Africa Action Talking Points on How to Stop Genocide in Darfur, Sudan

April 8, 2008

Nothing short of an international intervention will stop the genocide in Darfur. Africa Action calls on the U.S. to do everything necessary to secure the rapid deployment of the complete peacekeeping operation authorized by United Nation Security Council Resolution 1769 to protect civilians and humanitarian efforts. This must be coupled with new diplomatic efforts to engage Darfuri civil society with rebel groups and the Sudanese government in a political peace process.

The U.S. and the international community must pursue both these strategies as part of a comprehensive approach to nationwide peace for Sudan. This will require increased diplomatic engagement to support the implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the North-South civil war. A coherent Sudan policy by the U.S should address marginalization in Sudan's hotspots outside Darfur including Abyei, Southern Kordofan, Eastern Sudan, and the far North of the country.

To download a printable PDF version of the latest Africa Action Talking Points with current policy recommendations and a detailed explanation of why the crisis in Darfur is genocide, click here. Complete references are included in the PDF.

CONTENTS

1. What is Genocide?
   
   
2. What is Happening in Darfur is Genocide
   
   
3. The Humanitarian Crisis
   
   
4. The Hybrid African Union/UN peacekeeping force UNAMID must be fully resourced and fully deployed
   
   
5. The U.S. and the UN Recognize the Crisis, But Fail to Take Necessary Action
   
   
6. A Serious Sudan Policy Must Be Comprehensive - Nationally and Regionally
   
   
7. What the U.S. Should Do

• The end of the fifth year of genocide in Darfur has seen a return to the type and intensity of government-led violence that characterized the early days of the genocide in 2003 and 2004. This February saw a series of brutal attacks on villages and internally displaced person (IDP) camps in West Darfur by Antonov aircraft, helicopter gunships and horse-mounted militia accompanied by Sudanese troops and land vehicles. [2]
  
  
• Genocide in Darfur has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. As the violence worsens, recent estimates from the UN, compiled by Eric Reeves, place the number of conflict-affected people in Darfur and eastern Chad at around 4.7 million. [3] According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, up to 5.8 million people are displaced throughout all of Sudan (including individuals affected by both the North-South civil war and the Darfur conflict). [4] The UN reports that at least 280,000 people were newly displaced from Darfur in 2007 and already nearly 80,000 individuals have been newly displaced in Darfur since the beginning of 2008, including 58,000 from West Darfur displaced by violence in February. [5] Rahma Mohammed Ibrahim, Darfur Coordinator for the Sudanese Red Crescent and other analysts warn of serious danger of famine in the near future for Darfur unless the situation changes. [6]
  
  
• Security is Essential for Humanitarian Efforts. Adequate humanitarian assistance cannot be provided to vulnerable and displaced groups in Darfur without military protection. For years, but particularly since last summer, the government of Sudan has deliberately restricted the operations of humanitarian organizations and created a dangerous environment for aid workers. Along with the tactic of forcibly evicting people from IDP camps, this restriction and harassment constitutes a strategy of genocide by attrition, designed to complement Khartoum's more brazen direct assaults on civilians. A continued collapse of aid operations will jeopardize additional hundreds of thousands of lives in Darfur. The reports of many aid agencies reflect the assessment of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) that access to displaced and in-need communities is far lower today for humanitarian workers than it was in 2004. On March 26, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Darfur warned that attacks on humanitarians in Western Darfur had reached "unprecedented levels." [7]

• As the genocide continues in Darfur, stopping the genocide and protecting the people of Darfur must be the first priority of the international community. There is a clear international consensus that a robust peacekeeping force is needed in Darfur.
  
  
• In September 2005, member states of the UN affirmed an international "responsibility to protect" civilians from genocide and crimes against humanity. The response to Darfur now tests this principle.
  
  
• A peacekeeping intervention would serve four critical purposes: (1) stop the killings, rapes and pillaging in Darfur and enforce a cease-fire; (2) provide security to facilitate urgent humanitarian assistance programs; (3) create stable conditions conducive to political negotiations; and (4) ultimately facilitate the voluntary return of displaced people to their land by providing a secure environment.
  
  
• In August 2006, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 1706, authorizing a robust peacekeeping operation with a mandate to use force to protect civilians and humanitarian workers. The government of Sudan opposed this force, and it never hit the ground. It was the first time in history that a USNC authorized peacekeeping mission failed to deploy.
  
  
• On July 31, 2007, the UNSC passed a second resolution authorizing the creation of a combined UN and African Union (AU) hybrid force that on December 31, 2007 replaced the poorly supported African Union peacekeeping force that had been in Darfur since 2004. The new mission, known as UNAMID, is supposed to be equipped with greater resources to protect civilians and humanitarian workers and to oversee implementation of a tenuous peace agreement or facilitate future negotiations.
  
