V. Explicit and Implicit Amnesties in Peace Agreements

Foregoing accountability does not necessarily result in the hoped-for benefits. Instead of putting a conflict to rest, inserting in a peace agreement an explicit amnesty—which may grant immunity from prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide—sanctions the commission of crimes of most concern to the international community without resulting in the desired objective of peace. Even without an explicit amnesty provision in a peace agreement, turning a blind eye to international crimes (a de facto amnesty) can be an important contributing factor to ongoing human rights abuses. All too often a peace that is conditioned on providing immunity for these most serious crimes is not sustainable. Worse, it sets a precedent of immunity for atrocities that encourages even more abuses.

In the situations described below, Human Rights Watch has documented ongoing violence after implementation of peace agreements that explicitly or implicitly provided immunity from prosecution for serious crimes. Doubtless other factors fueled these conflicts, and it is beyond the scope of this paper to touch on all the causes of the violence. However, on the basis of our research in the following situations, we believe that de jure or de facto amnesties were important contributing factors to the ongoing commission of crimes after peace agreements were signed.

A. Sierra Leone

The attack on Sierra Leone by Revolutionary United Front rebels crossing from Liberia on March 23, 1991, triggered an 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone. The conflict was characterized by extreme brutality and widespread atrocities against the civilian population. In particular, the RUF notoriously cut off the hands, arms, lips, legs, or other body parts of some civilians in their custody. RUF rebels systematically committed rape and other forms of sexual violence against girls and women, and abducted thousands of women and children to take part in their forces.

Despite the horrific nature of their crimes, a peace agreement signed in Abidjan in November 1996 granted the RUF an amnesty in order to “consolidate the peace and promote the cause of national reconciliation.”[236]

In a stark demonstration of de jure immunity failing to “consolidate peace,” the ceasefire provided for in the Abidjan accords was broken less than two months later when serious fighting broke out in southern Moyamba district. On May 25, 1997, the elected president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, was overthrown in a coup by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) which consisted primarily of disgruntled former Sierra Leonean army soldiers.[237]

From exile in Guinea, President Kabbah mobilized international condemnation of the coup. In response to his request, hundreds of Nigerian troops based in Liberia as part of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group were transferred to Freetown to reinforce troops already stationed in the capital to protect the airport.[238] After months of international military and diplomatic pressure (including strict sanctions imposed by the United Nations and the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS), the Kabbah government-in-exile and the RUF/AFRC signed an agreement in Conakry on October 23, 1997. The agreement also included an amnesty provision for those involved in the military coup.[239]

Once again, the hoped-for effect of the amnesty—lasting peace—did not occur. The RUF/AFRC undermined the agreement by stockpiling weapons and attacking ECOMOG forces. In February 1998 ECOMOG forces, together with the pro-government Kamajor militia, launched an operation that drove the RUF/AFRC forces from Freetown. After losing power, members of the RUF and AFRC engaged in a campaign to terrorize civilians in Sierra Leone. Between February and June 1998 their forces raped, mutilated, or killed thousands of civilians. They abducted men, women, and children for use as combatants, forced laborers, and sexual slaves.[240]

In July 1998 Nigeria transferred RUF leader Foday Sankoh (who had been arrested in 1997 at Lagos airport in Nigeria on arms charges) to Sierra Leone where the Supreme Court tried and sentenced him to death for treason for his role in the 1997 coup.[241] By the end of 1998, after a series of offenses enabled them to gain control of the diamond producing area of Kono and other strategic areas, the RUF/AFRC had gained the upper hand militarily and from that position of strength launched a major offensive on Freetown in January 1999.[242]

The battle for Freetown and the ensuing three-week occupation of the capital were again characterized by the systematic and widespread perpetration of abuses against the civilian population. At least 4,000 civilians were killed.[243] As the RUF forces were driven out of Freetown in February 1999, they abducted thousands of civilians. As they moved eastward from Freetown into the bush, the rebels continued to commit egregious human rights abuses, including killings and amputations.[244] Human Rights Watch extensively documented rebel atrocities committed during the January rebel offensive and in the following months.[245]

Government and ECOMOG forces also committed serious human rights abuses, though on a lesser scale, including over 180 summary executions of rebels and their suspected collaborators.[246]

