The Crisis in Darfur: How much more do we know?

Refugee Rights News
Volume 1, Issue 1
October 2004

Last month a group of human rights NGOs from all across Africa met in Pretoria to discuss the human rights crisis in Darfur, Western Sudan. The occasion was the Third Extraordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR)—only the second time in the Commission’s history that it has met to consider an urgent human rights issue. As the Commission began its discussions in private session, NGOs from the region, alongside representatives of civil society from Darfur, worked together to identify a coordinated strategy to respond to what some are calling the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today.

Massive Displacement

Over the last nineteen months widespread and systematic violations of human rights have forced over almost two million people from their homes in Darfur. Over 1.7 million people are estimated to be internally displaced and almost two hundred thousand are living precariously as refugees in Chad. As many as seventy thousand are dead. The government of Sudan has been accused of permitting its own forces to collaborate with local militia, referred to as the Janjaweed, to carry out deliberate killings and forcible movements of the population. With widespread destruction of homes and property a hallmark of the attacks, there appears to be a concerted effort to ensure that communities are permanently displaced from their villages. A particularly horrific element of the violence has reportedly been the use of rape against women and girls as a weapon of war and ethnic cleansing.

Some of those who have voiced criticism of the actions of the Sudanese army and
security forces have been arrested and tortured. Among the group of NGO representatives who met in South Africa was human rights activist Salih Mahmoud Osman of the Sudan Organization Against Torture (SOAT). He had been released from prison only weeks prior to traveling to South Africa, having spent seven months in jail.

African Union Barks?

The African Union (AU) has been playing an active role in trying to find a solution to the crisis in Darfur. It has brokered a ceasefire, secured a humanitarian access agreement, and deployed a small contingent of military observers. It is also sponsoring ongoing peace negotiations through the Inter Sudanese Peace Talks in Abuja under the patronage of the Nigerian President.

The AU military presence on the ground in Darfur, however, is extremely limited: it is
hard pressed to effectively monitor the ceasefire and has neither the capacity nor the mandate to protect civilians. At the end of July the AU Peace and Security Council urged the Government of Sudan to permit an increase in the number of troops and an extension of the mission mandate to include protection of civilians.

But the AU did not insist on the more robust mission. It was only in mid-September, as negotiations over a new resolution on the situation in Darfur got under way at the UN Security Council, that Sudan indicated that it would consider an enlarged mission. Eventually, the Security Council obliged the Sudanese government to work with the AU on an expanded mandate in Resolution No. 1564.

Is It Genocide?

The character and scale of the violence in Darfur and the grave humanitarian situation facing the displaced have begun to focus the attention of those outside the region. On May 2004 the Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights informed the Security Council said that he had found of “patterns of massive human rights violations…perpetrated by the Government of Sudan and its proxy militia, many of which may constitute war crimes, and or crimes against humanity.” A number of international human rights and humanitarian organizations have gone so far as to characterize the situation in Darfur as genocide. In September, further to an unprecedented investigation on the ground in the refugee camps in Chad, the United States was the first government to assess that “genocide has been committed in Darfur.” The European Parliament followed suit.

A plethora of UN and NGO assessments of the situation on the ground in Darfur have now been carried out, led by key officials such as the UN Special Rapporteur on Internally Displaced Persons, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the newly appointed UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide and the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. But the response has in many ways been “all talk and no action.”

The first decisive action came only on July 30, over a year after the violence first began, when the Security Council called on Sudan to disarm the implicated Janjaweed militia and fully protect civilians. The government was told that non-compliance would result in sanctions. A second UN Security Resolution on September 18, however, failed to follow through on the threat. Although the Security Council found that “the Government of Sudan ha[d] not fully met its obligations” no sanctions were imposed. One positive outcome of the resolution, however, was the announcement in early October of a Commission to investigate the allegations of genocide in Darfur. Headed by Judge Cassese of Italy, the Commission is charged with reporting to the Secretary General within three months.

Not Enough

The increased international spotlight on Darfur has certainly resulted in some improvement in the lives of civilians, particularly in the quality of access to the displaced by humanitarian agencies. Further, in the immediate wake of the second Security Council Resolution aerial bombardments and raids by Janjaweed forces on Darfur villages reportedly reduced. Over the last two weeks there are indications, however, that the violence is again escalating. On the humanitarian side, programs remain less than 50% funded. The suffering of the forcibly displaced, both inside Sudan and across the border is Chad, continues to be acute. As High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour commented on her return from Sudan: “IDPs in Darfur are living in prisons without walls.”

The Political Realities

The government of Sudan has strongly resisted any international criticism of its inability to protect the people of Darfur. The qualification of the crisis by the US and others in the international community as founded in “genocide” has created an opportunity for Sudan to characterize and dismiss denouncements of its actions as rooted in politics rather than in objective assessment.

The vigorous campaign by civil society groups in the United States to have the crisis determined a “genocide” has provided rich fodder for some outside the US to characterize the determination as ideologically driven. The fact that leading the effort has been a coalition from the evangelical Christian and Jewish communities has particularly attracted comment. In today’s highly polarized political climate, the presentation of the conflict as fuelled by Arab v. African enmity has permitted the Government of Sudan and others to skillfully exploit fissures in international society.

The success of this strategy is clear. The European Union, and states such as China and Russia have been reluctant to follow the US lead in using the “g” word. The African Union has specifically stated that it has found no evidence that genocide has been committed. So too states in North Africa and the League of Arab States have been unable to take a public position—or to release their report on the situation.

The question as to whether genocide is unfolding in Darfur has unquestionably raised the stakes. How do states view the obligations to act which might flow from such a determination? Some suggest that the very vehemence of the United States’ position has triggered automatic recoil on the part of some from considering the matter further. The war in Iraq has intensified distrust of America’s foreign policy positions. Also complicating the international response may be concerns about access to oil exports—a suggested motivation behind the reluctance of some Security Council members to sanction stronger measures against Sudan.

The Response of African Civil Society

Non-governmental organizations working with human rights, refugees and the forcibly displaced in Africa are deeply concerned about the situation in Darfur. At a conference of NGOs on refugee protection in the Great Lakes region in April, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Rwanda exodus in 1994, discussions of the lessons of inaction in the face of the Rwanda tragedy put the unfolding Darfur crisis into stark relief. Delegates urged key African Union institutions to deploy “a high level mission, comprised of AU and OHCHR representatives, to investigate ethnic cleansing and the possible commission of international crimes committed in Darfur state.”

Since April, discussions between civil society groups have continued, culminating in the meeting in Pretoria last month. The meeting saw a clear commitment on the part of those assembled to take concerted action on Darfur. Despite a host of reporting on the crisis, representatives in South Africa noted that there had been no independent African civil society analysis of the crisis in Darfur. It was pointed out that such an assessment might help to breakthrough the stasis created by the current polarized political environment. It would also provide the basis for more effective joint advocacy before the African Union institutions. How the new NGO consortium moves forward over the next month may herald a new departure in civil society cooperation around the protection of the displaced on the continent. And maybe a foray into Darfur could make this attempt a reality.