12/13/2007

The UN Country Team must develop a strategy to deal with any potential forced relocations and disarmaments of camps in Darfur. It must also continue to ensure that any returns and relocations are safe and voluntary. The Government of Sudan’s obstructionist behavior towards the humanitarian operation in Darfur has the effect of frequently putting the UN Country Team on the defensive. In the case of Kalma camp, the UN Country Team was forced to react in an ad hoc manner to the government’s sudden proposal to forcibly disarm the camp. The UN and African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) appear to have held off a forced disarmament of Kalma for the moment through continued dialogue with the local administration in South Darfur. But the Government of Sudan is not likely to wait long before pushing again for forced disarmament and relocation of Kalma and other more politicized camps.

• The Government of Sudan is publicly claiming that the Darfur crisis is over and that it is time for returns and development. Calls by the Government of Sudan for all displaced persons to return to their home villages are not new, but there has been a sharp increase in rhetoric on this issue over the past three months. President Omar al-Bashir has stated that by the time UNAMID arrives, the camps in Darfur will no longer exist. Further, the Government of Sudan is making false claims that large numbers of displaced people have already returned home from the camps. In fact, in 2007 there have been minimal sustainable returns taking place. The conflict in Darfur has not yet been resolved and security conditions are not yet ripe to sustain large-scale returns. Additionally, in most parts of Darfur there is nothing for the displaced to return to; their villages have been destroyed or are currently occupied by others. The insecurity in Darfur means that humanitarian agencies have very limited access to people in rural areas outside of the main towns in Darfur. It would therefore be impossible for them to access areas of return to monitor the safety of any returnees.


• The Government of Sudan feels threatened by large camps of displaced people in Darfur which they cannot control. They see the camps as a power base for rebel leaders, and therefore they are taking steps to break up these camps. This is despite the fact that in August 2004 the Government of Sudan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) which provided that they would not forcibly return people, and that they would allow IOM to monitor returns and issue a determination as to whether the returns were forced or voluntary. In January 2005, the Government of Sudan signed a Letter of Understanding (LOU) with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to similar effect with regard to West Darfur, where UNHCR takes the lead on protection.


• The Government of Sudan is alleging that certain camps in Darfur are militarized, in order to justify forcibly relocating people. Although there is an increasing presence of rebel factions in the camps, these are civilian camps with a presence of some arms; camp residents are not part of rebel movements’ fighting forces. Although it is clear that there are arms in Kalma camp, it is not clear how many. The vast majority of the injuries suffered during the clashes in October 2007 were not caused by gunshots. It is in the government’s interest to contribute to implosion in the camps by sparking conflicts and bringing in arms. It is alleged that this is what occurred in Kalma camp in South Darfur (see below). The Government of Sudan has carried out at least one forced relocation in breach of its MOU with IOM -- from Otash camp in South Darfur on October 28, 2007, when security forces entered the camp at night and forcefully removed camp residents, including women and children, threatening them with sticks and rubber hoses.


• The UN Country Team must put forward a holistic proposal to address the problems in Kalma camp and the longer-term concern of continued forced relocation and return by the Government of Sudan. The proposal for Kalma should include restitution of law and order, voluntary disarmament (including political negotiations with rebel leaders to remove arms from the camp), and coordination of the camp to be divided up by geographical sector. The tensions in Kalma could have been diffused if the government had not prevented the NGO that was providing camp management in Kalma from working, thus leaving this huge camp without any effective camp management. After the October 2007 violence the government did not allow any food deliveries to Kalma for one month. The UN Country Team needs to have plans in place to deal with expulsions and obstructions of the humanitarian response in Darfur.