed in
the interim:
“The charges are the latest by Khartoum against international
humanitarian organisations in the Darfur region. [ ] In October [2004],
Sudanese President Omar el-Beshir launched an attack on aid agencies in
the region, calling them enemies. ‘Organizations operating in Darfur
are the real enemies,’ the president [said]. And earlier in May
[2004], Sudanese Interior Minister Abdul Rahim Hussein accused a number
of aid organizations of supporting ethnic minority rebels in the region,
[claiming] that they ‘used humanitarian operations as a cover for
carrying out a hidden agenda and proved to have supported the rebellion
in the past period.’” (Agence France Presse [dateline: Khartoum],
March 20, 2005)
China of course has said nothing to correct such vicious and ongoing
mendacity by al-Bashir and others in the regime. Nor has China
acknowledged the scale of the humanitarian crisis that Khartoum has
engineered. The most recent UN Darfur Humanitarian Profile (No. 29)
presents the overwhelming statistics (conditions of October 1, 2007;
there has been substantial deterioration in the subsequent five months):
more than 4.2 million conflict-affected persons in need of humanitarian
assistance; a dramatic decline in access to these desperately needy
people since the signing of the ill-conceived and disastrously
consummated Darfur Peace Agreement (May 2006); Global Acute Malnutrition
(GAM) rates rising, with all the areas sampled revealing GAM rates above
the emergency threshold (a significant deterioration over the past
year). This is the context in which Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman
Liu Jianchao recently declared that Beijing “hoped the peace and
development in Darfur can be maintained” (Xinhua [dateline: Beijing],
February 28, 2008).
Even in matters of simple facts about humanitarian efforts in Darfur
the Chinese are peculiarly inaccurate, or content to accept the accounts
of the National Islamic Front. Xinhua ([dateline: Khartoum], February
27, 2008) reports:
“Currently, there are over 17,000 volunteers, including 2,000
foreigners, and more than 200 international aid groups in Darfur to
provide assistance, according to [President al-Bashir].”
In fact, UN Darfur Humanitarian Profile No. 29 reports 13,338
humanitarian staff in Darfur, with 890 expatriate workers. The Profile
also reports 14 UN organizations and 75 nongovernmental organizations,
not “200 international aid groups.” In accepting Khartoum’s
representation of humanitarian conditions and figures defining the
Darfur crisis, China presumably also accepts Khartoum’s adamant
insistence that only 9,000 have died, from all causes, in the course of
more than five years of genocidal counter-insurgency warfare. Certainly
Beijing officials have never challenged this preposterous figure. All
independent assessments of mortality put the figure in the hundreds of
thousands (see my April/May 2006 mortality assessment at
http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article102.html).
CHINA, UN AUTHORITY, AND WEAPONS TRANSFERS TO KHARTOUM
Essential to any understanding of Khartoum’s obduracy is the attitude
of China itself towards both international humanitarian law and the
terms of UN Security Council resolutions. China has not once made
mention of Khartoum’s many well-documented violations of international
law, including massive crimes against humanity, war crimes, and
genocide. Moreover, while continually threatening to veto Security
Council resolutions pertaining to Darfur, and flaunting its power as a
veto-wielding Permanent Member, Beijing feels no obligation to encourage
Khartoum to abide by the demands or terms of resolutions that have come
into effect. Thus although the UN Panel of Experts on Darfur has
repeatedly established Khartoum’s numerous violations of a range of
Security Council resolutions, as have a number of human rights
organizations, the reports of the Panel have had no effect on Chinese
statements or actions (even as the Panel of Experts was itself
established by the UN Security Council). Certainly China’s contempt
for human rights and human rights organizations is well known, something
Beijing shares with the Khartoum junta. But it is especially
destructive of UN authority for an authorized Panel of Experts to be so
systematically ignored by Beijing, even as such behavior is
correspondingly encouraging of Khartoum’s defiance of international
will.