After intense international pressure in the months following the January invasion, Kabbah’s government and the RUF rebels signed a ceasefire agreement on May 18, 1999, followed by a peace agreement in Lomé, Togo, on July 7, 1999. The accord, brokered by the UN, the Organization of African Unity, and ECOWAS, committed the RUF/AFRC to lay down its arms in exchange for representation in a new government. Rather than being held to account for abuses, RUF leader Foday Sankoh (who had been released from jail provisionally to attend the peace talks) was rewarded with the chairmanship of the board of the Commission for the Management of Strategic Resources, National Reconstruction and Development (which gave him access to the country’s extremely lucractive diamond mines) and the status of vice-president. AFRC leader Johnny Paul Koroma was made the chairman of the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace provided for under article 6 of the peace agreement.

Although amnesty had previously failed to bring “lasting peace” to Sierra Leone, negotiators did not change their stance towards accountability.[247] The agreement again included a general amnesty for all crimes committed by all parties in the war up to the signing of the peace agreement.[248] Despite the fact that Sankoh’s RUF was responsible for some of the most brutal violence seen in a civil war in Africa, he was granted a pardon and his forces were granted an amnesty for the third time. Indeed, in these negotiations the issue of amnesty was considered “a foregone conclusion.”[249] The lack of discussion about amnesty provisions was due in part to the use of earlier agreements as a reference point.[250]

As mentioned in Chapter II.B, at the last minute, the UN secretary-general’s special representative attending the talks added a handwritten caveat that the UN held the understanding that the amnesty and pardon provision did not apply to international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law.[251] This, however, did little to counteract the impression that the RUF would not be prosecuted for its many crimes against humanity. The very belated mention of justice also caused some to question the commitment to accountability and justice held by those involved in the negotiation process, most notably the United Nations.

Within two months of signing the accord, Human Rights Watch documented numerous new rebel abuses including rape, torture, attempted amputation, shooting, abduction, vehicle ambush, and extensive looting of property in the central and western parts of the country.[252] The rebels largely refused to comply with the disarmament provisions, and in May 2000 hostilities resumed when the RUF took several hundred UN peacekeeping troops hostage.

Over the course of 2000, in addition to abuses by the RUF, Human Rights Watch observed an increased number of serious abuses by the civil defense forces, a pro-government militia. Their crimes included rape, systematic extortion, looting of villages, commandeering of vehicles, recruitment of children, and torture and summary execution of suspected rebels.[253]

On May 8, 2000, armed men in Sankoh’s Freetown residence opened fire on a crowd of civilian demonstrators, killing 19.[254] Following this attack, Sankoh was arrested. Some have argued that his arrest and the resulting change of leadership in the RUF helped encourage the eventual implementation of the peace accord.[255]

Rather than solidify peace, successive amnesties had the opposite effect in Sierra Leone. Inclusion of a general amnesty in the initial peace agreement created the expectation that other agreements would include the same provision, thus further emboldening potential rights abusers. The pardons and ultimately the high government position for rebel leader Sankoh showed that combatants would pay no price—and indeed would even be rewarded—for their horrific crimes.[256]

B. Angola

The Angolan civil war, which began in 1975, continued through six successive amnesties. The war’s long duration, intensity, and scope eventually involved most Angolans either as participants or victims.[257] The failure of influential states to address serious international crimes committed by the warring parties greatly contributed to the resumption of conflict. While we do not contend that lack of accountability (either nationally or internationally) was the sole cause of renewed hostilities, the certainty that serious international law violations would go unpunished was a contributing factor in how events unfolded.

1. The Bicesse Accords

Internal armed conflict in Angola started shortly before independence from Portugal in 1975 when three nationalist groups that had been fighting colonial rule battled each other for control of the capital, Luanda.[258] In the years following independence, the war spread and outside forces became involved as the conflict became a proxy arena for the Cold War stand-off between the United States and the Soviet Union.[259]

In January 1989 Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos made an overture to rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (União Nacional pela Independência Total de Angola, UNITA) leader Jonas Savimbi that led to a ceasefire in June 1989. The offer was reportedly for Savimbi to agree to temporary exile in exchange for amnesty and national reconciliation. Although the ceasefire collapsed quickly, the following 18 months saw sustained efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement even as fierce fighting continued. In May 1991 talks resulted in an agreement known as the Bicesse Accords.

The Bicesse Accords ratified the ceasefire, called for integration of government and UNITA forces into the Angolan Armed Forces, and prohibited either side from purchasing weapons. It also set the terms for Angola’s first nationwide elections. Despite the widespread human rights abuses committed by both sides (including deliberate killing, destruction of villages, and forcible conscription of children into the armed forces), no provisions for accountability were included.[260] On the contrary, shortly after the accords were signed, an amnesty law was passed by parliament.[261]

Although the Bicesse Accords had required UNITA and government (led by the Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA)) forces to demobilize, both sides were uncooperative and retained secret armies. The ultimate failure of the accords was a result, in part, of the inability of the major international actors, notably the US and Soviet Union, to effectively ensure that they were implemented. The UN mission that was established for Angola, the UN Angola Verification Mission II (UNAVEM II), was ineffectual in ensuring that demobilization was taking place: its mandate was limited to monitoring and verifying actions taken by the government and UNITA to implement the accords.[262]UNAVEM II was unable to adequately investigate violations of the accords and reports of political killings or intimidation. As a result, UNAVEM II was virtually silent on human rights abuses, including the much publicized 1991 murders of senior UNITA leaders Tito Chingunji and Wilson dos Santos and their families. Although then-US Secretary of State James Baker requested a detailed explanation of the deaths, little was done to demand accountability for the brutal murders.[263] This contributed to both sides increasingly feeling confident enough to violate the peace accords by intimidating suspected opposition sympathizers and by not properly disarming and demobilizing their armed forces.[264]

The elections called for by the Bicesse Accords were held in late September 1992. After Savimbi lost the election, UNITA rejected the results and returned the country to civil war by remobilizing its forces. In response, MPLA-armed civilians conducted a witch hunt of supposed UNITA supporters in Luanda, murdering thousands, a memory which still invokes fear in Angolans.[265] Less than a month after the elections, the conflict resumed. It lasted until November 1994 with the signing of the Lusaka Protocol.

2. The next war and the Lusaka Protocol

The next phase of war, from 1992 to 1994, was notable for systematic violations of the laws of war by both the government and UNITA rebels. Indiscriminate shelling of starving, besieged cities by UNITA resulted in massive destruction and loss of civilian life. Indiscriminate bombing by the government also took a high civilian toll. In two years of fighting, it is estimated that 300,000 Angolans died, probably more than during the preceding 16 years of conflict. The UN reported that as many as 1,000 people were dying daily between May and October 1993, more than any other conflict in the world at that time.[266]

Despite widespread war crimes, again little effort was made to hold perpetrators to account. Apparently fearing that public attention to human rights abuses by the government and UNITA might jeopardize the peace process, the US State Department largely kept silent. State Department officials testifying before Congress during this period concentrated on developments in the peace process and on humanitarian concerns, but there was little public censure of the warring parties for abuses against noncombatants.[267]

Significant military gains by the government during this cycle of war forced UNITA to make greater concessions in the Lusaka peace process than it had at Bicesse.[268] Nonetheless, a general amnesty for “illegal acts” perpetrated before the ceasefire was the first issue agreed upon by both sides during the 1993-1994 Lusaka peace talks.[269] Angolans were called upon to “forgive and forget the offenses resulting from the Angolan conflict.”[270]

Both sides initialed the Lusaka Protocol on October 31, 1994. On November 10, 1994, the National Assembly passed an amnesty law covering crimes committed in the military conflict from October 1, 1992, up to the signature of the Lusaka Protocol.[271]

Despite the signing of the Lusaka Protocol, both parties continued to prepare for resumption of hostilities. International prohibitions on arms shipments were neither comprehensive nor enforced.[272]

The UN also overlooked the ongoing human rights abuses that continued to occur between 1994 and 1998.[273] Although the United Nations missions established a Human Rights Division following the Lusaka protocol, a lack of transparency and public reporting on violations of that agreement hampered its implementation. The UN’s strategy of refraining from disclosure of public action against violations of the accords and failure to implement the accords once again undermined any respect that UNITA or the government had for the Lusaka Protocol. Even when the head of UNITA’s delegation to the UN commission that oversaw implementation of the Lusaka protocol was assaulted on camera by UNITA cadres while on official duties, the UN turned a blind eye.[274]

