Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | The UN’s outspoken criticism of Sudan comes amid renewed international pressure on Sudan. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last month summoned a former Sudanese interior minister, now in charge of the humanitarian affairs portfolio, on war crimes charges. |
Implications | International reaction to the UN report highlights wider inconsistencies in the international community’s response to the Darfur crisis. Some representatives on the 47-member UN Human Rights Council are refusing to back the findings of the report, claiming that not all members of the council participated in the mission. |
Outlook | Although the report underlines the urgent need for humanitarian protection in Darfur, the mission also highlights the mammoth diplomatic barriers that are hindering a successful resolution of the Darfur conflict; Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party will once again be heartened by the limbo that has permitted the country’s continued violation of international humanitarian law. |
Talk the Talk
A UN human rights mission led by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Jody Williams, yesterday branded the situation in Sudan’s Darfur province as one characterised by “gross and systematic violations of human rights and grave breaches of international humanitarian law". The authors of the mission, who were refused access to Darfur, were forced to conduct their work in Abeche in neighbouring Chad. Sprawling refugee camps in Chad are now home to an estimated 1.5 million refugees, who have fled the onslaught by government supported militias—loosely branded as the Janjawid—and increased violence between Darfur’s fragmented and rag-tag rebel groups. The report went on to say that Sudan’s government has failed in its basic duty to offer protection to civilians in Darfur, but has rather acted in “concert with Janjawid militia, including the violations of human rights”. The UN’s most recent rebuke, although perhaps more fiery than other UN findings, offers nothing new.
The UN’s Bertrand Ramcharan branded the situation in Darfur as the world’s worse humanitarian catastrophe as far back as 2004; more than three years since, and despite the much-touted Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) of May 2006, the violence continues unabated. It was no coincidence that Ramcharan’s participation in the latest mission was cited as the cause of Sudan’s decision not allow the UN team access to Darfur. According to Sudan’s foreign ministry spokesman, Ramcharan was known for his “hostility against Sudan” (see Sudan: 15 February 2007: UN Human Rights Mission Denied Sudan Visa). While there is agreement that the humanitarian situation in Darfur is unsustainable, there is far less consensus as to how best to rein in Sudan’s bellicose president and his ruling NCP, whose senior members and security chiefs have already been implicated in war crimes in Darfur (see Sudan: 2 November 2006: Darfur At a Crossroads).
Although Sudan has apparently agreed to a hybrid UN and African Union (AU) peacekeeping contingent, it continues to drag its feet, heartened by the unwillingness of the international community to hold Sudan accountable for its catalogue of failures. In a letter sent this weekend by President Omar al-Bashir to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, Bashir backtracked on the UN deployment issue, repeating his mantra that the UN would only be allowed to provide the AU force with “technical and financial assistance and "military consultants with ranks below that of the military commander appointed by the African Union". Bashir took particular offence to a section in the original deal stating that, "full UN involvement in command and control would be a prerequisite for UN funding and troop contribution". The Sudanese president has portrayed plans to deploy UN peacekeepers to Darfur within the prism of the west’s encroachment into the Arab and Islamic worlds. His rhetoric has found a receptive audience, especially among some representatives within the UN’s human rights mission, who are at the forefront of efforts to obstruct the delivery of the report to the UN Security Council, slated to take place this Friday (16 March 2007). Indonesia’s ambassador, Makarim Wibisono, withdrew from the mission last month, joining the chorus of criticism by some levelled against the UN mission.
Outlook and Implications
The report describes the international response to Darfur as “inadequate and ineffective”; these inadequacies are driven by conflicting political interests that have prevented the international community from adopting a common voice aimed at reining in the military junta in Sudan. The argument that a UN deployment is an attempt to encroach on Sudan’s resources and plunder the wealth of an Islamic nation is highly disingenuous as nearly all the victims of the conflict are Muslims. It is, however, equally important to note that Darfur’s rebel groups, chiefly the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) must also be held accountable for the catalogue of war crimes committed in Darfur. The Janjawid do not have the monopoly over violence, with rebel groups themselves responsible for rapes, killings, banditry and the use of child soldiers, all of which are fuelling the violence in Darfur.
The options available in ending the violence in Darfur remain limited. Growing calls for targeted sanctions against NCP officials are likely to be vetoed by China and Russia. The United States, despite its commitment to a more robust international presence in Darfur, lacks the appetite for a potentially messy entanglement in western Sudan. The report offers a reminder of the gravity of the situation in Darfur and underlines the impotence of the international community in its attempts to deal with a situation described as among the world’s worse humanitarian catastrophes.