How will the new UN Human Rights Council deal with Darfur as Sudan refuses to allow a UN peacekeeping Force into the region?
The tragic problems of Darfur continue with little in the press. What has happened to the Responsibility to Protect or must we allow Sudan to “work out its problems without foreign intervention” as President Omar al-Bashir demands.
Over a year ago Amnesty International declared that the perpetrators of the worst crimes in Sudan, including Darfur, must be prosecuted to ensure lasting peace.
After 21 years of conflicts, more than 2 million dead, 6 million forced to flee their homes, thousands of women and children abducted and/or raped and hundreds of villages destroyed and relatives still missing, not one perpetrator of war crimes or crimes against humanity is known to have been brought to justice in Sudan.
Last year the UN Security Council authorised the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation in Darfur but the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir [BBC profile] has again said recently that his country refuses to extradite any Sudanese citizens for prosecution by the ICC [JURIST report]
A recent report in the British Medical Journal quotes the Office of UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan warning that humanitarian cooperation from the Sudanese Government had seriously declined. Access to primary health care dropped below the emergency threshold in 2006… the risk of disease would increase, particularly malaria, diarrhoeal diseases, and measles. Suspension of support for drinking water, sanitation, and food “would further impact upon the health and well-being of about half a million under-five children in Darfur, potentially leading to a dramatic increase in the incidence of communicable diseases and an increased morbidity rate.”
Agencies are also concerned that restricted access across large parts of Sudan are impeding immunisation campaigns against polio and measles.
Not only is the Sudanese Government accused of obstructing humanitarian efforts but it has resisted a UN force being sent to the country. Plans by the African Union to hand over peacekeeping responsibilities to the United Nations were put on hold last week, after an intense lobbying campaign by the government of Sudan. The Sudanese government portrayed a United Nations’ handover as a colonial venture led by the United States and warned that Darfur would become a “graveyard” for foreign troops. Currently there are 7,000 African Union troops stationed there and despite the widespread view that the African Union (AU) peacekeeping force had done little to quell violence in Darfur, President Omar al-Bashir argued last week it was doing its job well and needed no outside help.
In a report from Aljazeera he said that letting non-African troops into Sudan's troubled Darfur region risks creating turmoil like that seen after the US invasion of Iraq. "We have witnessed what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and learned lessons that shouldn't be repeated on the African continent," Bashir told a one-day regional summit in Nairobi.
Sudan is accused by UN and US officials of arming marauding Arab militia, who have raped, killed and driven into squalid camps some 2 million villagers. Sudan denies this.
Bashir said the AU mission's work was a "success for Africa" and proof the continent could work out its problems without foreign intervention.
The problems of Darfur take place in the context of a complex civil war involving different ethnic groups and oil (see report from Sudanwatch).
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