A JUBILEE CAMPAIGN REPORT
SUDAN
Darfur: The Genocide
Continues
Prepared by Lord
Alton of Liverpool and Rebecca Tinsley
October 2004
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Lord Alton
and journalist Rebecca Tinsley returned on Oct 4th from Geneina in
Darfur, Western Sudan. This report confirms the World Health Organisation’s
estimate that 10,000 people are dying every month from malnutrition and disease
in Darfur. Put more starkly, as every hour passes another fourteen people die.
By the close of each day another 333 people are among the 50,000 lives
claimed in what the UN has rightly described as “the world’s worst
humanitarian crisis.” In addition to the 50,000 dead, 1.4 million people are
displaced. The rate of death is comparable to the death rate in Rwanda at the
height of the genocide in 1994.
1.2 Over the
past nine months David Alton (Lord Alton of Liverpool) and Caroline Cox
(Baroness Cox of Queensbury) have urged the UN and UK Government to formally
declare the events in Darfur to be genocide. Prior to this both peers have
travelled independently into Southern Sudan and drawn attention to the two
million fatalities, and the five million displaced people, since the war started
in 1983 (see Jubilee Campaign Report on Sudan 2002 and Hansard). To date, the
Security Council has simply established a committee to consider the situation.
1.3 In September 2004 in Parliament David Alton challenged
the Leader of the House, Baroness (Valerie) Amos to follow the lead of Colin
Powell and the US Administration in making a formal declaration of genocide. The
Government have thus far declined to do so, but we strongly welcome the decision
of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to visit Sudan/ Darfur to see the situation
first hand.
1.4 In 2002 David Alton called in the House for oil
sanctions and a calibrated response against Sudan and in May in the House he
warned the Government that they were repeating the failure to intervene in
Rwanda’s genocide in 1994 (see Hansard).
1.5 During a visit to Darfur, on October 3rd and
4th, he and the journalist Rebecca Tinsley – on behalf of the UK
human rights group, Jubilee Campaign – saw for themselves the situation in
Geneina. Their recommendations are
summarised below.
1.6 Executive
Summary:
1) The British Government, The European Union, The United Nations and the Arab League must immediately acknowledge that genocide has occurred in Darfur and that the Government of Sudan has supported the perpetrators, universally referred to by the people of Darfur as the Janjaweed militias.
2) Targeted economic and military sanctions must be imposed upon Sudan, and in particular oil sanctions, must be applied immediately. The international community must prevent the flow of arms into Sudan, and impose an immediate no fly zone over Darfur, enforced by an armed international force, mandated by the Security Council to use force to prevent over-flight of the region by the Sudanese Air Force or its proxies.
3) The Governments of Rwanda, Tanzania and Nigeria must be applauded and supported for committing their troops to an international peacekeeping force in Darfur. International leaders must act upon their consciences by committing troops, resources and funding to assemble an armed peacekeeping force, mandated to use appropriate force to defend civilians, internally displaced people (IDPs), monitors and NGO staff in Darfur, and IDPs in camps in neighbouring Chad.
4) The Government of Sudan is urged to immediately stop its military, materiel and financial support of the Janjaweed, to allow international peacekeepers to disarm the militias, and to guarantee the unconditional return of displaced people to Darfur with the participation of the African Union. The Sudanese Government must begin constructive dialogue with all sides of the community in Darfur to institute a federal power-sharing system of government based on constitutionally enshrined equality for all citizens irrespective of race, religion, sex or ethnicity. As soon as feasible there must be a referendum on the future sovereign and legal status of Darfur.
5) The Sudanese Government must immediately stop recruiting people perceived by the local people as Janjaweed into the Darfur police force. The international community must apply pressure on the Khartoum regime in this regard.
6) The international community must press the Sudanese Government to stop the intimidation and imprisonment of NGO staff and community leaders in Darfur.
7) The Sudanese Government must immediately drop its requirement for NGO staff to obtain travel permits to travel around Darfur province. NGOs must have freedom of movement to reach isolated areas at will.
