No safety, no justice no action: how Sudan has failed its people

THEY must have thought they had got away with it. They could not have been more wrong.

Wheedling and whining, the government of Sudan spent the past month attempting to convince the United Nations that it had finally got to grips with the humanitarian catastrophe that is the Darfur region, while all the time continuing its murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing against its own people.

Attempting to weaken the resolve of the waverers on the UN Security Council, while buying enough time for the rest of the world to lose interest, it went through the motions, staged a handover of weapons by militia for the benefit of the UN’s representative, Jan Pronk, and promised more troops and soldiers to protect the 1.3 million people driven from their homes by its allies in the Janjaweed militia.

Even the British government - which had taken such a robust initial position and which, with the US, was primarily responsible for forcing through Security Council resolution 1556 demanding an end to the violence in Darfur - had appeared in recent days to be softening its position, talking of political solutions and quietly dropping threats of military intervention.

The fear among those concerned about what was still happening in Darfur was that, in the end, the UN would drop the ball, that its report would be the usual combination of fudge and compromise.

But when it was released yesterday afternoon, it was nothing of the sort. Tough and uncompromising, it damned Sudan for paying lip-service to the Security Council’s demands, while presiding over a continuation of the slaughter.

Mr Pronk, the special envoy to Sudan of the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, is due to deliver their joint report to the Security Council today. Last month its members stopped short of threatening Khartoum with sanctions unless it complied. This time the UN left them precious little room for manoeuvre.

He could barely have been more explicit. He spelled it out: "Stopping attacks against civilians and ensuring their protection is the responsibility of the government of Sudan. The government has not met this obligation fully, despite the commitments it has made and its obligations under resolution 1556 (2004)."

Lest there be any doubt in the minds of those in Khartoum, or those on the Security Council who argued so hard to water down resolution 1556, he went on: "Attacks against civilians are continuing and the vast majority of armed militias has not been disarmed. Similarly, no concrete steps have been taken to bring to justice, or even identify, any of the militia leaders or the perpetrators of these attacks, allowing the violations of human rights and the basic laws of war to continue in a climate of impunity.

"After 18 months of conflict and 30 days after the adoption of resolution 1556 (2004), the government of Sudan has not been able to resolve the crisis in Darfur, and has not met some of the core commitments it has made."

The displaced, he said, had been terrorised and traumatised. They had lost confidence in the authorities. Without security and the beginnings of a meaningful process of reconciliation, those forced from their homes into camps and makeshift shelters in Darfur and Chad would not be able to fulfil their greatest desire: to return to their homes in peace.

More than 1.3 million people have been driven from their homes by what the report called a "scorched-earth policy" in Darfur, 200,000 of them over the border into Chad.

The crisis began in earnest in 2003 when rebels seeking greater autonomy from Khartoum attacked government forces. The government hit back by arming the Arab Janjaweed militia, which attacked villages, driving out the black African farmers, burning their homes, stealing their animals, killing men, raping women and kidnapping children to look after the stolen herds.

Often, the Janjaweed were supported by Sudanese aircraft and helicopter gunships.

Faced with what the UN has described as "the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe", the Security Council passed a resolution that demanded the government of Sudan "fulfil its commitments to disarm the Janjaweed militias and apprehend and bring to justice Janjaweed leaders and their associates who have incited and carried out human rights and international humanitarian law violations and other atrocities".

Khartoum was given 30 days to demonstrate that it was taking the UN seriously. After that, the UN would report back and would continue to report back every month. But opposition from, among others, Russia and Pakistan, meant that the resolution was not backed with the threat of sanctions.

Khartoum’s initial response was an aggressive denunciation of the resolution. Then, sensing this would not work, it changed tack, arguing that it needed more time. Finally, it sat down with the UN and agreed to get on with the task of compliance.

Meanwhile, in Darfur, the attacks continued. Gunships have been in action. Women venturing out of the camps have been raped by Janjaweed; inside the camps, they are at the mercy of the Sudanese police officers. All this is contained in the 7,732 words of the report.

There were a few positives, the report conceded. Humanitarian access had improved, although there were still obstacles placed in the way of those attempting to get food and medicines to the refugees. On one occasion, aid workers were barred from the camp at Kalma for three days, jeopardising the lives of those inside.

Khartoum had also sent more police to the camps, although some of the refugees complained that some of those were drawn from Janjaweed groups.

But on the most critical issue - the continuing insecurity and violence against civilians - Khartoum had been dragging its feet, the report said.

"There were no indications in the beginning of August that the government had taken any measures to ‘immediately start to disarm the Janjaweed and other armed outlaw groups’, as required under the Joint Communiqu," he said.

The UN accepted that not everything could be achieved within a month, but it expected Sudan to have made a start.

And as far as the report was concerned, of all its failings it was on the disarmament of the Janjaweed and other outlaw groups that the Sudanese government was most at fault.

"The most critical commitment that has yet to be implemented relates to the armed militias which continue to pose a serious threat to the civilian population," he said. Khartoum had stated repeatedly that it had no control over the militias accused of attacking civilians, only to accept subsequently in discussions with the UN that some were in fact under its influence.

Some disarming of militias had begun, the report observed, but at the same time the UN continued to receive reports of militia activities in all three states of Darfur.

"Of particular concern are several militia attacks on villages in the Yassin area, north-east of Nyala, during the second half of August. More than 50 people were apparently killed in these attacks," he said.

"Some villages in this area were attacked as many as three or four times over the course of several days, and have been completely looted and destroyed. Even if the militias were outside the influence of the government, it was the government’s responsibility to intervene to ensure the protection of the civilian population in this area."

And it was not just the militia. Recent actions by Sudanese armed forces, said the report, involved a level of violence that seemed at odds with the principle of restraint that it had promised to observe. According to initial reports, Sudanese government aircraft were involved in a clash with rebel forces less than a week before the UN deadline ran out.

Women remained vulnerable to attack and reports of rape, sexual violence and exploitation remained a major concern.

What was needed, said the report, was a comprehensive disarmament and demobilisation programme. "It is incumbent upon the government of Sudan to ensure that no more attacks on civilians occur, whether the perpetrators are under its influence or not," he said. "The government should be prepared to accept assistance from the international community if it is unable to stop these attacks and ensure the protection of the civilian population in the Darfur region."

That assistance is just what Sudan has been trying to avoid. It has reluctantly accepted the presence of Africa Union peace monitors on its territory and a small force to protect them, but it has argued hard against a larger AU presence and reacted angrily to suggestions that Western troops might be needed to enforce the peace.

The report, however, appears to disagree. With malnutrition rates still at "alarmingly high" levels and the risk of epidemics of equal concern, he sees the need for urgent intervention. In short, he did not believe that Sudan could guarantee the safety of its own citizens.

The answer, he said, was to introduce a substantially increased international presence into Darfur fast.

The AU’s mission so far had been constrained by its small size and logistical problems. A larger force could help to decrease the level of violence and enhance the protection of the civilian population.

Proactive monitoring and patrolling of all parts of Darfur would enhance security and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian relief, the report explained. And it would monitor what each side was up to.

That was the report’s solution, one which has already been touted by the British government. Now the haggling begins.