In August 2006, the UN Panel of Experts on Darfur reported that it
had:
“credible information that the Government of the Sudan continues to
support the Janjaweed through the provision of weapons and vehicles. The
Janjaweed/armed militias appear to have upgraded their modus operandi
from horses, camels and AK-47s to land cruisers, pickup trucks and
rocket-propelled grenades. Reliable sources indicate that the Janjaweed
continue to be subsumed into the Popular Defence Force in greater
numbers than those indicated in the previous reports of the Panel. Their
continued access to ammunition and weapons is evident in their ability
to coordinate with the Sudanese armed forces in perpetrating attacks on
villages and to engage in armed conflict with rebel groups.” (Report
of the UN Panel of Experts, August 31, 2006, paragraph 76)
Khartoum’s contempt for various obligations and commitments to the
terms of the Darfur Peace Agreement, as well as to the UN, was further
highlighted in this report by the UN Panel of Experts on Darfur:
“In spite of the clear understanding of its obligations under
Security Council resolution 1591 (2005), at the time of writing this
report [August 31, 2006], the Government of the Sudan still had not
requested approval from the Committee to move weapons, ammunition or
other military equipment into Darfur, thereby knowingly violating the
provisions of the resolution [1591].” (Introductory Summary)
We know that the movement of “weapons, ammunition, and other military
equipment” into Darfur has been massive, and continues to be so.
Indeed, a highly authoritative and well-placed source on the ground in
Darfur reports to this writer (email received February 28, 2008) that a
convoy of some 50 cargo trucks, loaded with weapons and munitions,
recently moved from el-Fasher and Nyala to el-Geneina in West Darfur, as
well as to the Kerenek area, where Chadian rebel groups attempting to
seize power in N’Djamena are being rearmed by Khartoum.
China itself has over the course of the past decade and more been the
primary supplier of weapons to Khartoum, though more recent purchases of
extremely expensive fighter jets (including advanced MiG-29s) and
helicopter gunships from Russia have moved to the forefront of the
regime’s military expenditures. Chinese arms transfers to Sudan,
ultimately for use in Darfur, have been the subject of investigation by
both the UN Panel of Experts on Darfur and Amnesty International.
Amnesty found in May 2007:
“The bulk [of the military and related equipment] was transferred
from China and Russia, two Permanent Members of the Security Council.
The governments of these supplier countries have been, or should have
been, aware through the published and unpublished reports of the UN
Panel of Experts to the UN Sanctions Committee on Sudan as well as the
detailed report by Amnesty International published in November 2004 that
several types of military equipment including aircraft have been
deployed by the Sudanese armed forces and militia for direct attacks on
civilians and indiscriminate attacks in Darfur, as well as for
logistical support for these attacks.”
These aerial attacks on civilian targets are chronicled in immense and
compelling detail in Amnesty’s report, “Sudan: Arms continuing to
fuel serious human rights violations in Darfur,” May 8, 2007, Amnesty
International Index: AFR 54/019/2007. Of particular concern are Chinese
A-5 “Fantan” jets:
“Amnesty International is concerned that the Sudan Air Force has
transferred these [A-5 “Fantan”] jet bombers to Darfur without
authority from the UN Sanctions Committee and is highly likely to use
these newly acquired jets, as it has other aircraft, and the acquisition
of expertise to fly the jets supplied from China, for indiscriminate
attacks in Darfur in violation of the UN arms embargo and international
humanitarian law….”
Amnesty further reports that despite the February 2007 appeal from UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (“I particularly deplore the aerial
bombings by Sudanese government forces, which have expanded to new areas
since 16 January [2007], resulting in more civilians casualties and
suffering”),
“Between January 2007 and March 2007, Chinese A-5 ‘Fantan’ jet
fighters were seen parked at Nyala airport. These aircraft are
specifically designed to be used for ground attack operations. In early
March a large bomb and some green ammunition boxes were seen next to the
jets. In March 2007, a third A-5 ‘Fantan’ jet (reg. number 410) was
seen at Nyala airport.”
