Many in U.S. Back UN use of force to halt Sudan ‘Genocide’
WASHINGTON, July 20, 2004 (IPS) — Amid reports that Sudan has directed the recruitment and arming of Arab militias waging a “scorched-earth” campaign against African tribes in the province of Darfur, a new poll shows many U.S. citizens feel the U.S. should back a United Nations declaration threatening the use of force against the alleged “genocide”.
The poll comes one day after international human rights groups released reports that detailed atrocities that have forced more than one million black Africans from their homes, and linked Khartoum to the Arab ‘Janjaweed’ (“men on horseback”).
According to Amnesty International, the Janjaweed are using rape “as a weapon of war” against their female victims.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) released government documents it said came from civilian authorities in Darfur, and show the government and Janjaweed working hand in hand to expel the area’s African tribes.
“It’s absurd to distinguish between the Sudanese government forces and the militias — they are one,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of HRW’s Africa division. “These documents show that militia activity has not just been condoned, it’s been specifically supported by Sudan government officials.”
The reports come amid indications the U.S. electorate may be more inclined to support military intervention than generally assumed.
According to a poll released here Tuesday by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), nearly 70 percent of the U.S. public said that if the United Nations should determine that “genocide” were occurring in Darfur, then Washington should contribute troops to a U.N. force to stop it. Only 19 percent were opposed.
The survey, carried out July 9-15, found that those who were more knowledgeable about the situation in Darfur tended to support taking stronger action. But it also found that only 14 percent of respondents said they had heard “a lot” or “some” about the situation in Darfur. Just over one-half said they had heard nothing at all.
“It appears that the regrets about failing to act in response to the Rwanda genocide may be influencing Americans”, said Steven Kull, PIPA’s executive director. “Even with the U.S. stretched in Iraq, a majority of Americans say they are willing to contribute a share of the troops to try to stabilise the situation in Darfur — a number that would likely grow if the U.N. declared what is occurring there to be a genocide”.
The survey found that respondents were inclined to believe that genocide was indeed taking place. Presented with two positions to describe what is happening in Darfur, only 25 percent endorsed the view that it was “just a civil war between the government and people in a resistant region that happen to be of a different ethnic group”.
A majority of 56 percent took the position that what is taking place in the area, where “a million black African Darfuris have been driven into the desert by Arab militias who have destroyed their farms and prevented them from receiving relief”, is genocide.
The Amnesty report, which is based on the testimony of hundreds of victims and witnesses, said that girls as young as eight years old had been raped and used as sex slaves in what the United Nations has repeatedly called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Other observers, such as the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) and Africa Action, have labelled the situation in Darfur, “genocide.”
“Women and girls are being attacked, not only to dehumanise the women themselves but also to humiliate, punish, control, inflict fear and displace women and to persecute the community to which they belong,” said the Amnesty report, ‘Rape as a Weapon of War.’.
The latest reports come as peace talks mediated by the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa between Khartoum and two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), collapsed last weekend after the latter set a series of preconditions for negotiations to go forward, including the government’s disarmament of the Janjaweed and the removal of their members who have been absorbed into the police and army.
They also demanded an inquiry into allegations of genocide, the release of prisoners of war and a “neutral” venue for future talks that did not include Ethiopia. The government rejected the demands as “unacceptable.”
Khartoum, which has been under increasing pressure from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, both of whom visited Darfur late last month, insisted Monday it was taking action to bring the militias under control, both by sending into the region hundreds of regular soldiers and police and convening trials against selected militia members.
How serious the government is about curbing the militias, either through the deployment of forces or through making examples of some Janjaweed members, remains unclear. The ‘Washington Post’ reported on Sunday, for example, that a top Janjaweed leader, Musa Hilal, was living openly in Khartoum, apparently unmolested by the government.
Indeed, one of the documents obtained by HRW alluded directly to Hilal calling on “all security units” in North Darfur not to intervene against militia controlled by him. The document “highlights the importance of non-interference so as not to question their authority,” and authorises security units in a North Darfur province to “overlook minor offences by the fighters against civilians who are suspected members of the rebellion.”
The violence in Darfur has its roots in the competition for land and resources between Arab tribes, which are mainly herders, and the African population, mostly peasants living in settled villages and towns.
In 2002, the Janjaweed stepped up raids on the African population. Angry that the government was not protecting them against such attacks, the two rebel groups retaliated against a government garrison, killing more than 70 soldiers.
At that point, Khartoum launched its counter-insurgency campaign, much of which was carried out on the ground by the newly supplied Janjaweed, purportedly backed by government forces and warplanes.
More than one million people were forced to flee their homes; about 200,000 of them crossed the border into neighbouring Chad, while the rest were internally displaced. Most of the latter have now been herded into overcrowded and unsanitary camps that lack adequate medical care, food supplies and even physical security.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) warned in May that even if humanitarian agencies are granted complete and unimpeded access to the camps and those who remain displaced, at least 300,000 people are almost certain to die by the end of the year.
More than 30,000 people are believed to have been killed in the government’s counter-insurgency campaign, and hundreds more are reported dying every week from malnutrition or disease.
While neither Amnesty International nor HRW has yet labelled the situation in Darfur “genocide” — a determination that would require signers of the Genocide Treaty, including the United States, to intervene with force, if necessary — both have agreed that war crimes and crimes against humanity are taking place there.