THE MONTEVIDEO CONVENTION
1. THE CONVENTION
2. SIGNATORIES
3. Rights and Duties of States-Convention Signed at Montevideo, December 26, 1933
1. THE CONVENTION
The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States was a treaty (which was later accepted as part of customary international law) signed at Montevideo, Uruguay, on December 26, 1933, at the Seventh International Conference of American States. At this conference, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull declared the so-called Good Neighbor Policy, which opposed U.S. armed intervention in inter-American affairs. This was a diplomatic attempt by Franklin D. Roosevelt to reverse the perception of "Yankee imperialism," brought about by policies instituted (largely) by his predecessor, President Herbert Hoover. The convention was signed by 19 states, three with reservations (Brazil, Peru and the United States).
The convention sets out the definition, rights and duties of statehood. Most well-known is article 1, which sets out the four criteria for statehood that have sometimes been recognized as an accurate statement of customary international law:
The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.
Furthermore, the first sentence of article 3 explicitly states that "The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states." This is known as the declarative theory of statehood.
Some have questioned whether these criteria are sufficient, as they allow less-recognized entities like the Republic of China (Taiwan) or even entirely non-recognized entities like the Principality of Sealand to claim full status as states. According to the alternative constitutive theory of statehood, a state exists only insofar as it is recognized by other states. It should not be confused with the Estrada doctrine.
There have also been attempts to further broaden the convention's definition, although they have gained less support. Founders of non-territorial micronations commonly assert that the requirement in the Montevideo Convention of a defined territory is in some way wrong-headed, for largely unspecified reasons. Some non-territorial entities, notably the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, are indeed considered subjects of international law, but these do not aspire to statehood.
2. SIGNATORIES
The states that signed this convention are: Honduras, United States of America, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Cuba. However, as a restatement of customary international law, the Montevideo Convention merely codified existing legal norms and its principles and therefore does not apply merely to the signatories, but to all subjects of international law as a whole.
The European Union, in the principal statement of its Badinter Committee, follows the Montevideo Convention in its definition of a state: by having a territory, a population, and a political authority. The committee also found that the existence of states was a question of fact, while the recognition by other states was purely declaratory and not a determinative factor of statehood.
Switzerland, although not a member of the European Union, adheres to the same principle, stating that "neither a political unit needs to be recognized to become a state, nor does a state have the obligation to recognize another one. At the same time, neither recognition is enough to create a state, nor does its absence abolish it."
3. Rights and Duties of States-Convention Signed at Montevideo, December 26, 1933
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAA PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS a convention on rights and duties of States was adopted by the Seventh International Conference of American States at Montevideo, Uruguay, and signed on December 26, 1933, by plenipotentiaries of the United States of America with a reservation which the delegation of the United States of America had presented to the plenary session of the conference on December 22, 1933, and by plenipotentiaries of Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Brazil with a reservation, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Chile; Peru with a reservation, and Cuba, the English and Spanish texts of which convention are word for word as follows:
CONVENTION ON RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF STATESThe Governments represented in the Seventh International Conference of American States: Wishing to conclude a Convention on Rights and Duties of States, have appointed the following Plenipotentiaries:
Who, after having exhibited their Full Powers, which were found to be in good and due order, have agreed upon the following:
ARTICLE 1
The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.
ARTICLE 2
The federal state shall constitute a sole person in the eyes of international law.
ARTICLE 3
The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states. Even before recognition the state has the right to defend its integrity and independence, to provide for its conservation and prosperity, and consequently to organize itself as it sees fit, to legislate upon its interests, administer its services, and to define the jurisdiction and competence of its courts.
The exercise of these rights has no other limitation than the exercise of the rights of other states according to international law.
ARTICLE 4
States are juridically equal, enjoy the same rights, and have equal capacity in their exercise. The rights of each one do not depend upon the power which it possesses to assure its exercise, but upon the simple fact of its existence as a person under international law.
ARTICLE 5
The fundamental rights of states are not susceptible of being affected in any manner whatsoever.
ARTICLE 6
The recognition of a state merely signifies that the state which recognizes it accepts the personality of the other with all the rights and duties determined by international law. Recognition is unconditional and irrevocable.
ARTICLE 7
The recognition of a state may be express or tacit. The latte: results from any act which implies the intention of recognizing the new state.
ARTICLE 8
No state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another.
ARTICLE 9
The jurisdiction of states within the limits of national territory applies to all the inhabitants.
