As the U.N. Security Council debates a binding resolution on Darfur, Human Rights Watch reiterates its findings and calls on the body to do more to protect civilians.
We have been able to document, contrary to persistent denials by the Government of Sudan, that government-backed militias or auxiliary forces popularly known as the “Janjaweed” have not only been supported, but have been recruited, armed and deployed by the Sudanese government as part of its military strategy in Darfur. This strategy and policy of militia support is not only clearly delineated in government documents obtained by Human Rights Watch, but also by hundreds of testimonies collected from victims and witnesses of the joint-government and militia attacks. The atrocities committed by the militias are therefore ultimately the responsibility of the government, whose regular forces have also been implicated in numerous serious human rights crimes, including systematic indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Darfur.
Human Rights Watch has been investigating and reporting on human rights violations in Darfur through repeated visits to Darfur and to neighboring Chad. Based on information collected last month in Chad and this month in Darfur, we stress that—again, contrary to claims by the Government of Sudan—there is little indication of any real progress in the human rights situation over the past few months and weeks. While the patterns of violence and large-scale displacement have changed in some areas of Darfur—mainly because the campaign to cleanse large rural areas of the targeted population has by and large been accomplished—civilians who remain under government control continue to be subjected to systematic violence in a climate of total impunity and growing racial animus.
As an example, in some smaller towns in the rural areas, government-backed ethnic militias known as the Janjaweed militia and, in some cases, members of nomadic communities commit daily assaults and sexual violence on women and girls of all ages on a daily basis. Witnesses in one such location—a town of about ten thousand residents before the conflict that has doubled in size due to the influx of displaced--told Human Rights Watch that at least five women and girls each day suffered serious, life-threatening injuries from assaults, often including rape. The following are just two recent examples of the continuing violence and of dozens of such attacks documented by Human Rights Watch:
July 7, 2004: Two women in their fifties and a twenty-three-year old woman who is six months pregnant were among a group of eight women collecting firewood approximately two kilometers from the town. Two nomadic tribesmen of Arab ethnic origin riding on camels tried to abduct the pregnant woman. When her mother and another older woman intervened, all three women were brutally beaten all over their faces, heads and bodies. The assault ended only when one of the women was beaten so badly that the attackers believed she was dead.
July 8, 2004: A sixteen-year-old girl and two other women collecting wood were attacked and beaten with sticks by two men of Arab ethnic origin who separated the girl from the women, took her to the nearby river bed and raped her.
In numerous small and medium-size towns in Darfur, men of various ages are routinely arbitrarily detained and invariably seriously assaulted by Janjaweed militia members who accuse them of “being rebels.” Sometimes if family members possess sufficient resources they can “buy these men free.” Displaced civilians throughout West and South Darfur consistently lack freedom of movement, not only due to the constant threat of attacks, but also because Janjaweed militias control circulation along the roads and between villages in the rural areas through a combination of violence, intimidation and taxation. In some places, taxation consists of weekly “protection” money that must be paid by residents of certain villages or towns. In other instances, men in particular are forced to pay sums of money to leave a village or town and travel to another location.
These patterns of violence take place in a climate of total impunity. Even when reported to local police or government officials, victims of attacks consistently note that no effort is made to detain, investigate or prosecute the perpetrators of the attacks. In a rare case documented by Human Rights Watch in which a raped woman reported the case to the police, they identified the perpetrators, took them into custody, and removed their weapons. However, after intervention from the local Janjaweed militia leadership and a senior local government official, the men were released and their weapons returned to them. The woman was told that no further cases of rape would be pursued by the local justice system.
In addition to the ongoing campaign of violence against civilians, the Janjaweed continue to conduct attacks on civilians in Darfur and cross-border incursions into Chad largely for the purpose of raiding remaining livestock and other goods from civilians. These attacks often take place with aerial support from the Sudanese government and sometimes include government troops among the attackers. The cross-border incursions have prompted the growth of civilian militias along the border—a disturbing development. While conducting research in Chad recently, Human Rights Watch documented the presence of more than nine different armed groups operating along the Chadian-Sudanese border, operating on both sides of the Darfur conflict.