Another Amnesty report on China’s international arms transfers,
drawing on the work of the UN Panel of Experts on Darfur, highlights the
shipment to Khartoum of Dong Feng military trucks:
“In Sudan in August 2005 a UN panel, which was investigating
violations of the international arms embargo on Sudan, saw a shipment of
green Dong Feng military trucks in the Port of Sudan. ‘New green
trucks of a similar type were also seen on the Sudanese air force
premises in Darfur in October.’” The investigation found that:
“The Panel had begun a process trace in order to verify the end-user
and final destination of the vehicles that were seen at Port Sudan. The
investigation showed that a total of 222 vehicles (212 military trucks
of model EQ2100E6D and 10 chassis workshop of model EQ1093F6D) were
procured from Dongfeng Automobile Import and Export Limited in China,
makers of military equipment and vehicles. The consignee was the
Ministry of Finance and National Economy of the Sudan. Further reports
received indicated that the vehicles were consigned on behalf of the
Ministry of Defence.” (“People’s Republic of China: Sustaining
conflict and human rights abuses: The flow of arms accelerates,” June
11, 2006, Amnesty International Index: ASA 17/030/2006)
And the end use of such vehicles, duplicitously imported from China?
“Throughout the massacres in Darfur in 2004, Amnesty International
and other human rights monitors noted that military trucks were being
used to transport both Sudanese military and Janjawid militia personnel,
and in some cases to deliver people for extrajudicial execution. In
April 2004, Amnesty International reported the extrajudicial execution
of 168 people from Wadi Saleh, in the west of Darfur, near the Chad
border. The men were seized from 10 villages by a large force of
soldiers, military intelligence officers and Janjawid militiamen,
blindfolded and taken in groups of about 40 in army trucks to an area
behind a hill near Deleij village. They were ordered to lie on the
ground and were shot dead.”
Again, a great percentage of the weapons used in Khartoum’s ongoing
military build-up have entered Darfur in violation of UN Security
Council Resolution 1591 (March 2005), as reported last fall by the UN
Panel of Experts on Darfur (October 3, 2007 Report to the UN Security
Council):
“The Panel of Experts has established that violations of the arms
embargo continued, both by the Government of Sudan and non-State armed
groups.” (page 3)
Just as notable was Khartoum’s open contempt for Resolution 1591, as
reported by the UN Panel of Experts:
“As stated in previous reports of the Panel, in spite of the clear
understanding of its obligations under Security Council resolution 1591
(2005), at the time of writing the present report, the Government of
Sudan had not submitted any requests for approval to the Security
Council Committee established pursuant to that resolution to enable the
movement of weapons, ammunition or other military equipment into Darfur,
thereby knowingly violating the provisions of the resolution.” (page
3)
…“thereby knowingly violating the provisions of the [UN Security
Council] resolution: this is a regime-defining intransigence.
The UN Panel of Experts on Darfur also found that,
“From September 2006 to June 2007, the Government of the Sudan
conducted offensive military overflights in Darfur, which included
aerial bombardments by Antonov aircraft, aerial attacks by Mi-24 attack
helicopters and the use of air assets for military surveillance.
Sixty-six aerial attacks were reported during that period.”
UN Security Council Resolution 1591 explicitly demanded that Khartoum
“immediately cease conducting offensive military flights in and
over the Darfur region” (paragraph 6). And yet since early February
2008 Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships have flown on numerous
missions, with civilians and civilian villages and towns the primary
targets.
China has made no mention of these authoritatively reported aerial
military assaults on civilian targets, assaults that violate not only
the terms of UN Security Council resolutions but explicit provisions of
international humanitarian law.
CHINA AND RESOLUTION 1769, AUTHORIZING THE UN/AU “HYBRID” FORCE
Resolution 1769 (July 2007), authorizing deployment of the present
“hybrid” UN/African Union mission to Darfur (UNAMID), was a
weakened substitute for Resolution 1706 (August 2006). China’s role
in determining the final form of both resolutions is yet again revealing
of just why Khartoum feels so free to ignore the UN and other
international actors, even when those actors—too often
reluctantly—find their voice.