Nationals and foreigners are under the same protection of the law and the national authorities and the foreigners may not claim rights other or more extensive than those of the nationals.
ARTICLE 10
The primary interest of states is the conservation of peace. Differences of any nature which arise between them should be settled by recognized pacific methods.
ARTICLE 11
The contracting states definitely establish as the rule of their conduct the precise obligation not to recognize territorial acquisitions or special advantages which have been obtained by force whether this consists in the employment of arms, in threatening diplomatic representations, or in any other effective coercive measure. The territory of a state is inviolable and may not be the object of military occupation nor of other measures of force imposed by another state directly or indirectly or for any motive whatever even temporarily.
ARTICLE 12
The present Convention shall not affect obligations previously entered into by the High Contracting Parties by virtue of international agreements.
ARTICLE 13
The present Convention shall be ratified by the High Contracting Parties in conformity with their respective constitutional procedures. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uruguay shall transmit authentic certified copies to the governments for the afore-mentioned purpose of ratification. The instrument of ratification shall be deposited in the archives of the Pan American Union in Washington, which shall notify the signatory governments of said deposit. Such notification shall be considered as an exchange of ratifications.
ARTICLE 14
The present Convention will enter into force between the High Contracting Parties in the order in which they deposit their respective ratifications.
ARTICLE 15
The present Convention shall remain in force indefinitely but may be denounced by means of one year's notice given to the Pan American Union, which shall transmit it to the other signatory governments. After the expiration of this period the Convention shall cease in its effects as regards the party which denounces but shall remain in effect for the remaining High Contracting Parties.
ARTICLE 16
The present Convention shall be open for the adherence and accession of the States which are not signatories. The corresponding instruments shall be deposited in the archives of the Pan American Union which shall communicate them to the other High Contracting Parties.
In witness whereof, the following Plenipotentiaries have signed this Convention in Spanish, English, Portuguese and French and hereunto affix their respective seals in the city of Montevideo, Republic of Uruguay, this 26th day of December, 1933.
RESERVATIONS
The Delegation of the United States of America, in signing the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, does so with the express reservation presented to the Plenary Session of the Conference on December 22, 1933, which reservation reads as follows:
The Delegation of the United States, in voting "yes" on the final vote on this committee recommendation and proposal, makes the same reservation to the eleven articles of the project or proposal that the United States Delegation made to the first ten articles during the final vote in the full Commission, which reservation is in words as follows:
"The policy and attitude of the United States Government toward every important phase of international relationships in this hemisphere could scarcely be made more clear and definite than they have been made by both word and action especially since March 4. I have no disposition therefore to indulge in any repetition or rehearsal of these acts and utterances and shall not do so. Every observing person must by this time thoroughly understand that under the Roosevelt Administration the United States Government is as much opposed as any other government to interference with the freedom, the sovereignty, or other internal affairs or processes of the governments of other nations.
"In addition to numerous acts and utterances in connection with the carrying out of these doctrines and policies, President Roosevelt, during recent weeks, gave out a public statement expressing his disposition to open negotiations with the Cuban Government for the purpose of dealing with the treaty which has existed since 1903. I feel safe in undertaking to say that under our support of the general principle of non-intervention as has been suggested, no government need fear any intervention on the part of the United States under the Roosevelt Administration. I think it unfortunate that during the brief period of this Conference there is apparently not time within which to prepare interpretations and definitions of these fundamental terms that are embraced in the report.
Such definitions and interpretations would enable every government to proceed in a uniform way without any difference of opinion or of interpretations. I hope that at the earliest possible date such very important work will be done. In the meantime in case of differences of interpretations and also until they (the proposed doctrines and principles) can be worked out and codified for the common use of every government, I desire to say that the United States Government in all of its international associations and relationships and conduct will follow scrupulously the doctrines and policies which it has pursued since March 4 which are embodied in the different addresses of President Roosevelt since that time and in the recent peace address of myself on the 15th day of December before this Conference and in the law of nations as generally recognized and accepted." The delegates of Brazil and Peru recorded the following private vote with regard to article 11: "That they accept the doctrine in principle but that they do not consider it codifiable because there are some countries which have not yet signed the Anti-War Pact of Rio de Janeiro of which this doctrine is a part and therefore it does not yet constitute positive international law suitable for codification".
AND WHEREAS the said convention, as signed, was duly ratified by the United States of America, and the instrument of ratification of the United States of America embracing the aforesaid reservation made by its delegation at the conference, as follows: [Here follows text of the reservation made by the delegation of the United States of America, printed above.]
was deposited with the Pan American Union on July 13, 1934,
AND WHEREAS, the said convention has been duly ratified also by the Dominican Republic, whose ratification thereof was deposited with the Pan American Union on December 26, 1934, on which day the convention, pursuant to a provision in Article 14 thereof, entered into force between the United States of America and the Dominican Republic;
Now, THEREFORE, be it known that I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, have caused the said convention to be made public to the end that the same and every article and clause thereof may be observed and fulfilled with good faith by the United States of America and the citizens thereof subject to the reservation aforesaid.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.
DONE at the city of Washington this eighteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and thirty five and of the Independence[SEAL] of the United States of America the one hundred and fifty-ninth.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT By the President: CORDELL HULL
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
zimbabwe situation
ZIMBABWE SITUATION
1. HISTORY
The landlocked country of Zimbabwe is characterized by vast stretches of grasslands and high plateau in an area slightly larger than the state of Montana. It is home to Victoria Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world, and its name is derived from the Shona phrase dzimba dzemabwe, which means “houses of stone.”
1. HISTORY
2. ECONOMY
3. THE MEDIA
4. ZIMBABWE: A MODEL FOR AFRICA?
5. ZIMBABWE: A POLITICAL TIMELINE
A. What Went So Horribly Wrong?
B. The Cauldron of the Cold War
C. Terrorist or Freedom Fighter
D. An All-Consuming Power
E. Descent into a One-Party State
F. The Eclipse of that Early Promise
6. ZIMBABWE’S RELATION TO OTHER SORROUNDING COUNTRIES
A. Zambia
B. Botswana
C. South Africa
D. Mozambique
7. ZIMBABWE: AN END TO THE STALEMATE?
A. Executive Summary
B. Recommendations
1. To the Government of Zimbabwe and ZANU-PF:
2. To the Movement for Democratic Change:
3. To Zimbabwean and South African Civil Society Organisations:
4. To SADC and South Africa:
5. To the United States and the European Union:
6. To the United Nations Secretary-General:
7. To the United Nations Security Council:
8. To the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights or in the alternative the Human Rights Council:
9. To the Commonwealth Secretariat:
But for years before it was Zimbabwe, it bore the name of a British colonial businessman, Cecil Rhodes, who obtained a charter for the land in 1889 as part of his grand ambition of building a railroad and an empire from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt. White settlers moved into Rhodesia, defeating the Ndebele tribe who had settled in the area decades earlier after fleeing Zulu violence and Boer migration in what is present-day South Africa. In 1923, Rhodesia became a self-governing British colony with the whites in power.
Over the next several decades, laws were passed guaranteeing rights to whites while working conditions and wages for blacks declined. In the 1960s, two black political parties emerged, the Zimbabwean African National Union (Zanu) and the Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu), but both were officially banned and their leaders imprisoned.
In 1965, Prime Minister Ian Smith unilaterally declared Rhodesia independent under white minority rule. The United Kingdom saw the move as an act of rebellion, and in 1968, the United Nations voted to impose economic sanctions on the country. In 1970, Smith declared Rhodesia a republic, but the international community refused to support the dramatically segregated social structure, which has been compared with South African apartheid.
While Smith governed, guerrilla armies fought back, eventually forcing the white government to allow elections. The 1979 constitution provided for democratic majority rule. In 1980, Zimbabwe became an independent nation governed by a coalition of Robert Mugabe's Zanu Party and Joshua Nkomo's Zapu Party. But fighting flared up between the two groups, and Mugabe, the new prime minister, ordered a crackdown in the southern Ndebele-speaking region of the country, where support was strong for Zapu.
By 1988, peace talks led to a reunification of the two groups and the formation of Zanu PF, a merger between Mugabe's party and Zapu.
Mugabe has won every election since 1980, but most have not been considered “free and fair,” with critics alleging that voters have been intimidated and opposition members harassed. Although some say Mugabe's reign is coming to an end, Zanu PF's most formidable opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), recently suffered a crippling split. In 2005, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai decided to boycott elections for a newly created senate, causing many members of the party to break off into a separate faction, the MDC UK.
2. ECONOMY
When Zimbabwe became independent in 1980, average annual growth rates were as high as 4.5 percent. During the 1990s, however, the economy hit a plateau, and by the end of the decade, it was on a steady decline.
Agriculture was once the backbone of the Zimbabwean economy, with cotton and tobacco the principal cash crops and corn the chief food source. Owing both to government seizures of white-owned farms and to drought over the past few years, supermarket shelves are empty and maize is hard to come by. Zimbabwe still exports some tobacco, but neighboring Zambia has taken over many of Zimbabwe's former markets.
Hyperinflation is devaluing the Zimbabwe dollar, and unemployment may be as high as 80 percent. Living standards are at their lowest levels in 25 years of independence. A recent article in Prospect magazine said a bowl of pasta now costs half a million Zimbabwean dollars. Out-of-control inflation means that piles and piles of bills are necessary to purchase even the cheapest commodities. Trying to keep up, the government recently printed a bill worth ZW$100,000.
The dire economic conditions are driving thousands of Zimbabweans every week across the borders into neighboring countries to purchase food or to find work as illegal migrants to support their families.
3. THE MEDIA
The government controls almost all of the newspapers and radio and television stations in Zimbabwe. Furthermore, restrictive media laws prohibit publication of “inaccurate” information.
A media law passed in 2002 requires journalists to officially register with the government-controlled Media and Information Commission. If they attempt to publish without a license, they risk imprisonment.
Dozens of reporters and editors - some who have received international accolades for their coverage - are routinely arrested for defaming Mugabe.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a U.S.-based organization that promotes freedom of the press, has named Zimbabwe as one of the worst places in the world to be a journalist. In 2004, Zimbabwe placed third on the list, behind Iraq and Cuba.
According to a 2005 report from the CPJ, at least 90 Zimbabwean journalists, including many of the nation's most prominent reporters, now live in exile in South Africa, other African nations, the United Kingdom and the United States, making it one of the largest groups of exiled journalists in the world.
Today Zimbabwe has no independent daily newspapers, no private radio news coverage and just two prominent independent weeklies - the Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard.
4. ZIMBABWE: A MODEL FOR AFRICA?
Zimbabwe was once one of the more stable nations in southern Africa. The country had a reputation for being the breadbasket of the region, and its agricultural exports seemed to ensure enduring economic prosperity. Now the agricultural economy has collapsed, and the country's population suffers from malnutrition.
Zimbabwe's basic infrastructure is also falling apart. For example, the nation used to have one of the best telephone systems in Africa. Now it is almost impossible to get a new phone line connected.
When Robert Mugabe first took office in 1980, he funneled resources into building up education and health care, providing services that had been denied to many Africans under Ian Smith's white-minority regime. But now schools and hospitals are badly neglected. The once-prestigious University of Zimbabwe is finding it almost impossible to continue functioning.
In a country where teachers were relatively well-paid and literacy rates were once above 90 percent, school attendance has plummeted, teachers can barely subsist on their salaries and families are in such bad shape that they send their children out to work instead of to the classroom.
Some reports estimate that at least 10,000 teachers have left Zimbabwe in hopes of finding better employment in South Africa or Britain.
5. ZIMBABWE: A POLITICAL TIMELINE
A look at Zimbabwe's political history, from colonial rule through independence to the present day.
1964 Ian Smith of the Rhodesian Front (RF) becomes prime minister.
1965 Smith declares Rhodesia independent from Britain under white minority rule; the international community imposes economic sanctions.
1970 Rhodesia declares itself a republic; no country recognizes its status. The United States closes its embassy in Salisbury (now Harare).
He was particularly keen on telling me how grateful he was for humanitarian aid from Sweden.
Mugabe spoke confidently, but without arrogance. A formal man, dressed casually in an African print shirt, he conveyed the dignity of a well-educated teacher, his previous profession. When his wife, Sally, who was from Ghana, entered the room, he rose to greet her with obvious warmth.
After all these years, it's still difficult and painful to reconcile my memory of this man with the tyrant he became.
A . What Went So Horribly Wrong?
Today, Mugabe is one of Africa's longest-reigning dictators, routinely denounced by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for abusing his people. "A disgrace to Africa," says Wole Soyinka, Nigeria's Nobel Prize-winning author. "A caricature of an African dictator," says Desmond Tutu, South Africa's Nobel laureate. And Pius Ncube, the Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, says he prays for "a popular uprising" to topple Mugabe's regime.