8) Punitive financial penalties must be applied to international companies or governments involved in orchestrating or facilitating military sales to Sudan. These penalties must also be applied to companies violating oil sanctions against Sudan.
9) Recognising that the genocidal terror campaign in Darfur has prevented crops being planted this year, the international community must prepare and adequately fund relief operations to feed Darfur’s displaced people. Given that the UN believes that the Darfur emergency is likely to continue for at least 18-24 months, planning is needed for returns and rehabilitation.
10) Recognising the burden being borne by Chad, the international community must provide assistance and support to the Government of Chad.
11) We learned that the US Government had promised emergency food aid in the spring which finally arrived in September. There clearly exists a need for a mechanism by which governments who promise aid are held to their commitments.
12) The 135 signatories of the 1949 Genocide Convention must affirm that once genocide has been determined, action to “prevent and to punish” is required. This action must be commensurate with the magnitude and urgency of the catastrophe.
13) We commend the Sudanese Department of Health for its immunisation programme. Working with UNICEF and its NGO partners, two million children in Darfur have been vaccinated against measles, out of a total target of 2.3m. Polio vaccination has been even more impressive, reaching 97% of the target. But at the same time the Khartoum regime must be condemned for its deliberate, cynical and racist neglect of Darfur over decades. In all of West Darfur there is one stretch of paved road; clinics go without supplies for three years before getting medicines; doctors and teachers are unpaid for months; and are expected to cope with minimal infrastructure. While the people are Darfur are resourceful and stoical, it is clear Khartoum has brought the rebel insurgency on itself through the contempt with which it has treated Darfur.
14) It is intolerable for Khartoum to impose Sharia law on the people of Darfur to whom it is alien and unacceptable. The international community must insist the Sudanese Government requires the broad consent of the people for laws enacted and applied.
15) We recognised a profound need on the part of the people of Darfur to give testimony about what has befallen them. We owe it to survivors, and those who will not survive because of hunger, AIDS or attack, to collect their testimony into an archive. We commend Human Rights Watch for compiling evidence to be used in judicial proceedings, but believe the voices of Darfur’s persecuted people must be recorded if we are to learn from current failings.
16) On a practical level, there is desperate need for interpreters because the NGO community does not have enough Arab speaking personnel to communicate effectively
2.0 Genocide
2.1 The British Government has said it sees no point in
declaring the situation in Darfur to be genocide. Ministers have claimed that
such a declaration would “add nothing” to the UK’s current actions. The EU
mission to Darfur in August 2004 said the humanitarian disaster “fell short of
genocide”, as did the UN’s Representative to Sudan, Jan Pronk.
2.2 But, as the US has recognised – and as we were
bitterly reminded during the taking of evidence in Rwanda immediately preceding
our trip to Darfur (see Jubilee Report Rwanda/DRC – The
Killing Continues) – when no formal declaration exists the international
community feels able to stand idly by or literally conduct “business as
usual” with the perpetrators.
2.3 Under the 1949 Geneva Convention Against Genocide any
country that names genocide for what it is must then act to “prevent and to
protect” and subsequently bring to justice those who commit crimes against
humanity (Article 51 of the UN Charter).
2.4 Even if it were concluded that fewer than the 10,000
who died in August died in September 2004, it would not alter the reality of
what has already occurred. Nor would it absolve us of our duty to bring to trial
the perpetrators – something that will certainly not happen in the absence of
a formal determination.
2.5 In any event, we received contemporaneous accounts that
leave no room for purile theological debates about how many people have to die
before western interests act. The day we arrived in West Darfur two villages had
reported that Government helicopters had arrived bringing arms for the Janjaweed.
We cite other examples, below.
2.6 We spoke to the Fashir of the eastern district of
Geneina, Suliman Dina, who is aged 71 and was appointed to his senior position
of local leadership by the former Sultan of Darfur.
2.7 He told us that the build up to genocide began in 1995
and during the years that immediately followed. It began with the usual
catalogue of plundering and looting. Cows and cattle were stolen, and rustling
was accompanied by sporadic attacks.