National courts were also unable to establish accountability for violations of the Lusaka Protocol. A 1994 law provided that military authorities had discretion in deciding whether soldiers suspected of committing crimes against the civilian population would be tried before military or civilian courts. In practice, military personnel alleged to be responsible for violations against civilians were rarely investigated, much less referred to civilian courts.[275] The small possibility of accountability ended when, in May 1996, the National Assembly formally approved another amnesty law—“to underline the spirit of tolerance and the guarantee of harmonious relationship between Angolan nationals”—for all human rights abuses committed between May 31, 1991, and May 9, 1996.[276]

3. The final phase of conflict

Impunity eroded confidence in the peace process and created a vicious cycle of rights abuses that steadily worsened and ultimately undermined the Lusaka Accords.[277] The resumption of full-scale fighting in December 1998 demonstrated the failure of the UN’s “see no evil, speak no evil” strategy. This final period of fighting, between 1998 and 2002, was the most brutal and was marked by widespread laws of war violations by both sides.[278] Both the government and UNITA targeted the civilian population, shelling densely populated areas and planting anti-personnel mines across the countryside. In November 2000 Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) issued a report that documented acts of terror, mutilation, and unlawful reprisals against civilians, including pregnant women, children, and the elderly. The report indicated that the displaced persons MSF interviewed distinguished between how the war was fought “before” the 1994 Lusaka agreement and afterwards, affirming that executions and acts of great cruelty perpetrated by armed groups on both sides had become increasingly common as part of a policy of terrorizing the civilian population.[279] Whole cities were reduced to ruins and hundreds of thousands of people were killed or died from war-related deprivation and disease.[280] Between 1998 and 2002 the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that 3.1 million people were forced from their homes as a result of indiscriminate tactics used by both government and UNITA forces against the civilian population. This number greatly exceeded the approximately 1 to 2 million people who were displaced during the previous war.

Although in 1999 the Angolan National Assembly declared UNITA leader Savimbi a “war criminal and international terrorist” and sought his arrest,[281] the following year, in September 2000, the National Assembly reversed course and offered a pardon to Savimbi “if he were to ask for [it] and ask for the forgiveness of the Angolan people.”[282] In December 2000 the government again granted amnesty to all those who laid down their arms and intended to embrace the peace process, including Savimbi. A year later the Angolan government still held open the possibility of a pardon for Savimbi, suggesting three possible scenarios for him: capture and trial as a war criminal, surrender and pardon, or death in combat. On February 22, 2002, he was killed in combat.[283]

It is clear that the removal of Savimbi from the situation played an important role in ending the conflict. His death in February 2002 prompted UNITA to return to the negotiating table.[284] Two days before signing the Memorandum of Understanding between UNITA and the government (also known as the Luena Accord after the eastern Angola city in which it was signed) in April 2002, the National Assembly unanimously approved a blanket amnesty law for UNITA and the Angolan Armed Forces for all infractions of military discipline and crimes against the state that security forces committed during the conflict.[285] The Luena Accord itself contains a general amnesty law for all crimes committed during the conflict.[286]

The successive failed efforts to broker peace with promises of amnesty in Angola are another example of impunity failing to achieve the desired results. Nonetheless, in this instance, after 27 years of bloodletting, the Luena Accord did bring an end to the conflict.

C. Sudan

In Sudan, longstanding impunity for the state’s use of abusive ethnic militias to attack civilians has contributed to the repeated use of this tactic with devastating results for civilians in different areas across the country. The tactics used in recent years in Darfur—including the widespread targeting of civilians—were first employed during the country’s civil war in the south. Notably, the UN Security Council remained silent and never once condemned Khartoum or rebel factions for human rights abuses throughout that conflict in the 1980s and 1990s; nor did the peace agreement that ended the civil war include provisions for accountability. Lack of consequences for committing international crimes in the south likely affected government decisions about waging war in Darfur since 2003.[287]

1. North-south conflict

The 21-year civil war between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement and the central Sudanese government ended with the signing of the January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.[288] More than two million civilians are estimated to have died during the conflict and four million people were displaced.[289]