Of all the depressing statistics about Mugabe's broken country, the one that gnaws at me the most is that life expectancy has declined in the last two decades from 62 years to a mere 38 years.
1972 Guerrilla war against white rule intensifies, with rival nationalist groups Zanu (Zimbabwe African Peoples Union), led by Robert Mugabe, and Zapu (Zimbabwe African National Union), led by Joshua Nkomo, operating out of Zambia and Mozambique.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. When he came to power in 1980, in a landslide election victory after a negotiated settlement of the war, Mugabe was greeted as a national hero, at least by Zimbabwe's black majority. And at first, Mugabe delivered on promises of peace, reconciliation with the white minority, and social development.
Yet even as early as the 1980s, there was an ominous turn of events. Mugabe had formed a coalition "Patriotic Front" government with a rival guerrilla leader, Joshua Nkomo, but it soon fell apart when Mugabe accused Nkomo of plotting a coup against him. Mugabe shocked many of his international supporters by unleashing his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade against Nkomo's minority Ndebele tribe in southern Zimbabwe. Thousands were killed. FRONTLINE was one of the few media outlets in the United States to sound the alarm, in the 1983 documentary Crisis in Zimbabwe, reported by Charlie Cobb, an African American journalist, who, like me, was dismayed to see Mugabe acting as brutally and repressively as the white-minority rulers he had replaced.
Should I have seen signs of what was coming? Had Mugabe deceived me?
1979 Talks in London lead to a peace agreement between the Patriotic Front (PF), made up of Zapu and Zanu, and the Rhodesian government. The new constitution guarantees minority rights.
B. The Cauldron of the Cold War
In that hotel room back in 1977, Mugabe assured me he was doing everything possible to overcome differences between the two guerrilla factions, Zanu (Zimbabwean African National Union) and Nkomo's Zapu (Zimbabwe African People's Union). Mugabe's group was primarily Shona, Zimbabwe's majority ethnic group. Nkomo's base was among the Ndebele.
"If we make this attempt at unity and it fails, we fail the people of Zimbabwe," Mugabe insisted. He outlined in great detail the steps he was taking to try to integrate the Zanu and Zapu armies.
Mugabe had seen what had just happened in Angola in the mid-1970s, where three rival nationalist movements clashed as soon as Portugal ended its colonial rule. Angola's civil war became a Cold War cauldron, with Washington backing one side, Moscow the other and Beijing the third. Cuba sent troops, South Africa invaded. Thirty years later the country is still devastated.
In Zimbabwe, the Soviet Union backed Nkomo and China supported Mugabe, but Mugabe was pragmatic enough to realize that a repeat of Angola would be a disaster. For the time being, and through independence day on April 18, 1980, Mugabe would maintain his tactical alliance with Nkomo. And once in power, even after crushing Nkomo's opposition, Mugabe allowed Nkomo himself, his burly adversary, to remain part of the government as long as he lived.
1980The Zanu Party wins the majority of seats in a national election. Britain recognizes the country’s independence, and Rhodesia officially becomes Zimbabwe. Mugabe takes office as prime minister.
1982 Mugabe accuses Nkomo of plotting a coup and removes him from his cabinet. The national army and guerrilla forces align with the Zapu Party, and a five-year battle between the former allies ensues.
1983 Mugabe unleashes his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, and the Gukurahundi, or Matabeleland genocide, begins. He brutally crushes the rebellion. Thousands of civilians are tortured and killed by government forces.
So the authoritarian impulse was probably there in Mugabe from the beginning, but I chose to see his pragmatism and his political skill.
After that first meeting with Mugabe in 1977, I interviewed him again in 1979 at an Organization of African Unity conference in Liberia (just before Liberia descended into civil war) and filmed him later that summer at his exile headquarters in Maputo, Mozambique. Looking at that old interview just now, I am immediately struck by Mugabe's apparent sincerity, his baritone voice, his reassuring manner.
At the time, the fighting across the border in Rhodesia was fierce. Ian Smith's white-minority regime was aided by a crude assortment of white mercenaries from around the world, and there was always the threat that South Africa's apartheid leaders might intervene to save their ally to the north. But Mugabe seemed cool and calm, even in the midst of his rundown guerrilla compound.
