Negotiations on the deployment of a U.N. force in Darfur continue their maddening pattern. After sending signals that it might accept a force built upon the current African Union force, the government of Sudan now
releases a statement saying that such a deployment is unacceptable.
Ironically, the reason this time is that the U.N. plan for a "hybrid" force violates the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, the cynical pact that has not brought a single day of peace to Darfur! Suddenly, President Bashir is the protector of the peace agreement that his government has been violating consistently since it was signed.
Nii Akuetteh of
Africa Action had it right when he said last week that:
The failure of the international community to follow through on Resolution 1706 has left the people of Darfur without protection and with little hope. A robust U.N. force is needed immediately to stop the violence and enforce a cease-fire, to protect civilians and humanitarian operations, and to create conditions conducive to a comprehensive peace process. This is an essential first step towards stabilizing the situation on the ground and protecting the vulnerable in the immediate term, and the failure to aggressively pursue this goal is unacceptable.If you have paid any attention to the dance between Sudan and the international community, Bashir's bait-and-switch surprises you not at all. The Bashir regime in Khartoum has no intention of allowing a U.N. force in Darfur, but it is more than happy to keep talking until semi-arid Darfur freezes over. Meanwhile,
the rape and killing continue.
In late February, the International Criminal Court (ICC)
took a step forward by issuing orders requesting the appearance of two men -- a low-level Sudanese cabinet member and a Janjaweed militia leader in Darfur -- that the court says have perpetrated war crimes in Darfur. If the Sudanese government does not capture and produce these men for questioning, then the ICC can issue an arrest warrant for the pair in all of the 90 countries that have signed the ICC treaty. This is good news, but these are not the sort of high level indictments that will be needed to get the attention of the Khartoum government.
Afraid that the ICC might, at some point, turn its attention to U.S. war crimes, the Bush administration early on rescinded a prior endorsement of the ICC treaty by the outgoing Clinton team, and has made no move to seek Senate approval of U.S. participation.
Darfur has exposed some of the
contradictions in the U.S. position. We call the terror in Darfur genocide, but we are ambivalent at best about the main legal tool that the international possesses to confront genocide. While not voting for the U.N. resolution initiating the ICC investigation in Darfur, the U.S. did refrain from a veto. The Bush administration has not, however, cooperated with the investigation by sharing the thick files that it certainly possesses on some of the main architects of the genocide.
This goes back to the fact that some of the alleged war criminals in Darfur are seen by the Bush administration as allies in the war on terror. The clearest case of this is Maj. Gen. Salah Gosh. Named by many as a key figure in the terror in Darfur, Gosh also happened to be
Khartoum's key link with Osama bin Laden when the latter was based in Sudan.
The CIA is more likely to invite Gosh to high level meetings at Langley AFB (as it did in April 2005) than it is to give the ICC the evidence it would need to add the general to its list of the wanted in Sudan.
So, the beat goes on. Six months ago, Security Council Resolution 1706 authorized a serious U.N. peacekeeping presence in Darfur. Since then,
the international effort to implement that resolution has been a tragedy of errors. Unfortunately, the political will to end the genocide in Darfur must come from you and me. What are we doing to assert that will?
Labels: Darfur