2.8 In 1997 the Janjaweed militia began to consolidate
their position and build a presence. Nine hundred Janjaweed fighters, formed in
three lines of 300 mounted men, and reinforced by a Government helicopter from
which guns and mortars were distributed, attacked the 54 villages in the
Fashir’s district. 433 people were left dead
2.9 Suliman Dina told us that of the 54 villages only one,
Azena, was not raised to the ground. In Azena 12 people were killed and there
was much looting, but it was not burnt. The Janjaweed forces were heavily armed
and had land cruisers mounted with guns with which they have been able to
control and subject the civilian population.
2.10 The Janjaweed tried to hunt down the Fashir but he
escaped across the border (30 miles away from where we met him) with many other
villagers.
2.11 In 1998 he returned when the Government said there
would be no reprisals: “Instead of killing me, they killed my son in
Khartoum.” His son, Adam Dina, was a doctor serving as a lieutenant in the
Sudanese army. The Government has also continued to harass the Fashir. Last
month he was arrested and released after several days in prison for being
outspoken in reporting the events that have occurred in Darfur. His life is
undoubtedly in danger, but he told us emphatically that he wanted the truth to
be told and for the international community to act.
2.12 When we asked him what was the Government’s motive
in allowing the rape of Darfur, he said, “We have lived on this land for
generations, under five sultans, but the Arabs want to empty us off our land and
take it from us. Since the creation of Sudan the Khartoum Government has never
wanted us and they behave as if they want to rid the whole land of the tribes
people.”
2.13 He added that they suspect Khartoum is fearful that
“there are too many of us compared to them. Now that the world is open and we
can be educated they fear we will over-whelm them.” Changing demography has
accelerated a process driven by racism. Darfur was always a collection point for
the seizure of slaves, and even the Arabic word for their African population
reflects this servile relationship.
2.14 The Fashir, and others we met, told us that among the
Janjaweed fighters are zealots originally from countries such as Chad,
Mauritania and Niger – who have been promised the land and possessions of
Darfur’s tribes’ people. Sheik Adam Abdullah Ismael described his harrowing
ordeal. By the end of his account he and the other leaders were weeping. This
glimpse of open emotion was itself indicative of the abyss into which these
dignified people have been driven.
Left: Sheik Ismael from Hafiel Abu.
2.15 Sheik Ismael lived at Hafier Abu, the site of a
water-pool. In 1997, 15 men and 2 women died after an armed attack. One month
later the fighters returned and burnt down the village. He and the villagers who
escaped spent 11 hours walking and running, pursued by gunmen, finally reaching
a place of safety. After several months they returned and rebuilt their village.
Then in 2003, 400 Janjaweed arrived, mounted on horses and camels. “Don’t
worry,” they said. “We are just here for the water.” Two days later they
started attacking the villagers in the area, stealing every animal and all their
property.
2.16 The Sheik went to Geneina to get a vehicle to
transport his family and to escape. “If we return we die, if we go back, we
die.” He decided to return and was accompanied by an Arab policeman. That
night he was forced to watch as the Janjaweed raped 10 of the women. The
policeman, who stopped the militia killing the Sheik, told him, “I thank God I
am not from this tribe.”
2.17 Sheik Ismael movingly said, “A Government should act
as a father – and a father should not love some of his children and not
others. A father should love all his children.” He also reflected that
“these events have created a climate of fear and a cycle of revenge that will
last for generations.” Sheik
Zacharia Yahian Ibrahim gave an equally harrowing account of events in the
village of Terlile, in the east of the province of West Darfur, in 1999. During
the religious festival of Eid three people were killed during an attack,
including the 85-year-old sheik of the village. After looting the village, and
stealing the cattle, the Janjaweed burnt it down.
2.18 After escaping, the Sheik returned with his wife and
children in 2000. In November 2003 the village was incinerated after the men had
their hands tied behind their backs and were forced to give promises never to
speak of these events, never to reclaim their land and never to seek revenge.
They were then allowed to leave with only the clothes on their backs.
2.19 Sheik Ibrahim Abaka Yakia described how his village of Gosz Banat - in the north of the province – was also attacked by mounted Janjaweed and 17 were left dead: “Nothing was left. The village just disappeared.” Sheik Yacob De Allah lived in Ushara village, near the town of Geneina. 200 men on horseback surrounded the village, whiplashed the women and children, and beat the men with sticks. Ushara was one of 13 small villages raised to the ground that day.
2.20 Sheik Ibrahim Adam Suleman told us that if the men now leave the refugee camps they will be killed by the Janjaweed. When the women leave the camp to collect firewood or fodder they are regularly attacked and raped by Janjaweed:
“A few weeks ago a lady went to collect firewood. They
raped her, broke her arm and left her. Why? The plan of these people is to force
us to abandon our land and never return.”
2.21 We were told of another woman who the day before our
visit went to collect branches to make a fence for her small garden by her hut
in the refugee camp. She is growing okra to try to support herslf. She was
carrying her baby on her back. When the Janjaweed fighter stopped her she asked
if she could lay the baby on the ground while he raped her. After he did this
she produced an axe concealed under her clothes and he fled. The attacker is
known to the woman and is from Anjudol area.
2.22 Sheik Suleman said that the presence of
Non-Governmental Organisations in the refugee camps had provided a measure of
protection inside the camps: “but we are prisoners, denied the right of
movement. You can’t go one kilometre from the camps.” Sheik Ismael added:
“If it weren’t for the NGOs, we wouldn’t be able to stay here. We would
have fled or have been dead ourselves.”
2.23
Never-the-less, the NGOs do not get to every part of Darfur (or to all
the areas of Chad where refugees have fled). UN Security believes 17% of the
population is deemed inaccessible. For instance, in addition to the police
permit we had to obtain in Khartoum, travel passes are required to go outside
Geneina. The Government of Sudan has recently put one of their senior
intelligence officers in charge of security in Geneina and restrictions and
reprisals against NGOs may intensify. Two weeks ago, local staff from an NGO
were beaten and the local police refused to act “for fear of the army and
Janjaweed.”
2.24 In addition to the numerous and repeated accounts of killings, burnings and lootings, we were shocked by the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war. We concluded that in every sense what we saw and heard about in Darfur is genocide and should be named as such.
3.0 Rape as a Weapon Of War
3.1 It is hard to overstate the scale of the continuing
suffering of the Black African women and girls in Darfur. At Ardamata Camp,
outside Geneina, where 30,000 people live, we talked to families who had fled
from Abhasla, a village eight days’ walk to the west.
3.2 In February 2004 heavily armed Janjaweed on horseback
swept into the village and killed every man and boy they could find. Their
cattle were looted and their homes were burned down.
3.3 Thirty
five year old Hawry told us that the men “harassed and beat” the women and
girls before they rode off. It soon emerged that these are euphemisms for rape,
but in their traditional society it is an unmentionable subject, bringing shame
and humiliation on the victim and her family.
3.4 We were told that the “Arabs” carried razor blades
and sharp knives with them to cut open the atrophied vaginas of old women before
they raped them. They also raped girls as young as 10. When the Janjaweed had
gone, Hawry told us, the women abandoned the village. “My family once had 88
head of cattle, but I put one baby around my neck and another child on my back,
and I started walking.” Her other three children had to walk for the next
eight days, hiding in empty houses when they could.
Right: women are particularly at risk from the armed militia.
3.5 When Hawry and the other women arrived at the camp they
were just some of the 10,000 refugees who also arrived that same week. She and
her girls built themselves a hut using branches, reeds and grass to weave a
thatched roof. She draped plastic bags across the roof, hoping to keep the rain
out when the season arrived.
3.6 As we sat in her hut she talked about the everyday
difficulties of her life. She is grateful for the UNICEF school in the camp, but
she is frustrated because she wants to find work. She yearns to return to her
old life, but she knows it is not possible as long as the Janjaweed are armed.
“And the children are too scared to leave the compound,” she adds.
3.7 We joined a group of 17 women sitting in the shade of a
tree, drinking coffee. All the married women were widows, and most had also lost
fathers, brothers and sons. They need firewood for cooking and grass for their
animals, and are thus forced to go beyond the camp. It emerged that they were
all, without exception, the victims of attack and rape by the Janjaweed.
Although they are clearly traumatised by the daily risks they run, they speak
philosophically about it. “If our men go out, they die. If we go, we are
raped. That’s the choice.”
3.8 When speaking about the future, 20 year old Semira said
the shame of rape would normally have prevented her from finding a husband.
“Since most of the young men are dead, I suppose this isn’t going to be a
problem.” Semira’s 18 year old sister, Roda, shrugged in agreement. Like all
the other women in the group she wanted education, but our conversation kept
coming back to their terror at leaving the camp compound to fetch firewood.
“Someone has to take away their weapons,” she said. “They are cowards, and
if they see soldiers from Britain here they will run away. We feel much safer
when there are white faces around.”
3.9 The women agreed it would be best to have a European
troop presence. “Then Darfur can be an independent country without the Arabs
harming us and stealing our cattle.”
3.10 We also met 19 year old Jewa whose parents were killed
by the militia, and who is now responsible for a family for six. Unfortunately
her situation is common, and when one woman succeeds in getting a job she is
expected to support her extended family. Sedeer, who cooks for an NGO, supports
all eight families of her dead husband’s brothers.
3.11 Margaret, a nurse at the camp, summed it up when she said, “Life for women in Sudan is hard, but it is especially hard for women in Darfur.” Her own parents had been killed in southern Sudan, and she came to Darfur because she knows how the refugees feel, she says. “I keep telling the girls to get as much education as they can because that is their best hope.”
4.0 The Janjaweed is a pro-government militia.
4.1 It has its origins in the mid-1980s. Sadiq El Madhi
initiated a policy of arming Arab Baggara militias in Darfur and Kordofan.(Human
Rights Watch: Darfur In Flames). It
was originally intended as a counter-insurgency measure against the SPLA rebels
in the South and to entrench Tujammo Al Arabi (Arab Alliance) throughout the
region, subjugating the non-Arab population.
4.2 The name of the region is the key to understanding its
ethnicity. “Dar” means homeland. In addition to the native Fur people the
Massaleit and Zaghawa are among the 30 ethnic groups living in Darfur.
Ruthlessly discriminated against and targeted for vicious treatment, the African
people of Darfur began attacking military installations in April 2003 at El
Fasher airport.
Left: there are no good roads to Geneina, making access for aid agencies difficult.
4.3 The tribal leaders we met were emphatic that the Janjaweed are determined to bring about their annihilation. They cannot understand why other Muslims have attacked them (even as they have been gathered for religious festivals), why they have burnt mosques, raped their women, and killed their people. This troubling question is one also for Muslim leaders who need to appreciate the nature of the genocide against these gentle Muslim people who are living through a reign of terror.
5.0 The Government of Sudan
5.1 The
Sudanese Interior Minister, Rahim Mohamed Hussein, has issued a bellicose
declaration that “We will not agree to the presence of any foreign forces,
whatever their nationality.” Mr.Hussein is part of a government that enjoys
single digit support among a population that has been described to us by many
people as overwhelmingly moderate in its attitudes (although there is a rump of
people who want to see strict Sharia law).
5.2 Mr.Hussein’s attitude reflects his Government’s
repeated indifference to international initiatives and a tendency to renege on
undertakings given (eg the 1996 Peace Charter), and to allow initiatives to
collapse (eg the Ajuba Talks in September 2004).
5.3 The
Machakos Naivasha Protocols (2003),
while a hopeful moment in the Government’s relationship with the SPLA, have
been used by the Government of Sudan as a means of stifling international
criticism. The talks, which are to resume this month, have become yet another
bargaining chip. Khartoum has threatened to withdraw from the north-south
dialogue if the international community takes action against it over Darfur.
5.4 Throughout the gathering humanitarian disaster in
Darfur, the Sudanese government has let it be known that it will restrict or
deny humanitarian relief access if the international community asserts itself in
ways Khartoum dislikes.
5.5 For the international community, the question is
whether to accept such blatant blackmail or to make it clear that it will not
tolerate genocide against a civilian population.
The choice is between appeasement or decisiveness.
6.0 The United Nations
6.1 There is
no United Nations peace-keeping presence in Darfur. The Government of Sudan have
bitterly opposed the presence of “foreign troops” although the reincarnated
African Union (AU) has sent a small force of Rwandan soldiers (something their
President Paul Kagame, told us he is very proud of when we met him a week
earlier in Kigali, and especially given the international community’s failure
to respond to genocide in Rwanda in 1994). There are also troops from Tanzania
and Nigeria. Tribal leaders told us they would also like to see European and
Commonwealth soldiers deployed.
6.2 Based at
El Fasher, the main role of the AU peace-keepers
has been to guard the UN monitors sent to Darfur. The UN has said that at least
3000 soldiers are needed and that they must have a robust mandate. The UN
Security Council Resolution of September 18th 2004 committed the
Security Council to do little more than think about possible penalties in the
event of Sudanese intransigence. China, Russia, Pakistan and Algeria abstained.
6.3 Despite
at least eighteen months of atrocities in Sudan, the international community has
yet to take a single positive action against the Sudanese Government.
7.0 Britain
7.1 In 1898 Britain and Egypt formed a joint government for
Sudan. The south, with its Christian and traditional religions, gravitated
towards British East Africa, and the north to Egypt and Islam.
7.2 By 1947 - as a prelude to independence – Britain had
fused the two regions and handed power to the north. For the south independence
resulted in a change of colonial masters. Within two years the army had taken
power and begun a campaign of forced Islamisation. The cycle of displacements
and refugee crises had begun. In turn the SPLA (Sudanese People’s Liberation
Army) and other factions of resistance were spawned. In Darfur, the emergence of
the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) – although acting independent of the SPLA
- has now become a potent force. It has armoured vehicles and weapons, in
many cases taken from their attackers during reprisal campaigns. Tribal leaders
told us, “If we were given weapons, we would fight,” but then added, “We
would prefer to go back to the way we were before all of this began.”
7.3 There is a real danger of linkage between the
insurgents in Darfur and SPLA. Such a violent escalation could lead to the
implosion of Sudan, a coup in Khartoum and the emergence of an even more
authoritarian regime (an attempted coup by the Muslim Brotherhood occurred last
month), and derailment of the Machakos protocols and the north-south process.
The UK Government will want to emphasise all these consequences of the
continuing genocide in Darfur.
7.4 Fashir Suleman Dina reminded us of Britain’s historic
links with Darfur, including a treaty with Sultan Mohamaed Baharadin that
provided for western Darfur to opt out of the state created in 1898 if it so
wished. He said, “We never really thought about this before but if you are
experiencing genocide then you would have to think of anything that would allow
you to escape from this.”
8.0. Child Soldiers and the plight of children
8.1 We heard evidence that children as young as 10 have
become child soldiers. We also had a chance to speak to Daniel Toole, Director
of the office of emergency programmes for UNICEF worldwide about the plight of
children. For instance we learnt that one child had joined the rebel SLA after
his father was killed. The SLA and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)
inevitably attract marginalised, disaffected young people.
Right: Omar was eight years old when he escaped from a train from Darfur to live on the streets of Khartoum.
8.2 Many children have also been left as orphans. In the
camps children join the food lines for they are now the heads of their families.
We were pleased to learn that the Government of Sudan has been supporting the
immunisation programme in West Darfur (especially against measles). However,
polio has begun to reappear and also TB, and we were told that more needs to be
done to combat it.
8.3 The worst health threat appears to be malaria. In one
refugee camp we visited we were told that malaria is at its peak at present,
with an average of one person per household suffering – and over 4000 cases in
that camp alone last week. Chloroquinine treatments are not working due to high
resistance, and other treatments are limited by their cost.
8.4 We learnt that before the genocide stable villages had
been very positive participants in health improvement programmes for children,
and although the camps were continuing their work children in inaccessible
villages were greatly at risk.
8.5 An immeasurable problem will be the impact of so many
babies born due to rape by the Janjaweed. While the women we spoke to would
eventually open up somewhat about the horrors of their attacks by the militia,
they would not even discuss what the future holds in store for so many children.
“They want to dilute our blood, you see,” one woman said. “They hate black
people.”
9.0 The IDPs
9.1 There is a
traumatised, helpless mood of resignation in the camps. Sometimes it boils over,
as, for instance, at Otash camp, near Nyala, when a policeman was recently
lynched. A woman recognised him as one of those who massacred her family.
9.2 Some IDPs, an estimated 200,000 have fled to Chad and
70,000 more to Kenya. The other million have left their homes for makeshift
camps that have sprung up in many parts of Western Sudan. This exodus has been
precipitated by the Janjaweed’s reign of terror. We learnt for example of a
boy aged 11 whose mother had been killed, leaving him to care for his three
brothers in the camp in which he is living.
9.3 Over one million IDPs have been herded into camps which
are run by the Government. Some of the policemen who patrol the camps are
Janjaweed militia who have been given police uniforms. This understandably
terrifies the people living there.
9.4 Stifling temperatures, soaring to a regular 45 degrees
centigrade, food and water shortages, illness and makeshift sleeping quarters,
all conspire to rob people of their dignity. They have already lost their land,
their homes, their independence and self-sufficiency for which they were noted.
9.5 The irony is that a nutritionalist in Darfur working
for the UN earns $10,000 a month to oversee the distribution of grain and
supplements to malnourished children. We are in grave danger of creating vast
numbers of dependent people out of the previously self-sufficient.
10.0 Conclusion
10.1 Targetted oil sanctions should have been imposed at
least six months ago. The failure to do so and the abject failure to control the
flow of arms into Sudan has lulled Khartoum into believing (rightly thus far)
that the world community would allow the Janjaweed militia, with their deep
associations with the Sudanese Government, to continue to act with impunity.
10.2 It is extremely disturbing that countries with direct
interests in Sudan have used their votes on the UN Security Council to soften
the world’s response to the crisis in Darfur. China’s National Petroleum
Company controls 40% of Sudan’s oil and India controls about 25% (through the
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Videsh Ltd). Malaysia’s Petronas Company
controls a further 30%.
10.3 One Sudanese – from the south – who has survived
nine attempts on his life, told us that, “every barrel of your oil is half
filled with our blood”.
10.4 Sudan produces 32,000 barrels daily – worth $1m. In
2001 the Congressional Reserves Record estimated that this same sum, $1m, was
what the Government of Sudan has been spending each day on arms. China has sold
AK47s, mortars, ammunition and rocket propelled grenades to Khartoum. We heard
descriptions of such weapons in use against civilians in West Darfur.
10.5 The elders whom we met – among the traditional
leaders of Darfur – told us that their greatest desire is peace and an end to
the genocide.
10.6 In West Darfur alone 600,000 of their people live in
sprawling camps. There are 120,000 IDPs just in and around Geneina (doubling its
previous population). Throughout Darfur - a land mass the size of France – a
colossal 44% of the population are directly war-affected.
10.7 Mercifully the rainy season this year was very light.
Extensive flooding would have jeopardised humanitarian operations. Of course,
this small mercy will also mean a modest harvest – so it is a mixed blessing.
And no-one should under-estimate either the seriousness of the situation or the
inadequacy of our response.
10.8 The elders said that security remains their greatest
concern. They called for five things:
1) The disarmament of the Janjaweed
2) The restoration of looted livestock
3) The return or rebuilding of property
4) A resolution of the land issue
5)
Freedom to move about
Above all they told us that the genocide must end.
10.9 Sheik De Allah put it well when he poignantly said,
“We are a simple people. We know our farms and cattle and that’s all we
want. The Government created Janjaweed and have created this situation. We are
desperate and pray that the international community will intervene.”
Our recommendations appear in the Executive Summary at the
top of this report.
Darfur
October 5th 2004
11.0 Contact Details
Jubilee Campaign, St Johns, Cranleigh Road, Wonersh,
Guildford, GU5 0QX
TEL 0044 1483 894 787
FAX 0044 1483 894 797