04/07/2004

U.S. President George Bush and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan today both called on the government of Sudan to halt attacks against civilian populations in the country's western province of Darfur and to allow humanitarian access to the region. 

“The Sudanese government must immediately stop local militias from committing atrocities against the local population and must provide unrestricted access to humanitarian aid agencies,” President Bush said in a statement from his ranch in Crawford, TX.  “I condemn these atrocities, which are displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, and I have expressed my views directly to President Bashir of Sudan.”

Speaking in Geneva, Secretary General Annan raised the possibility of international military action to stop the death and displacement in Darfur, if the Sudanese government refuses to move toward peace and allow humanitarian access to the region.  UN officials have charged the government of Sudan and the Janjiweed militia it supports with conducting “ethnic cleansing” in Darfur by carrying out “the forcible and long-term displacement of targeted communities.”  In remarks during an international day of reflection on the 10th anniversary of the start of genocide in Rwanda, Mr. Annan said that “such reports leave me with a deep sense of foreboding.”

Some 800,000 Rwandans, generally members of the minority Tutsi tribe, were slaughtered in 1994, as the UN, the U.S. and other countries refused to intervene.  (See Remembering Rwanda)  Mr. Annan’s suggestion that the UN may be willing to send peacekeepers to Sudan to stop the killing shows that he is prepared to work more assertively to stop the killing.

Taken together, the separate remarks by President Bush and Secretary General Annan are an attempt to increase pressure on the government of Sudan, which is trying to put down a 13 month rebellion in  Darfur.  The fighting there has driven more than 110,000 refugees into Chad, displaced at least 700,000 internally, destroyed many villages and killed an estimated 10,000 or more people, largely civilians.   The government has generally prevented the press, human rights monitors and humanitarian workers from working in Darfur, so reports are not precise.  Nevertheless, the information that is available indicates that Darfur is the most acute humanitarian and human rights crisis in the world today.

Mr. Annan clearly sees the crisis as a test of the UN’s ability to mobilize the international political will to stop ethnic cleansing. Although the U.S. is working hard to bring peace to Sudan, also afflicted by a 21-year civil war between forces in the north and south, it is unlikely to commit troops if an international force goes to Darfur.

Mr. Annan made it clear that international military action in Darfur would be a last resort after all diplomatic options are exhausted.  If the UN Security Council decided that an international peacekeeping force was the only way to end the violence in Darfur, the UN would face two immediate problems.  The first would be to find troops to deploy quickly and effectively to the semi-arid region.  The second challenge would be to find enough troops at a time when UN peacekeeping capacity is already stretched.  (See Time to Get Serious about UN Peace Operations Capacity)

For further information, contact Ken Bacon.