Despite government pledges to the international community and in the Joint Communiqué with the Secretary-General on July 3, 2004, to disarm the Janjaweed militia and prosecute militia members responsible for abuses, Human Rights Watch has learned that militia members are increasingly being absorbed into various branches of the security forces rather then being disarmed, and that government claims of militia prosecutions have been an ill-concealed charade aimed at deceiving the international community. Eyewitnesses who interviewed several of the alleged militia members reportedly convicted of crimes in Nyala on July 19, 2004 told Human Rights Watch that the alleged detainees were in fact already detained, some for months and others for years prior to July 2004. None were members of the Janjaweed and only two detainees had been convicted of any crime in 2004.
We note that the Government of Sudan has established a National Commission of Inquiry and pledged to hold perpetrators of abuses in Darfur accountable. Human Rights Watch believes that the National Commission of Inquiry is unable to appropriately investigate the serious human rights crimes in Darfur. This is due to the active role—that numerous sources, including Human Rights Watch, have documented—of the current Sudanese government in the abuses committed, its failure to undertake transparent good faith investigations so far, and the pronounced flaws in Sudan’s judiciary.
To date, the international community continues to engage in various factual disputes with the Sudanese government, despite overwhelming evidence of massive atrocities, including systematic killings, rapes and forced displacement that continue to take place despite government denials and pledges to improve the situation. The horrendous situation has now been exacerbated by the annual rainy season rendering humanitarian access extremely difficult.
Human Rights Watch firmly believes that the Security Council must act immediately. We urge you to adopt a strong Chapter VII resolution. The current draft, as circulated by the United States on July 27 provides only a very preliminary step in that direction.
We believe that the resolution needs to include the following elements that are currently missing:
• Under a Chapter VII mandate, call on the African Union to protect civilians in line with the proposal in the A.U. Peace and Security Council’s July 27, 2004 Communiqué; increase the numbers of ceasefire observers and forces deployed to provide civilian protection and ensure that such forces are deployed in small towns in rural areas and that they proactively patrol, investigate and document ceasefire violations including attacks on civilians, and provide protection to civilians in these areas. The current O.P. 2 should also urge U.N. member states to support the African Union mission with additional funding, troops and logistical support.
• Establish an independent international commission of inquiry into the abuses committed in Darfur by all parties to the conflict. This was recommended in the report of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and other reports. An international commission of inquiry should be established with the aims of investigating allegations of crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed by all parties in Darfur in 2003-2004; collecting and preserving evidence of the crimes; and making recommendations on ensuring accountability for the crimes. The current proposal contained in O.P. 13 of the draft resolution is unlikely to produce any real deterrent or remedial result. It should either be amended to create a commission of inquiry or deleted in its entirety.
• When designing measures aimed at curtailing the flow of arms and related materiel to Darfur, refrain from treating the Janjaweed militias as a force separate and independent from the Sudanese government and call for close international monitoring of any disarmament process. The use of the term “government-backed militias” or “auxiliary forces” should replace the term “non-governmental entities” and “Janjaweed” given the Sudanese government’s continuing manipulation of terminology. Steps outlined in O.P. 7 and O.P. 8 should apply to the government as well as to all other actors.
• Require that increased numbers of human rights monitors are rapidly deployed to Darfur by the OHCHR regularly provide the Council with human rights information on an ongoing basis. In the current draft, O.P. 4 only welcomes the efforts made towards their deployment and calls on the government to cooperate with the High Commissioner in this regard.
• Demand that those responsible for atrocities from all sides be brought to justice and require that trials are conducted in accordance with international standards, with international monitoring of these steps. In the current draft, O.P. 6 limits accountability to a particular category of perpetrators, stating “[d]emands that the Government of Sudan apprehend and bring to justice Janjaweed leaders and their associates”, rather than focusing on ensuring justice for serious crimes committed by all sides—including government officials. It also fails to require prosecutions in accordance with international standards.
We thank you for your prompt attention to these issues and stand ready to assist you or members of your Mission in any way you may see fit.
With kind regards,
Peter Takirambudde
Executive Director
Africa Division
Joanna Weschler
U.N. Advocacy Director
