Beneath a twisted tree in the Kalma displaced persons camp near Nyala in South Darfur, Atahir A. speaks softly in the shimmering heat.
"Here we are still suffering," he says, four months after the pro-government janjaweed militia attack that forced his village members to join the estimated 100,000 now camped at Kalma. "Life is getting worse. We are suffering for lack of security. The janjaweed are free and living in comfort in our places. We want to return to our village . . . but if they see you, they will kill you."
This month, I listened to the testimony of Atahir and hundreds like him, while conducting the most recent Human Rights Watch investigation in Darfur, where 70,000 have been killed and 1.5 million chased from their homes in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Armed and orchestrated by the Sudanese government and aided by its military, the janjaweed continue to kill, rape and terrorize around camps such as Kalma and in rural areas. Government troops and police are also responsible for the violence and abuse. To this day, the Sudanese government has failed to disarm and prosecute militia and government leaders and others responsible for abuses in Darfur despite its many promises to do so.
The life of insecurity Atahir describes is an unacceptable status quo. For months, he and thousands of other displaced Darfurians have known only fear, abuse, dependence on humanitarian assistance, and conditions that make a safe return home unthinkable. Each day this status quo persists consolidates ethnic cleansing in Darfur, allows those responsible to enjoy impunity, and grants the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity escape from justice. Each day without return to his village robs Atahir of the chance to rebuild his life by reclaiming his home and planting spring crops to avert a severe food shortage that threatens utter reliance on international aid.
It is into this situation that Prime Minister Paul Martin has chosen to step when he visits Sudan on Nov. 25 - including, it appears, a first-hand look at Darfur. Mr. Martin will be the first Western leader in Sudan since British Prime Minister Tony Blair in early October, and could use the trip to advance his stated quest to define a new, more activist, international role for Canada.
Mr. Martin should recognize that he will be in a unique position to drive home with Khartoum the international community's latest imperatives on Darfur and to pledge Canada's emphatic support for the people whose lives have been torn apart.
What should those imperatives be? Human Rights Watch's report on our just-concluded investigation in Darfur spells out specific recommendations for the international community. We hope Mr. Martin will lend robust support and embrace as key messages for delivery to Khartoum how vital it is that the ethnic cleansing be reversed starting now.
Second, Canada should back a United Nations authorization to put more African Union troops on the ground in Darfur and expand their mandate under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to include protection of civilians, because Khartoum, by its own actions, cannot protect them. These troops need to be strategically deployed in the rural areas and villages throughout Darfur, not just in the main towns.
Third, Canada should provide urgent financial and logistical support for the AU protective military and police mission. That means delivering on the $20-million pledged by Mr. Martin at the UN in September and spending more to meet new needs as they arise. It requires listening and responding to the AU when it describes the training and support its troops need to get the job in Darfur done.
Canada should also back a stiff arms embargo against the Sudanese government. At the UN, Canada should take the lead in pressing the Security Council to do this.
Finally, Canada should support the UN's international commission of inquiry that has begun to collect evidence of the crimes committed in Darfur, and that will recommend measures for accountability. This commission is essential to prevent impunity. It is a critical step in reversing ethnic cleansing, permitting return and ensuring that perpetrators face justice. Given the magnitude of the crimes committed in Darfur, we expect the commission will recommend, when it reports in January, that the Security Council refer the matter to the new International Criminal Court created to prosecute the most serious crimes under international law - war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
Mr. Martin could convey no more timely message to Sudan's leadership than that Canada would support the Security Council's referral of Darfur to the ICC. The court, which Canada was instrumental in creating, focuses not on low-level attackers, Mr. Martin ought to point out, but on those who direct atrocities - whether they are janjaweed leaders or their government sponsors, and that the court will step in if a state fails to carry out good-faith prosecutions of those responsible for the most serious international human-rights crimes.
ICC prosecution would unequivocally demonstrate that Khartoum's ethnic cleansing in Darfur will not be tolerated by the international community and help clear a path toward creating conditions in Darfur conducive to safe and voluntary return.
Mr. Martin will visit Sudan as only one leader of a moderate middle power. By backing these imperatives, he will amplify his impact - and could thus ensure that Canada is in the right place, at the right time, to contribute substantively to ending the violence in Darfur and protecting its people.
