Darfur Deadline
Nairobi/Brussels |
23 Aug 2004
One week before the UN Security Council deadline for Sudan expires, it is clear the international community needs to get much tougher over Darfur. Failure now would not only mean many tens of thousands more dead in Darfur, but likely condemn Sudan to more years of war and further spread instability to its neighbours.
Darfur Deadline: A New International Action Plan,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, calls for the Security Council to adopt more forceful measures, most importantly to authorise the African Union (AU) to send a strong peacekeeping mission -- at least 3,000 troops, preferably many more -- to Darfur to protect civilians. To demonstrate its seriousness and help persuade the Government of Sudan to accept this mission, it should also impose an arms embargo on it and targeted sanctions against responsible regime officials and ruling party businesses, as well as establish an International Commission of Inquiry to investigate mass atrocities.
Such steps are immediately necessary because, despite dramatically increased international attention on Darfur, Khartoum has still not fulfilled its repeated commitments to neutralise the government-supported Janjaweed militias responsible for gross human rights violations and the massive humanitarian disaster. History has shown that Khartoum responds constructively to direct pressure, but it must be concerted, consistent and genuine.
"All we've heard so far are empty promises from Khartoum and empty threats from the international community", says John Prendergast, Special Adviser to the President at ICG. "The world spotlight has finally come to Darfur, but the action needed to end the killing hasn't followed".
On 30 July 2004, the Security Council finally passed its first resolution on Darfur, but it was misdirected. It placed a meaningless arms embargo on the Janjaweed but aimed no measures at the government behind them. A "Plan of Action" signed by the UN with the government days later left ample room for Sudan to avoid meaningful action within the 30-day deadline set by the resolution. Government officials continue to undermine roads toward peace.
The one bright spot has been the AU's increasingly energetic response. Its observer mission is on the ground, and the organisation seeks to deploy a peacekeeping force. The EU, the U.S. and others who have indicated a willingness to support this, logistically and financially, must convincingly demand that Khartoum accept and cooperate with the force. Urgent efforts are needed as well to help the AU start genuine political negotiations between the government and the two rebel movements about Darfur's root problems and to push the peace agreement in the south, which the Darfur crisis increasingly threatens, over the finish line.
"When the Security Council revisits the Darfur issue next week, the ultimate extent of the catastrophe will be decided", says Prendergast. "Whether the dead will be numbered in the hundreds of thousands, whether the costs will include more years of civil war, whether Sudan will spread instability throughout the region, all depends on decisions that must be taken quickly".