Sudan People’s Liberation Movement Army (SPLMA) entering Juba on 4 December 2005. In western Sudan -Darfur, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and many more displaced in what is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.
Credit: IRIN |
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In Darfur, the western region of Sudan, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than two million have been displaced in what has become known as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.
The crisis began in Africa’s largest country in early 2003, when two rebel forces took up arms against the government, to provide protection to civilians in land disputes in the region.
In response, the Sudanese government has allegedly funded the nomadic militias, known as Janjawid, who have destroyed villages, and killed, raped and abducted people.
Besides death, destruction and displacement, the crisis has been the cause of many setbacks for Sudan, despite the recent signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in January 2005, to end a civil war which has raged in the country’s southern region for more than twenty years.
Instead of following in the footsteps of its southern counter part, Darfur has refused a ceasefire, and in the last year the situation has spiraled out of control with ongoing reports of attacks on civilians, aid workers and security forces.
In July 2003, the UN Security Council made its first referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the grounds that the Sudanese government had failed to convict suspects of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the region. Following this referral, the International Commission of Inquiry presented the ICC with a list of 51 suspects, comprising civilians, army and governmental officials. Other evidence provided consisted of more than two thousand documents, video footage and interview transcripts.
But the response to the ICC investigations in Darfur, which began in June 2005, has not been welcomed by the Sudanese government. One week after the ICC announced that it would begin its investigations, Sudan established a National Court to hold its own trials of 160 alleged suspects. In response, the human rights group, Amnesty International (AI) accused the Sudanese government of establishing the court in order to avoid prosecution by the ICC.
"What we have here is a court system that is willing to silence newspapers and aid workers who are attempting to speak the truth about human rights violations in Sudan. How can we trust that same system to bring to trial those accused of these violations?" Director of AI Africa Programme, Kolawole Olaniyan, pointed out in a press statement the same day the National Court was established.
Olaniyan accused the Sudanese government of shutting down local newspapers that had published information about the government’s involvement in forced relocations of internally displaced people living in camps in the outskirts of the capital, Khartoum. Olaniyan also noted that in May 2005, the Sudanese authorities charged two employees of the medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) with “publishing false information” and "crimes against the state". The move came just two months after MSF published a report that exposed more than 500 accusations of rape on Darfurian women.
The opinions of local Sudanese folk vary when it comes to the ICC’s involvement in the Darfur war crimes, as does their support for the Sudanese government.
Victor Aleeza, a man working as an accountant for a small shop in Khartoum, says that he felt the ICC’s involvement was a good thing.
“Innocent people are being killed. If the government is responsible for the planning of this, then the ICC should step in. I mean, people are dying and what is being done about it by this government? Nothing! How can we expect them to carry out fair trials when they are the ones being accused of the crimes?” Aleeza said.
IIbrahim Ahmed Osman, a Supreme Court Judge working in Khartoum, expressed a different opinion. He says: “I myself am a member of a special circle within the Supreme Court, which handles the Darfur crimes and I have, since this crisis began, found many guilty of such crimes and have sentenced many to death.”
Ahmed then pointed out that the Sudanese judiciary was capable of making fair and unbiased decisions on the Darfur situation, because unlike other Arab countries, its judiciary was not a part of the executive power, allowing them freedom from the influence of the government.
Abu Bahkr Wasiri, a local journalist, said that Sudan should be responsible for its own problems, and went on to voice his concerns about the duration of ICC intervention.
“This could take years! The ICC will have to pinpoint accusations, make investigations and provide proof, while trying to remain fair and treat this as a legal issue and not a political one,” said Wasiri.
The Darfur crisis has not only led to countless sanctions being imposed on Sudan by the United States, but has also brought a massive amount of negative media attention to the country. Another setback was Sudan’s failure to take up the Chair of the African Union (AU) in February 2006. Sudan had initially won the support of other African nations to take up the temporary position, however, the plan was dropped after the US announced that it would not support Sudan as president of the AU while the Darfur crisis existed. The presidency went to Congo.
According to Ahmed, this decision by the US government caused an unnecessary loss for Sudan. “Darfur is one state out of 26 states in Sudan. There are many problems all over the world. Why do the Americans select Darfur? Why is this place getting all the attention?” he argued.
James Both, a third-grade teacher at a local school in Khartoum, said that he didn’t know much about the ICC or what was being done, but he felt it inappropriate for Sudan to take up the AU Chair under the present conditions.
“In Sudan we have many problems, and I don’t think it is good for Omar Bashir to head the AU until he sorts out the problems in Darfur,” Both said.
However, Deng Ajak, a southern Sudanese man working in a print shop on a busy street in the capital disagrees: “Right now, Sudan is trying to implement the CPA. We could have supported it much better if the Sudanese government had been given a chance to solve the Darfur problem as a leader of the AU, and with AU troops - because the world would have been watching, expectations would have been higher and pressure would have been strong.”
Wasiri says that it was ridiculous for Sudan to even consider chairing the AU with its current internal problems: “How can Sudan be a leader when we cannot even resolve our own problems? If Sudan wants to be president of the AU, let us prove that we can be the boss of our own situation before we are the boss of others.”
[ENDS]
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