Voices of Hope Concert for Darfur – Death Continues to Flow

Africa is alive! It is alive with death and destruction. Over the last few months we have witnessed major catastrophic events on this forgotten continent that have seen the lives of millions of people put at risk of starvation, murder and disease. During the summer, we witnessed the total collapse of Somalia and the mass exodus of thousands of people from its capital Mogadishu.

This week, the war raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo has seen tens of thousands of people displaced and walking towards the paths of death and disease. In the eastern city of Goma, there have been reports of large scale rapes and murder, and while there is currently a highly tenuous ceasefire, the main rebel leader, General Laurent Nkunda has threatened to take the city unless the UN can maintain the ceasefire. While the UN peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo is the largest UN peacekeeping mission ever launched, the Special Representative of the Secretary General for the peacekeeping mission in the Congo, Alan Doss, stated that the UN Mission was being stretched to its limits and that the current number of peacekeeping troops on the ground was totally inadequate based on the scale of the conflict.

In Darfur, the near forgotten conflict, the situation has now reached levels whereby millions of people are now in eminent danger of death from murder, disease and starvation. The UN mission in Darfur, UNAMID is totally under strength and is targeted for attacks on a daily basis. Both the mainstream government forces and their militia, the Janjaweed, regularly target UN troops.

Some highlights of this past week’s horrors in Darfur:

• On Wednesday, October 29th, South African troops serving with UNAMID came under attack. One soldier was murdered and one was injured while securing a water point near the Kassab Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp.
• On Monday, October 27th, the BBC reported at that at least 40 innocent civilians had been murdered in recent clashes in the area of Muhajiriya, in Southern Darfur and that as a result of intense attacks by the Janjaweed, over 12,000 civilians had been displaced.
• On Thursday, October 23rd, Reuters reported that clashes in the Northern Darfur between the various warring factions had resulted in numerous deaths.
• On Wednesday, October 22nd, Uganda’s Daily Monitor reported that close to 30,000 Ugandan children, who were forcibly conscripted into the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda, were sold in Darfur. These children are being used as child soldiers, porters and others have been sold as sex slaves to the Sudanese government troops and Janjaweed militia.

Over the last few months, attacks on the UN peacekeepers have been committed on a regular basis with many peacekeepers returning home in coffins. The UNAMID mission is under continued pressure as the troop commitment levels to this force are well below the number that was promised by the UN and the logistical commitment from donor nations is basically non-existent. So what we have in Darfur is a UN force that is greatly undermanned and disgustingly ill equipped.

Meanwhile, the Janjaweed and the Sudanese government forces in Darfur continue to attack the non-Arab civilian population. Thousands of people are dying on a daily basis, both from violence and disease. Volunteers with the international NGOs continue to be attacked and aid convoys are continuously hijacked. The rape of women and young girls continues unabated and young boys are kidnapped to be utilized as child soldiers.

The UN continues to issue its weekly Security Council reports on the crisis in Darfur and with each report the recorded death rate increases. It is estimated that by December 31st, 2008 close to one million will be dead as a result of the conflict in Darfur with a further estimated 4 million people fighting for survival.

The most recent reports from the UN have clearly stated that all crimes now being committed in Darfur are being designated as war crimes or crimes against humanity and therefore the organizers and perpetrators of these crimes should be indicted by the International Criminal Court.

The international community has admitted that it identifies the fact that Sudan has failed in its obligations pertaining to erga omnes and that the UN has identified its own failures in relations to Security Council Resolution 1674 which reaffirms the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding its responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. While the resolution commits the Security Council to action to protect civilians in armed conflict, the UN acknowledges that it can not even protect its own peacekeepers in Darfur.

While the debate pertaining to genocide may also be forgotten on the international diplomatic front as it pertains to the crimes being committed in Darfur, it is important that the principals behind the declaration of genocide made by General Colin Powel on behalf of the government of the United States of America be reviewed. This is due to the fact that while the UN Security Council announced in its 2005 report on Darfur that the International Criminal Court found “reasonable grounds to believe that the individuals identified [in the UN Security Council Resolution 1593] have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes," there was no finding of sufficient evidence to prosecute for genocide. However, in its most recent report on the conflict in Darfur, the International Criminal Court found sufficient evidence to file ten charges of war crimes against Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two counts of murder.

What we must remember is the fact that genocidal acts need not kill or cause death against those members of a targeted group. Genocide also covers the acts of causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children. Basically speaking, any acts committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence can be classified as genocide or at least politicide.

Because the Sudanese government has been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur for nearly six years, the leaders of this government now act with impunity and as the focus of the international community shifts back and forth between the various global crisis, many more innocent Darfuris will die today.

It is time for the international community, primarily the members of the UN Security Council’s P5 to come together and find a solution to the conflict in Darfur, and that solution will hopefully include the issuing of an international arrest warrant for the President of Sudan and all others indicted by the International Criminal Court. Until this solution is found, it is important that a blanket embargo be placed on all exports/imports with Sudan. All investment companies, all oil companies and those companies involved in the infrastructural development of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum and all other Sudanese regions allied to Khartoum need to be placed under this blanket embargo.

We can’t use the excuses that we used in regards to ignoring the genocides of Bosnia and Rwanda, its too late for that. When the conflict in Darfur ends, and it will end, the true facts will one day be released that will hopefully shine a light on who and what nations conspired with and were complicit in the destruction of the native Black African population of Darfur. There will be no rocks big enough for the culprits or their coconspirators to hide under.

The International Alliance For Human Rights, a New York-based humanitarian focused group will be focusing its efforts on enhancing global awareness on the conflict in Darfur when it stages the Voices of Hope Concert for Darfur.

For more information, please contact David Nolan at dnolan@iafhr.org.