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DARFUR, SUDAN

Human Rights Concerns

In Sudan, a final peace agreement between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), facilitated by the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), should soon end the twenty-one-year conflict. The present human rights and humanitarian crisis in the western region of Darfur is too recent to have been included in the peace talks to end the SPLM/A-government conflict, which centered on the resolution of the north-south crisis. However, the use of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing by the Sudanese government in its efforts to quell the rebellion in Darfur casts serious doubt on its commitment to sustained peace and human rights in any part of Sudan.

Government forces and their allied Janjaweed militias have committed crimes against humanity and atrocities amounting to war crimes in Darfur. Large swathes of western Sudan that were well populated by productive farming communities of Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit African ethnic origin are now emptied of their inhabitants and burned to the ground, after being thoroughly looted. The civilians were targeted because they share the same ethnicity as the rebels—a vicious exercise in “ethnic cleansing” of more than one million people, with thousands dead. Aid agencies estimate that hundreds of thousands more will soon die as a result of starvation and disease if unimpeded humanitarian access and full funding is not provided immediately.  This is the most egregious conflict in Africa today.  It demands effective A.U. action.

Government and Janjaweed Abuses

The Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias have committed massive, systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law that constitute crimes against humanity and “ethnic cleansing.” The Janjaweed and government forces—through massacres, rapes, starvation, and disease resulting from forced displacement and denial of humanitarian access and protection—have killed and abused thousands of civilians; more than one million people have been violently driven from their homes.

The government has done nothing to restrain or disarm the Janjaweed, despite its promise to “neutralize” them. On the contrary, since the beginning of the “ethnic cleansing” campaign in Darfur in 2003, the government has provided the Janjaweed with new arms and uniforms, training, barracks, and offices. The government has also coordinated and directly participated in attacks on the population with communications equipment, vehicles, and its ground troops and air force. It uses its attack helicopters and Antonov airplanes to target, conduct aerial surveillance, and bomb civilian villages. It has prevented some police from enforcing the law against the Janjaweed, and has given the Janjaweed power superior to that of all police authorities in Darfur.

Although the people of Darfur are all Muslims, in the majority Africans, the Janjaweed have gone out of their way to desecrate mosques in their campaign to destroy Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa villages.

The government of Sudan employs in Darfur the same counterinsurgency strategy it used in southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains: 1) targeting civilians from the same ethnicity as the rebels; 2) arming and supporting an ethnic militia with existing rivalries with the targeted group; 3) giving that militia impunity for any crimes committed; 4) encouraging and helping the militias to attack the targeted civilians, with scorched earth tactics backed up by government ground troops and air power; 5) killing, raping, abducting, looting, and forcibly displacing the targeted civilian population, destroying its economy; and, 6) denying humanitarian access to the subsequently impoverished civilians. This pernicious strategy stirs up ethnic hatred that is not easily forgotten, a devastating legacy for a country as diverse as Sudan—with nineteen major ethnic groups and some 600 subgroups, speaking more than one hundred languages and dialects.

Famine now looms in Darfur as a direct result of the Sudanese government’s policy of “ethnic cleansing.” The emerging famine could kill up to 350,000 victims in the next nine months unless immediate action is taken. Janjaweed scorched earth campaigns have destroyed hundreds of farming communities in North, West, and South Darfur—roughly two million of its six million inhabitants are now at risk of starvation.

The government’s denial of any humanitarian or other crisis in Darfur is patently rebutted by nutritional surveys and assessments, by extensive testimony from Darfurian refugees in Chad and the displaced in Darfur, and by satellite photos of the former villages. The photographs, assembled by the United States Agency for International Development from commercial images, show that almost 600 villages were totally or partially burned in the 2003-04 period, corroborating testimonies from the displaced and from refugees.

At least 158,000 people have fled across the border into Chad as refugees. Janjaweed militias are now launching assaults across the border into Chad, attacking and looting livestock salvaged by refugees from Darfur, as well as Chadian livestock. Human Rights Watch has documented at least seven cross-border incursions into Chad by the Janjaweed militias since early June; those living on the border are of the same ethnicity as the Sudanese targets, Zaghawa or Masalit. Chadian self-defense groups and the Chadian military have reportedly clashed with the Janjaweed militia. The shadow of Darfur is stretching across Chad, threatening further destabilization.

Rebel Abuses

The Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA) announced the beginning of armed operations in early 2003, demanding an end to the discrimination and marginalization of the people of Darfur, and seeking a greater level of autonomy and power. The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) was formed slightly later with similar goals. Neither the SLA nor the JEM, the two rebel groups operating in western Sudan, was involved in the twenty-one-year conflict which took place mostly in southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and eastern Sudan; neither was a party to the IGAD-mediated peace agreement.

The SLA and JEM successfully attacked a government military target in El Fashir, capital of North Darfur, in April 2003. There is now evidence that this attack caused many civilian as well as military casualties. The JEM has allegedly been guilty of incidents of torture of suspected informants. Both groups have been accused of using child soldiers.

The SLA took sixteen humanitarian aid workers captive in June, a direct violation of international humanitarian law. Three of the workers were expatriates and thirteen were Sudanese. They were released unharmed after three days.

Government officials and some Arab groups in Darfur accuse the SLA and JEM of targeting civilians and destroying their villages, and have provided Human Rights Watch with a list of ceasefire violations and attacks on villages. The rebels have denied the allegations. Since access to the government-held areas of Darfur is limited, Human Rights Watch has not yet been able to substantiate these or other allegations.

Action by the African Union

President Idriss Deby of Chad, in concert with the African Union, has mediated dialogue between the parties to the sixteen-month-old conflict in Darfur. The European Union and the United States have also assisted this process. On April 8, 2004, the government of Sudan and the two Darfur rebel groups signed a Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement. All parties agreed to provide full humanitarian access and the government agreed to “neutralize” the Janjaweed. The government has clearly failed to comply with the ceasefire agreement. Human Rights Watch has been unable to determine whether both rebel groups have complied.

The ceasefire agreement establishes a 120-person A.U. ceasefire monitoring commission, including 270 A.U. troops to protect the monitors, if needed. The PSC has authorized “all steps deemed necessary to ensure an effective monitoring,”³ but the total numbers of the A.U. ceasefire monitors and protectors are not sufficient to ensure that the government and rebel groups comply with their agreement not to commit acts of violence against the civilian population.

At this point, large military actions are not the biggest threat to civilians: smaller-scale attacks on civilians are. Addressing these attacks requires the kind of protection that must come from the police or from the relocation of all Janjaweed out of the area. The Sudanese police have not been able to protect these civilians. Janjaweed have superceded the police in some places, or they have even been retained as police by the government in other places—an affront to the victims of their abuses.

The ceasefire mandates the A.U. not only to “[ensure] the implementation of the rules and provisions of the ceasefire” but also to “[develop] adequate measures to guard against [violations of the ceasefire] in the future.”⁴ Future violations will only be prevented if these measures go beyond simply neutralizing the armed forces to include protecting civilians on the ground.

In view of the situation on the ground and the nature of the current dangers to civilians, the A.U. monitoring force is not large enough to provide any real protection to civilians across the Darfur region—an area the size of France, but lacking good roads. Most transportation infrastructure is useless during the rainy season, which lasts from June through September and has already started. If the A.U. does not undertake a policing effort, then it should monitor the disarmament and relocation of the Janjaweed militias to their areas of origin—and establish mechanisms to verify that no Janjaweed participants are rewarded with government positions.

Recommendations to the African Union