[Peace-discuss] Darfur: Never again?

[Lisa Chason]

Darfur: Never again?
 
As the world prepares to commemorate Holocaust Day, crimes against
humanity are still being committed in Darfur while diplomats bicker
 
By Anne Penketh

26 January 2005 



The attackers, as they have done so often, rampaged through terrified
people, shouting "kill the slaves". They cried: "We have orders to kill
all the blacks". Eight more villages in Darfur were torched in a single
day by armed men in a concerted operation. No one knows how many were
killed, but it is the latest evidence that inaction by the international
community has emboldened the Janjaweed Arab militias and their backers
in the Islamist government in Khartoum.

As arguments rage over who was to blame for the attacks five days ago,
the UN is deciding whether the atrocities of the past two years amount
to genocide. Human rights organisations are using the occasion of
Holocaust Day tomorrow to call for international war trials to help stop
the crimes still being committed against the civilians of Darfur.

Here are the facts. More than 70,000 people have been killed. More than
1.6 million have been forced from their homes in a conflict that has
been described as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis". The
continuing violence has been so intense that international aid agencies
have been forced to suspend their work after coming under attack.

While the diplomats debate how to respond, the survivors of the
atrocities are left traumatised, many in refugee camps. More than 60 per
cent of refugees from Darfur have witnessed the killing of a family
member by the men on horseback. Four out of every five people have
witnessed the destruction of their villages. Two-thirds saw government
planes laden with bombs target fleeing civilians. One-third heard racial
abuse while they and their relatives were being murdered or raped.

After the Rwandan genocide in 1994, just as after the Holocaust when six
million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis, the world said "never
again". Now, there is Darfur.

Efforts to bring Sudan before the International Criminal Court - a move
theoretically backed by the UK - have been undermined by the Bush
administration's hostility to the court which was specifically set up to
judge those suspected of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The United States has, at least, publicly branded these atrocities as
genocide. The British Government has refused to do so, preferring to
wait for the conclusions of an international commission of inquiry which
reported back to the UN secretary general yesterday.

The four-man panel, led by the Italian jurist, Antonio Cassese, was
asked to investigate the Darfur killings, determine whether genocide had
occurred and to identify perpetrators with a view to holding them
accountable. Kofi Annan is expected to submit the report to the UN
Security Council next Monday, when debate will be engaged between
supporters of the International Criminal Court and its main detractor,
the United States, which went so far as to unsign the treaty setting up
the tribunal.

The slaughter, ethnic cleansing and burning of villages began two years
ago. In July last year the Bush administration called it genocide, a
term with legal connotations under the genocide convention which makes
it imperative to act.

For the Blair government, a founding member of the International
Criminal Court which has nailed its colours to the mast on Africa during
its presidency of the G8 leading industrialised countries, it will be a
moment to decide whether to stand up to the Bush administration. Not
only has Tony Blair famously described Africa as "a scar on the
conscience of the world," he has set up an Africa Commission to provide
solutions for the continent during the British G8 presidency.

With a general election looming, the Government's reaction to the ruling
of the UN commission of inquiry will be an acid test of its independence
from the right-wing agenda of the Bush administration.

According to the head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, if Britain
looks for a compromise with Washington, it risks killing the court.

The report now on Mr Annan's desk may fudge the issue of genocide, which
according to the textbooks is "the intentional destruction, in whole or
in part, of a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such".
But human rights advocates maintain that genocide or not, the Security
Council must rule that crimes against humanity were, and are, being
committed and must be referred to the international court for
prosecution.

Privately, British diplomats welcome intervention by the international
court. But the test for Britain will be on whether it caves in to US
pressure for a ill-defined "ad hoc" tribunal for Sudan.

Such proposals are opposed by human rights organisations who say the
International Criminal Court is the only place for the Sudanese suspects
to be tried. Even the outgoing US ambassador to the United Nations, John
Danforth, who was instrumental in pressing for UN sanctions against
Khartoum, had pressed for a referral to the International Criminal Court
before being overruled by the hawks in Washington.

"I do not know whether the international commission will determine there
was genocide, which requires the evidence to be weighed very carefully,"
said Juan Mendez, the special adviser to the UN secretary general on the
prevention of genocide.

"But I am persuaded there were war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed in Darfur, with a clear ethnic dimension. I will respect the
view of the commission, but in my view these crimes merit international
punishment, and the best scenario for that is the International Criminal
Court."

For the British genocide-prevention group, Aegis Trust, there is no
argument. "Was the killing intentional? Yes," it said in a report issued
less than two months ago. "Was it systematically organised by the
al-Bashir regime using govern- ment-armed Janjaweed militias, bombers
and helicopter gunships? Yes. Were the victims chosen because of their
ethnic and racial identity? Yes.

"This, in short, is genocide. The genocide continues."

At present, in Darfur, 790 African Union soldiers are ensuring the
protection of "ceasefire monitors" in an area the size of France, where
they have no mandate to protect civilians as the war goes on.

The Security Council, despite threatening sanctions four months ago
against the Sudanese government, has done nothing, preferring to allow
the African Union to take the lead in a hopelessly under-equipped
mission. The council is bitterly divided, with the veto-wielding powers
Russia and China opposed to punitive action.

The Sudanese government may be hoping the world is preoccupied with the
next humanitarian disaster: the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami that
killed more than 200,000 people across south Asia.

But for Britain, as a powerful member of the UN Security Council, the
moment of truth is now at hand.

DARFUR TWO YEARS OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

March 2003 Fighting breaks out in Darfur between government forces and
rebels. Refugees start fleeing into Chad

January 2004 Aid agencies' response begins in earnest to help thousands
of displaced

2 April UN says "scorched-earth" campaign of ethnic cleansing by
Janjaweed militias against Darfur's black African population is taking
place

4 May UN officials describe Darfur as one of the worst humanitarian
crises in the world

7 May Two human rights reports find Sudanese government and Arab
militias carrying out massive human rights violations which "may
constitute war crimes and/or crimes against humanity"

5 August UN signs agreement with Sudanese government committing Khartoum
to take detailed steps in next 30 days to disarm Janjaweed

September UN announces Khartoum has not disarmed the Janjaweed or
stopped attacking civilians. US Secretary of State Colin Powell
describes Darfur killings as "genocide"

18 September Security Council threatens sanctions against Khartoum and
requests UN set up genocide inquiry 

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=604617

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