First test for the African Union
By Modibo Goita, The Bitterlemons-international
August 22, 2004 — The creation of the African Union in July 2001 in Zambia provoked many expectations. Some people said “Africa is back”; others added that there will never be a repetition of the Rwandan genocide. In fact there were good reasons to be optimistic, because the AU became the first regional organization to assert its own right to intervene in the territory of a member state in cases like genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Further, an organ called the Peace and Security Council (PSC) was set up in order to establish an African rapid reaction force of 25,000 soldiers for the purpose of peacekeeping and peacemaking operations and restoring law and order.
The conflict in Darfur is a test as to whether the AU can and will implement its commitments. Sudan, the largest African state, has a federal structure; it is a multi-ethnic country with a population of 37.1 million. Civil war has been raging for many years; in Darfur it broke out in February 2003, between two rebels group–the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)–and a Sudanese army- and government-backed Arab militia called the janjaweed, a term deriving from the Arabic for “devils on horseback”.
The consequences have been tragic for the civilian population. Many NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other UN groups have denounced the Sudanese armed forces and the janjaweed for attacks against civilians: killing, sexual abuses, destruction of livestock. The US Congress qualified the attacks by the Arab janjaweed militia against the non-Arab black African villagers as genocide. The UN says up to 50,000 people have died, over 1.2 million have been displaced, and more than 180,000 have fled into neighboring Chad as a result of the Darfur conflict. Even the Sudanese government recognizes that killing has taken place, but says the figure does not exceed 5,000.
Even if some observers attached electoral motives to the visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell, he nevertheless qualified the situation as a “catastrophe” and stressed that Khartoum must take responsibility. The visit of French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier and the deployment of forces and sending of humanitarian aid can be explained by their concern to avoid the submergence of a close ally, Chad, under the flow of refugees.
On July 30, the United Nations Security Council (with the assent of African members Algeria, Angola and Benin) denounced “large scale violations of human and humanitarian rights, indiscriminate attacks on civilians, sexual violence, forced displacement and acts of violence, especially those with an ethnic dimension”. These are considered under international law as acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes. Moreover, the resolution required the government of Sudan to comply within one month; otherwise further measures would be considered.
This resolution provides a basic legal justification for the AU to change its position and take decisive action.
Yet, whereas the UN considers the conflict in Darfur as the world’s worst current humanitarian catastrophe, the Assembly of the African Union noted in its decision on July 8, “even though the humanitarian situation in Darfur is serious, it can not be defined as genocide”. This explains why no African state has openly condemned what is going on in Darfur. It is reminiscent of the same tragic silence that met the Rwandan genocide. The Arab League, too, must be questioned on the meaning of its readiness to “give more time” to the Sudanese government to end the conflict. Libya has taken a neutral position by hosting informal talks between government and rebel groups and sending humanitarian aid. Egypt has kept a low profile.
We must also question the effectiveness of the deployment on August 14 of some 154 Rwandan troops and their military equipment in Darfur as part of a “308-strong African contingent” mandated by the AU to protect the 80 observers monitoring a ceasefire. The time has come to ask what more must be done, insofar as the Sudanese government refuses to accept the presence of any kind of peacekeeping force.
The African Union, like any other international organization, is a product of the will of its member states. Now is the time for the AU to take decisive action or to lose its credibility.
Two solutions may be considered: first, the creation of “UN safe havens” protected by a multinational peacekeeping force; and second, the dispatch of an international peacemaking force with a strong mandate, as in the case of Operation Artemis, undertaken on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 1484 of May 30, 2003, which authorized a group of states led by France to use military force in order to stop atrocities in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.- Published 19/8/2004 (c) bitterlemons-international.org
Modibo Goita is professor of law and international relations at the Panafrican General Staff College, Koulikoro, Mali. He is also a researcher at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden.