A new report from Physicians for Human Rights has presented detailed evidence of the overwhelming scale of death and suffering in Darfur and contends that “the intense destruction of land holdings, communities, families, as well as the disruption of all means of sustaining livelihoods and procuring basic necessities” amounts to genocide.
This month marks Sudan’s 50th anniversary of independence, as well as the first anniversary of the peace deal that officially ended 22 years of civil war. Hence the country was seen as an ideal and symbolic venue for the summit of leaders of the African Union on 23&;24 January. But allegations of Khartoum’s complicity in the ongoing atrocities in Darfur have caused tremendous diplomatic unease at the prospect of Sudan chairing the regional body and have led to calls for the ineffective African Union monitoring mission to be replaced by United Nations’ peacekeepers.
Physicians for Human Rights maintains that “in spite of international condemnation, UN resolutions, and the US government declaring that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the janjaweed &;militias&; bear responsibility, the government of Sudan and the janjaweed continue their assault on survival. Armed attacks on civilians continue rendering large swathes of land insecure for passage and therefore essentially uninhabitable.”
The report argues that “by eliminating access to food, water, and medicine, expelling people into inhospitable terrain, and then, in many cases, blocking crucial outside assistance, the government of Sudan and the janjaweed have created conditions calculated to destroy the non&;Arab people of Darfur in contravention of the &;1948 UN&; Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”
Insisting on the need for much more robust international intervention, the Washington based advocacy group warned, “Darfur is an extremely difficult place to survive. At the foot of the expanding Sahara desert, it is known for its searing heat, recurrent drought, and minimal infrastructure. While Darfurians have developed complex coping mechanisms enabling them to thrive within their villages, when people are herded from their homes and chased into a land that offers little shelter from the forbidding sun and penetrating winds; no potable water; and no animals for food, milk, and transport, they succumb to starvation, dehydration, and disease.”
Last week, Jan Pronk, the UN representative in Sudan, conceded to the Security Council that efforts to bring peace to Darfur had failed. He called for a UN peacekeeping force to disarm the marauding militias and provide sufficient security to allow millions of refugees to return home: “Looking back at three years of killings and cleansing in Darfur we must admit that our peace strategy so far has failed . . . All we did was picking up the pieces and muddling through, doing too little too late.” The report, Assault on Survival: A Call for Security, Justice, and Restitution is available at www.phrusa.org&;research&;sudan.