  
• As of April 2008, only around 9,000 of the 26,000 peacekeepers and supporting personnel authorized for UNAMID are on the ground in Darfur. The vast majority of these forces were African Union troops that were simply "re-hatted" to UN uniforms when UNAMID took over. Along other neglected issues of the force's capacity, the international community has only provided a handful of the two dozen transport and tactical helicopters meeting UN standards that UNAMID requires to fulfill its mandate.
  
  
• In the past Khartoum has purported to "accept" peacekeepers in the interest of political expediency, only to renege on its promises. Characteristically, the Sudanese government initially consented to Resolution 1769 but has thrown up a series of obstacles to the complete deployment of the force, including a direct attack by Sudanese Armed Forces on a UNAMID convoy earlier this year. [8] Khartoum must be held to account, and the full 26,000 peacekeepers and support staff authorized for UNAMID must be deployed immediately, along with all necessary equipment and vehicles.
  
  
• One form of obstruction by the government of Sudan has been to insist that only African troops be deployed to UNAMID, despite the clear language in Resolution 1769 that the operation is to consist of international troops with "a predominately," but not exclusively, "African character." While African soldiers should play a key role in any peacekeeping mission on the continent, the African Union is young, and AU troops lack the robust technical capabilities and sophisticated equipment necessary to stop the ongoing genocide by themselves.
  
  
• With over a dozen African countries volunteering peacekeeper contributions to the new hybrid force, sheer manpower is not the problem. As Romeo Dallaire stated in an open letter to the UNAMID commander, "It is beyond dispute that African states themselves simply cannot provide nearly 20,000 qualified troops (nor enough police). UNAMID needs attack helicopters, engineers. . .communications and other capabilities that African states also cannot provide."
  
  
• Diverse multinational participation is important because genocide is not an "African problem" but a global crisis that requires a global solution. [9] The international community must not set up UNAMID for failure by failing to provide the support it requires and then blaming the African Union for a disaster that is the responsibility of the entire world.

• The United Nations' International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur delivered its report to then UN Secretary-General Annan in January 2005. The report found that the Sudanese government has committed major crimes under international law, including a pattern of mass killings, rape, pillage and forced displacement and that these constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
  
  
• Although the report provided ample evidence of genocidal intent and actions on the part of the Sudanese government, the commission concluded that it did not find a government policy of genocide in Darfur. This hearkens back to the time of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, when the international community dodged the term "genocide" to avoid the obligations that such a serious charge would invoke.
  
  
• The U.S. is the only government to have publicly acknowledged that what is happening in Darfur constitutes genocide. On September 9, 2004, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that, "genocide has been committed in Darfur, and that the government of Sudan and the Janjawid bear responsibility." The White House issued a statement the same day confirming this determination.
  
  
• At the same time as he acknowledged that genocide was being carried out in Darfur, Powell also defied logic, stating, "no new action is dictated by this determination."
  
  
• U.S. policy towards Sudan is marked by three competing policy priorities: (1) support for the government of national unity as part of the North-South peace process; (2) intelligence-sharing with the Sudanese government as part of the so-called 'war on terror'; and (3) ending the genocide in Darfur.
  
  
• In June 2007, the L.A. Times exposed the extensive collaboration between the U.S. and Sudan in the "war on terror," as Sudan is reported to provide intelligence on the insurgency in Iraq. Furthermore, a U.S. State Department report from April 2007 praised Sudan as a "strong partner in the War on Terror." [10] The U.S. inability to stand firm on a clear message of opposition to genocide has undermined the global response on Darfur and contributed to the stalling of the Sudanese government.
  
  
• The U.S. has provided generous humanitarian aid in Darfur, and it has engaged in efforts to support the peace process, but it can do more to press the government of Sudan to participate in peace negotiations in good faith and to abide by ceasefire agreements. Overall, U.S. actions remain wholly inadequate in response to genocide, and the United States has failed to commit to a successful strategy to protect civilians in Darfur and to make Darfur a foreign policy priority.

• Khartoum's strategy of counterinsurgency by genocide in Darfur erupted in 2003 while international attention, particularly that of the U.S., was narrowly focused on supporting peace negotiations to end the decades long North-South civil war. While the U.S. was instrumental in facilitating the negotiations that led to the breakthrough 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended that conflict, this success came at the expense of allowing another deadly crisis to emerge in Darfur.
  
  
• Since 2005, the U.S. has inverted this flawed, piecemeal approach to Sudan by giving increasing lip service to protecting the people of Darfur while totally ignoring the warning signs that the CPA is in danger of collapse. [11] Without the engagement of the international community, critical aspects of the agreement have not been implemented, Although the CPA is not truly a "comprehensive" solution to all of Sudan's problems, as it ignores conflicts in Darfur, Eastern and far Northern Sudan, if it unravels, the entire country may be plunged back into full-fledged civil war.
  
  
• To avoid this outcome, U.S. engagement with Sudan today must focus as much on bolstering the CPA as on achieving peace and security for Darfur. Critical areas in need of international support include provisions on mapping boundaries, oil revenues, the national census, and an electoral law designed to facilitate national elections for 2009 stipulated by the CPA.
  