To stem the rebel tide in south Sudan, the government used “scorched earth” tactics to target rural communities perceived to be sympathetic to the SPLA. From the mid-1980s, ethnic militia known as muraheleen (or murahilin) were a key part of this counterinsurgency campaign.[290] The militia, armed with government-supplied weapons, were allowed full license to loot cattle, to burn villages, and to kill, injure, or capture Nuer and Dinka civilians for use as slave labor.[291] Along with government forces, the muraheleen destroyed granaries, fields, and wells, rendering villages uninhabitable.[292] As the war continued, the Sudanese government launched offensives in which hundreds of muraheleen on horseback raided villages as part of an effort to displace the population.[293] The government also undertook extensive aerial bombing campaigns, sometimes backing ground operations by the muraheleen, which killed civilians and displaced tens of thousands of people.[294] In the south, the government denied humanitarian access to areas of assessed civilian need without regard to human deprivation.[295] Militia raiding, government bombing, and the simultaneous denial of humanitarian relief caused tens of thousands of deaths from famine and disease in Bahr el Ghazal in 1998 alone.[296]

Human Rights Watch also documented abuses by the SPLA, particularly after the movement splintered, including targeted and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, destruction of homes, and pillage of grain and livestock. The SPLA and its offshoots also did not pursue accountability for these abuses but rather included amnesty provisions in ceasefire agreements or conventions aimed at resolving disputes between the rival factions. In some cases, this resulted in freeing military commanders who had been convicted of abusing their positions and of attacking civilians.[297]

2. Darfur

From the early 1980s until mid-2003 a combination of extended periods of drought, competition for dwindling resources, lack of good governance and the rule of law, impunity for crimes, and the easy availability of guns made local clashes between Arab nomads and ethnic Fur increasingly bloody and politicized.[298] A wide-reaching 1994 administrative reorganization by the government of President Omar al-Bashir in Darfur gave members of Arab ethnic groups new positions of power that the Masalit, like their Fur and Zaghawa neighbors, saw as an attempt to undermine their traditional leadership role and power of their communities in their homeland.[299] Communal hostilities broke out in 1998 and 1999 when Arab nomads began moving south with their flocks earlier than usual.[300] Starting in early 2003, rebel movements emerged calling for a power-sharing arrangement with the government and an end to tribal militias.[301]

From April 2003 the government of Sudan pursued a strategy in Darfur strikingly similar to that which it had pursued in the south. The lack of consequences for the crimes in the north-south war, and the silence of the Security Council in the face of those atrocities, sent the message to Khartoum that there would be no consequences for using the same tactics in Darfur.

In Darfur, as in the south, the government relied on the practice of providing selected Arab nomads (who had easier access to small villages in rural areas than cars and tanks) with automatic weapons and free rein to target civilians in the name of government counterinsurgency. Janjaweed militias, like the muraheleen, were provided the opportunity to loot and to access grazing that they had long coveted. This was an incentive to pursue Khartoum’s policy of “ethnic cleansing.” The government paid and armed the Janjaweed just as it had the muraheleen.[302] In both situations, the government used militias to increase the deniability of government involvement in atrocities, despite the fact that the militia was an essential part of the government’s counterinsurgency strategy. Moreover, both militias were armed and officered by the army, were officially part of its Popular Defense Forces, and benefited from immunity from prosecution as a result of a presidential decree prohibiting prosecution of armed forces without permission of “the General Commander.”[303]

Some of the same personnel who had organized the earlier counterinsurgency operations in the south were redeployed in Darfur. For example, Ahmed Haroun, the first target of an International Criminal Court warrant for crimes in Darfur, was the chief of staff for the governor of North Kordofan in the late 1990s. While working in Kordofan, Haroun was allegedly responsible for mobilizing the muraheleen and for planning and supplying military operations against rebel targets in that area. He later applied this experience to coordinate Janjaweed militia activities in Darfur as state minister of the interior responsible for Darfur.[304]

The pattern of conflict is also quite similar, only much larger in scale. The government and its proxy militia forces targeted the civilian population through a combination of indiscriminate and targeted aerial bombardment, a scorched earth campaign, and a denial of access to humanitarian assistance. In northern Darfur, aggressive aerial bombardment was followed by ground attacks by Sudanese army troops and Janjaweed. The bombing by Soviet-designed Antonov cargo planes in north Darfur was similar to the pattern of Antonov bombing in southern Sudan.[305] Key elements of the government’s campaigns in both southern Sudan and Darfur included destruction of water sources, burning of crops, and theft of livestock.