Resolution 1706 authorized, under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, a force
of some 22,500 civilian police and troops with a robust mandate for
civilian and humanitarian protection. The force, with a composition to
have been determined entirely by UN DPKO, was supposed to deployed
“rapidly” and establish a “multidimensional presence” to
“improve the security situation in the neighboring regions along
the borders between the Sudan and Chad and between the Sudan and the
Central African Republic.” Urgently and robustly deployed, such a
force could have done much to avert massive human displacement and
destruction. It could also have very likely forestalled the terrible
cross-border violence between Darfur and Chad that gives every sign of
becoming more dangerous and more destabilizing to the entire region.
But at China’s insistence, language was inserted into the final text
of Resolution 1706 that “invited the consent” of the Khartoum
regime. The “invitation” was resolutely declined, and the UN
Secretariat, as well as many key member states, quickly lost their
nerve. Resolution 1706 was stillborn. China had orchestrated a case
study in “defiance rewarded,” one that continues to inform
Khartoum’s thinking to this day.
Resolution 1769 (July 2007) authorized all that Khartoum could be
brought to agree to: a “hybrid” UN/African Union force of some
26,000 troops and civilian police to protect civilians and
humanitarians. The force was to be “predominantly [not exclusively]
African in character.” China eventually voted for the resolution, but
only after stripping it of a mandate to disarm combatants. More
consequentially, China refused to approve any sanctions measure in the
inevitable event of Khartoum’s non-compliance with the terms of
Resolution 1769 (see above).
UN and other well-placed sources have made clear to this writer that
for most of the time since the passage of Resolution 1769, China has
become more, not less, supportive of Khartoum’s broad defiance of the
international community, including obstructing the deployment of UNAMID.
In its most recent statements, feeling the pressure of advocacy
campaigns—particularly the “Genocide Olympics” campaign—China
has made some of the right noises publicly. Recently Liu Guijin told
Xinhua that “the Sudan government should cooperate better with the
international community and demonstrate greater flexibility on some
technical issues” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], February 24, 2008).
“Technical issues” is of course a Chinese euphemism for Khartoum’s
conspicuous and relentless obstruction of UNAMID. But it is unclear how
forcefully Beijing has delivered these words to the regime in Khartoum.
Chinese leaders are feeling the heat from Darfur advocacy, but at the
same time give many signs of believing that a good propaganda campaign
can substitute for real pressure on National Islamic Front
génocidaires.
Certainly there can be no doubt that Khartoum’s defiance has brought
deployment of UN-authorized forces to a near standstill, even as it
continues to impede humanitarian aid delivery and has resumed
scorched-earth civilian clearances in West Darfur. And in this ongoing
obstruction of UNAMID lies the danger that the entire UN/African Union
mission will finally be aborted, precipitating a collapse in security
throughout Darfur. As Jean-Marie Guéhenno, head of UN peacekeeping,
asked last November, “‘Do we move ahead with the deployment of a force
that will not make a difference, that will not have the capability to
defend itself, and that carries the risk of humiliation of the Security
Council and the United Nations, and tragic failure for the people of
Darfur?’” (Reuters [dateline: UN/New York], November 27, 2007).
This is a question that of course answers itself. But China’s
ongoing support for and protection of the Khartoum regime daily gives
this question greater force. It takes great confidence to engage in
long-term genocide before the world’s eyes. China—diplomatically,
economically, militarily—has done far too much to provide Khartoum
with that confidence. If the world community wants the genocide to end,
the Chinese regime must be made to understand that it will lose more by
helping to perpetuate the horror in Darfur than it will gain by
supporting Khartoum.
* Eric Reeves is author of A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide. He can be reached at [email protected]. www.sudanreeves.org