The United Nations and Darfur: Small Steps in a Major Crisis

Amid reports of a new surge of violence in the Sudanese region of Darfur, the United Nations Security Council voted on Tuesday April 25 to impose sanctions against four Sudanese men suspected of committing war crimes during the conflict.  The resolution imposing the sanctions was passed by 12-0, with China, Russia and Qatar abstaining. 

The four people subject to the sanctions are a Sudanese air force office, a leader of a government-backed militia group, and two rebel leaders -- a selection that appears designed to emphasize the international community's even-handedness as a critical deadline in ongoing peace talks approaches. The penalties imposed on the listed men are a travel ban and freeze of financial assets.

The measures taken follow a resolution passed in March 2005 threatening to impose restrictions on individuals who threaten the peace process, impede stability, or are responsible for violations of international humanitarian law or human rights law.  In a separate but related process, the Security Council last year also empowered the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute individuals suspected of committing war crimes in Darfur.  The court has opened investigations but has not yet issued any indictments.

There have been numerous reports of war crimes being committed in Darfur, including widespread murder, rape and the burning of villages.  A majority of the crimes have been attributed to the government-supported militia known as the Janjaweed.  An estimated 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur and over 2 million displaced -- mostly into refugee camps in Darfur and the neighbouring country of Chad.  

A United Nations commission of inquiry on Darfur that reported early last year found that government and militia forces had "conducted indiscriminate attacks, including killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and forced displacement, throughout Darfur."  Since the attacks were conducted on a widespread and systematic basis, the commission suggested that they might amount to crimes against humanity as well as war crimes.

The sanctions come as peace talks over Darfur in the Nigerian capital of Abuja approach a deadline for an agreement to end the fighting.  If no deal has been reached by Sunday, April 30, the talks are due to be called off.

The only international presence in Darfur is composed of 7,000 peacekeeping troops from the African Union, and their mandate is limited to monitoring an earlier agreement between government and rebel forces.  The U.N. Security Council has started looking at the possibility of sending a larger mission of 20,000 to take over from the African Union, but the Sudanese government is currently opposed to the involvement of the United Nations and it appears unlikely that there would be sufficient support for a forcible intervention among Security Council members.  The Sudanese government has however suggested that it may allow the United Nations to send a mission to Darfur if a peace agreement with the rebels can be put in place.

On April 20, the United Nations' Humanitarian Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said that the humanitarian situation in Darfur was as bad as when the crisis first came to international attention in early 2004.  He reported that the combination of continued violence, obstruction from the Sudanese government and the declining support of the international community meant that relief operations in Darfur were on the verge of breakdown, placing millions of internally displaced people at risk.

On Sunday, April 30, a rally will be held in Washington D.C. sponsored by the coalition group SaveDarfur.org.

The four individuals on whom sanctions have been imposed are:

Major General Mohamed Elhassan, head of the Sudanese armed forces’ western command; Sheikh Mussa Hilal, a North Darfur tribal chief and alleged militia leader; Adam Yacub Shant, a commander in the rebel Sudan Liberation Army; and Gabril Abdul Kareem Badri, a field commander in the rebel group National Movement for Reform and Development (NMRD).

The four men were chosen from a longer list of eight put forward by the British government, and there have been suggestions that the United States opposed the imposition of sanctions against Sudanese government officials who have cooperated with the U.S. in its counter-terrorism operations.  However the U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that other names might be added when the evidence against them was "firm and conclusive", and that it was a "gross oversimplification" to say that some people had been excluded from sanctions because of their help with the U.S. campaign against al-Qaeda.

The focus of the Security Council in acting against designated individuals rather than the state of Sudan shows the growing importance of the criminal justice model in international politics at a time when it is difficult to secure international support for military action that infringes national sovereignty.  While the sanctions and the role of the International Criminal Court have been welcomed by human rights groups, their impact in preventing ongoing atrocities is necessarily limited without international support for action to end violations of the law and bring those responsible before the court.

Related chapters from Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know:

Ethnic Cleansing

Genocide

Related Links:

SaveDarfur.org

Crisis in Darfur

International Crisis Group campaign page

Sudan Tribune

Darfur Crisis is "As Bad as Ever"

BBC News Online, April 21, 2006

Genocide in Slow Motion

By Nicholas D. Kristof

The New York Review of Books, February 9, 2006

Report of the International Committee of Inquiry on Darfur

(.pdf file)

January 25, 2005

Sudan Internet Resources

Rift Valley Institute

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