Darfur's pain is the West's shame
The international community must stop this 'go slow' genocide, says MP and human-rights activist IRWIN COTLER
IRWIN COTLER
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Tragically, incrementally, the genocide in Darfur has moved into high gear, mocking the lessons of history while betraying the people of Darfur.
For history's enduring lesson is that the genocide of European Jewry occurred not only because of the ideology of hatred, but also because of crimes of indifference and inaction. Indeed, we have witnessed in our own days appalling indifference and inaction that took us down the road to the unspeakable -- the genocide in Rwanda.
Darfur is in "freefall" or "meltdown," as chief UN aid co-ordinator Jan Egeland recently put it. We know that:
More than 450,000 Darfurians have died in this genocide by attrition. The media have been repeating for 20 months now that 200,000 have died, but recent evidence of 450,000 is compelling;
There are four million people, as Mr. Egeland put it, now on a desperate life-support system. Again, the media mantra for those 20 months has been that two million people have been displaced, ignoring the additional numbers of both displaced persons and those in desperate need of assistance;
These four million Darfurians are now being joined by one million in Chad, and another one million in the Central African Republic. The humanitarian life support system is itself on life support;
Mass atrocity has increased dramatically, including systematic rape, indiscriminate bombardment and burning of villages, forced expulsions, and more assaults and killings of aid workers;
The Darfur Peace Agreement of May, 2006, between Sudan and the main Sudan rebel group, is being violated daily and is itself in a "coma," as attested by Jan Pronk, the UN representative in Sudan, while the just-brokered Darfur ceasefire has already been violated.
In a word, we know that the genocide by attrition, or "go slow" genocide as it has sometimes been called -- a description that itself reflects the banality of this radical evil -- has moved into high gear.
It is our responsibility to shatter the silence, to break down the walls of indifference, to stand with the people of Darfur. But while words are important, while UN Security Council resolutions are necessary, while the normative adoption by the UN of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine is crucial, words, resolutions and doctrines are not enough. What is of the utmost urgency is immediate international action to stop the genocide.
What is desperately needed is a "Darfur Summit" involving leaders of the African Union, the European Union, the UN and NATO, convened for the express purpose of putting a "Save Darfur" action plan into effect and not adjourned until that plan is adopted.
Meanwhile, Canada, in concert with the international community, can exercise the moral, political and diplomatic leadership to save Darfur. Here's how:
1) The robust UN peacekeeping force authorized by the UN Security Council must be deployed quickly to take over from the underfunded, undermanned African Union mission in Sudan (AMIS);
2) Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir has called the UN peacekeeping force a "colonialist" initiative and "Zionist plot," denies atrocities are occurring and threatens to withhold consent for the force's deployment. The resolve of the international community must be clear: to put the UN force on the ground with the consent of the Sudanese government if possible, but without it if necessary. Stopping genocide cannot be held hostage to the perpetrators of genocide;
3) The mandate of the AU mission has been extended to March. But plans, announced four months ago, for sending 1,200 more troops to join the 7,200-member force and broadening the mandate, have yet to be realized. This mission has courageously stood as the only line of defence for millions of Darfurians. But it has neither the numbers nor the mandate to stop the killing, and is itself increasingly under attack. Until such time as the UN peacekeeping force is deployed and operational, the international community must immediately reinforce -- and fund -- an expanded AU mission;
4) The demand by the UN Security Council in 2005 that the Sudanese government cease offensive military flights must be enforced by the immediate establishment of a "no-fly" zone, supported in particular by France and Germany;
5) The Security Council, the EU, and their individual members must also enforce and enhance the sanctions adopted by the UN Sanctions Committee against the named Sudanese violators;
6) Sudanese officials responsible for the perpetration of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide must be brought before the International Criminal Court;
7) The Darfur Peace Agreement, which only a robust UN force can enforce, must not be allowed to unravel;
8) Human security is more desperate, and humanitarian assistance more urgent, than ever. Attacks on NGOs doubled in 2006 from 2005; attacks against members of the AU peacekeeping force are up by 1,000 per cent. There is no humanitarian access for the more than 60 per cent of people who desperately need it, with the deadly threat of starvation and disease;
9. Individual Security Council members must pressure Sudan directly to accept the UN peacekeeping force and end its military offensive. China has particular leverage as Sudan's paymaster and largest trading partner;
10. As the International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch recently recommended, the Security Council, with European support, must move quickly to establish a new UN peacekeeping mission with a strong civilian-protection mandate in Chad and the Central African Republic, aimed at deterring the movement of insurgent armed groups across the borders. The NATO-ready rapid deployment force of some 30,000 might be an expeditious way of both augmenting the African mission and underpinning the UN peacekeeping force.
As the student posters cry out at the "Save Darfur" rallies: "If not us who, if not now, when?"
Irwin Cotler, a former justice minister of Canada, is the founder of the Save Darfur Parliamentary Coalition.