  
• The U.S. must particularly work with all parties to resolve issues around the oil-rich area of Abyei, on the disputed border between North and South Sudan. Violence between Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) forces, Misseriya nomadic herders and other parties has been growing since December 2007, with many unconfirmed reports of Khartoum deliberately instigating minor skirmishes or arming combatants. An escalation of this conflict could set off further unraveling of the CPA, with devastating consequences for Sudan as a whole. International pressure must force Khartoum to honor the terms it agreed to in the binding 2005 Abyei Boundary Commission report.
  
  
• Other economically and politically marginalized regions of Sudan face potential flashpoints for deadly conflict that the international community should address proactively. [12]
  
  
• In April 2007, Nubian activists in Sudan's Northern state formed the Kush Liberation Front (KLF), a rebel group that seeks to overthrow the national government in response to Khartoum's ongoing construction of several hydroelectric dams on the Nile River in the archaeologically rich ethnic homeland of the ancient Nubian community. Nubians and other groups, such as the Mannasir, have been and continue to be displaced from their land to make way for these projects. The government has responded to local protests with lethal force, creating a climate of frustration and desperation that Sudanese activists warn could erupt into a new conflict with national implications.
  
  
• Since the mid 1990s, the Beja in Eastern Sudan have waged a low-level rebellion against Khartoum to protest the scarce resources and political power provided to their region. A peace agreement was signed in 2006, but Khartoum has been slow to follow through on the promises it made there. Without international engagement, the political progress made from this agreement will continue to erode.
  
  
• In addition to linking it with conflicts and economic/political inequalities across Sudan, the genocide in Darfur must be considered within the context of the broader region. Most directly, the situation in Darfur is integrally related to the conflict between Sudan and Chad, in which evidence strongly suggests that each government has funded and supported rebel groups in the other's territory.
  
  
• Despite a March 13 peace accord, tensions between the two neighboring nations remain high and the governments continue to trade accusations of cross-border attacks. The security and humanitarian conditions in Chad have worsened in recent months, with Darfuri refugees and displaced communities in Central African Republic (CAR) caught in the middle. The European Union (EU) is in the process of deploying a 3,700 person peacekeeping mission to protect these populations.
  
  
• Uganda has made recent strides in achieving a peace agreement between the government and Lord's Resistance Army. However, unless there is strong international support to build on this progress and consolidate peace, the conflict in Northern Uganda risks further destabilizing Southern Sudan with potential consequences for the entire country.
  
  
• The recent political crisis in Kenya also impacts Darfur. Historically, Kenya has often acted as a host for peace negotiations in the region. It has also absorbed many refugees, particularly from Southern Sudan, many of whom remain in Kenya. The serious political, social and economic challenges Kenya faces following its post-election violence will affect its ability to play a positive role for Sudan and other conflict-affected countries in the region. The ongoing conflicts in Ethiopia and Somalia also complicate the dynamics of improving the political and humanitarian situation across Sudan.

• As the genocide continues in Darfur, the U.S. must use its leverage with the government of Sudan and in the UN Security Council to achieve the immediate deployment of the complete and fully resourced UNAMID force. The U.S. must expend the necessary diplomatic capital to overcome any objections from China, Russia and Khartoum.
  
  
• President Bush must publicly state that U.S. relations with Sudan will not normalize until UNAMID is deployed and resourced in its entirety and the CPA is fully implemented.
  
  
• The U.S. should provide Special Envoy Richard Williamson with the full-time staff and other diplomatic resources necessary to help restart political peace negotiations in Darfur. The U.S. should support multilateral efforts to broadly engage Darfurian civil society, particularly women's groups, in a transparent dialogue with Khartoum and key rebel groups and parties from across the country to ensure that any new political agreement reflects the priorities not just of those with guns, but of the people of Darfur.
  
  
• All U.S.-Sudan policy must reflect an all-Sudan perspective. Both Darfur and the CPA must be priorities, with a particular emphasis on the status of Abyei as an unresolved issue in the process of North-South peace consolidation. The U.S. should also support UN investigations into human rights abuses related to the construction of new dams on the Nile River in Northern Sudan and pressure the NCP to follow through on its commitments to the Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement
  
  
• The Bush administration should work with the international community, in particular European partners such as France to address the regional dimensions of conflict in Sudan. This means providing strong financial support for the UNHCR and other relief agencies in Darfur, Chad and CAR, as well as continuing diplomatic engagement and economic support for the burgeoning peace process in Northern Uganda.
  
  
• Thirteen years ago, the U.S. blocked UN action as genocide unfolded in Rwanda. Now, the Bush Administration faces growing public pressure for action to stop the genocide in Darfur. By achieving the deployment of a robust peacekeeping mission in Darfur, the U.S. would demonstrate its commitment to protecting the people of Darfur and fulfill those calls for leadership in the face of the first genocide of the 21st century.

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