One purpose of both campaigns was, among other objectives, to destroy any real or potential support base for the rebels in the civilian population. The government’s strategy in Darfur, as it was in the south, was to remove rural populations from large areas of the region, that is, “draining the sea from the fish.”[306] Within a year, hundreds of villages in Darfur were destroyed, 750,000 people were displaced, and more than 110,000 fled across the border to Chad.[307] Five years later, attacks continue, over 2.5 million people are displaced, and civilian casualties number in the hundreds of thousands.[308]

3. Naivasha peace talks

Peace talks between the north and south began in June 2002 in Naivasha, Kenya, and continued until January 2005. While the negotiations were underway in early 2003, a Darfur rebel movement, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) launched an attack on El Fashir airport and in response the Sudanese government began committing large-scale attacks against civilians in Darfur. Throughout the north-south talks, the participants and international negotiators did not insist that the peace agreement include provisions to hold the government and rebel SPLM/A accountable for the massive human rights abuses that were committed during the war.[309] The United States and other countries involved in the Naivasha talks were reluctant to raise the ongoing crimes in Darfur for fear of jeopardizing the talks.[310] Ultimately, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement did not contain provisions relating to justice or reparations for victims.

By failing to put accountability on the agenda, negotiators demonstrated that there were no consequences for the massive atrocities that had taken place in the south—the implication being that there would be no consequences for similar attacks on civilians in Darfur or for ongoing attacks in the south. In early 2004, in addition to the abuses in Darfur, the government conducted a scorched-earth campaign that displaced 100,000 civilians from the Shilluk lands in the Upper Nile.[311]

4. Ongoing impunity

The Sudanese government has maintained its policy of impunity with respect to Darfur. Despite the establishment of the Special Criminal Courts on the events in Darfur in 2005, no senior official has been prosecuted for atrocities in Darfur, and no one has been charged for war crimes or crimes against humanity.[312] Despite occasional proclamations about seeking justice (made when the threat of being held to account at the ICC seems imminent), the Sudanese government has failed to prosecute local, regional, and national officials who planned, coordinated, and implemented “ethnic cleansing” or were otherwise implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Instead of being investigated, these individuals have been rewarded. A notorious Janjaweed leader, Musa Hilal, who is subject to sanctions by the Security Council, was appointed to a post as a presidential advisor. Another Janjaweed leader who is the subject of an ICC arrest warrant, Ali Kosheib, was in Sudanese custody in relation to other events in Darfur, but was released from custody without a trial in October 2007. Ahmed Haroun served until May 2009 as state minister for humanitarian affairs tasked with coordinating humanitarian assistance for the very people that he is charged with victimizing. He has been given a series of high-profile appointments, including co-chairing a committee designated to hear human rights complaints as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Recently he was reassigned to the position of governor of the sensitive oil-rich north-south border province South Kordofan.[313]

Meanwhile, in another reprise of scorched earth tactics, large-scale attacks on villages by Janjaweed militia and Sudanese ground troops, supported by attack helicopters and aerial bombardments, erupted in February 2008.[314] In addition, in December 2007 and May 2008, clashes were reported in Abyei, a disputed oil-rich region that both north and south Sudan would like to incorporate.[315] In those cases the government was again reported to have been using government-backed Arab militias to drive other ethnic groups out of areas with oil.[316]

The absence of real consequences for its unlawful tactics likely encouraged government officials in Khartoum to believe that they could wage a similar war against civilians in Darfur with impunity. Although there were a number of causes of the conflict in Darfur, the climate of impunity in Sudan for these offenses doubtless was a contributing factor. There was no obstacle to the government adopting the same strategy that they had used in the south, and Arab nomadic groups had no reason to fear participating in the commission of crimes, particularly if promised the opportunity to loot and pillage with impunity. The failure of UN bodies and influential states to demand accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity in southern Sudan showed that there was little to fear by deploying such unlawful tactics and encouraged their use in later conflicts on an even larger scale. As one Darfuri refugee interviewed in a camp along the Chad border said, “If there were justice in Sudan, we wouldn’t be here.”[317]