C. Terrorist or Freedom Fighter
The offices of Mugabe's Zanu Party were located in a funky high-rise building. Mozambique had only recently emerged from its own war of independence against Portuguese colonial rule and was a poor, struggling -- if momentarily euphoric -- country. The offices were spartan, the elevator not functioning. We lugged our camera equipment up many flights of stairs to the roof of the building, where we interviewed Mugabe against the city skyline. He joked that having to climb the stairs kept his staff in shape.
"In the West, many consider you a terrorist," I began.
1987Mugabe and Nkomo merge their parties in an effort to achieve ethnic unity, and form Zanu-PF, ending the violence in southern Zimbabwe.
1987 Mugabe amends the constitution and replaces the post of prime minister with executive president. He is sworn in as executive president and has sweeping powers.
"We are fighting an unjust system," he replied. "We are not fighting the whites as whites. ... We are not terrorists. ... We are fighters for democracy."
Political rhetoric, of course. Even in my 20s and sympathetic to his cause, I could recognize that. But it also meshed with my own experience. Back home, I had become friends with a number of Zimbabwean students studying in the States who were members of Mugabe's Zanu. The thing I remember about them most was how nonracist they were. For people engaged in a struggle with Ian Smith's notoriously racist government, they were themselves almost incomprehensibly free of animosity toward whites. Of course, the guerrilla war in Rhodesia was brutal, with atrocities on both sides. But the Zanu people I knew in the United States and those I was meeting in Mozambique defied the Mau Mau image prevalent in much of the West.
The Zimbabwean I knew best, Tirivafi Kangai -- who would later become an ambassador for Mugabe's government -- was a gentle soul, a teddy bear, with an easy laugh. He had a few malapropisms in his otherwise articulate stump speeches that still make me smile whenever I recall them. My favorite: He frequently declared that the people of Zimbabwe would be free, whatever it took, "by hooks or by crooks."
In retrospect, the "crooks" part seems eerily prescient.
Today, Mugabe and his cronies live in luxury behind high walls, having looted their country and impoverished their people. The man I once saw as modest, even ascetic, now acts like the late Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator in his leopard-skin pillbox hat who plundered Zaire and lived in splendid isolation on a vast compound in his pillaged, ruined nation.
1998 An economic crisis provokes riots. Support grows for the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions, headed by Morgan Tsvangirai.
1999 Zimbabwe’s military involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s civil war becomes increasingly unpopular. Tsvangirai heads a new opposition group, the Movement for Democratic Change ( MDC ).
That's not the vision of Zimbabwe that Mugabe presented to me in 1979. Asked what kind of society he hoped to lead, Mugabe replied, "A truly democratic society devoid of racism ... a society where there is equality, where there are civil liberties. ... And as far as our own program is concerned, we are for a socialist society, you see."
In those days, nearly every African leader or would-be leader professed to be a socialist of some sort -- whether it was Julius Nyerere's "African socialism" in Tanzania or Nelson Mandela's left-wing ANC, which included the South African Communist Party. Raised as a Catholic and educated in part by Jesuits, Mugabe became a Marxist while studying in Ghana during the era of President Kwame Nkrumah, the grand old man of African nationalism. Mugabe's Marxism was an ideology that hardened during his 10-year prison term in Rhodesia and was influenced by his Maoist allies in China.
D. An All-Consuming Power
I should have paid closer attention to Mugabe's definition of socialism as a "socio-economic system ... which is planned and operated by those who are chosen by the people." For Mugabe, the goal became a one-party state, not a European-style social democracy. And his own power -- not the welfare of his people -- became his obsession.
I never had an opportunity to discuss all this with my friend Tirivafi. But if he was disgusted by his president's power grabs and personal aggrandizement, he never said so publicly. Tirivafi spent most of his career abroad, as a diplomat in India, Africa and Europe. He died of natural causes at an early age.
Mugabe's 26 years in power have turned out to be a textbook example of Lord Acton's famous dictum, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
2000 Mugabe announces at a rally that all white-owned farms can be seized and given to landless blacks.
2000 In parliamentary elections, the opposition MDC Party stuns the country by winning nearly as many seats as Zanu‑PF.
2001 Despite court rulings that land seizures are illegal, the government announces it plans to seize 5,000 white-owned farms. The finance minister announces economic crisis and serious food shortages, yet farmers are banned from cultivating fields. Most Western donors have cut aid because of the land seizure program.
In the first election after independence, Mugabe's Zanu Party won control of 57 out of 80 seats in parliament, easily overwhelming their nominal ally, Zapu. A pattern soon developed: When Mugabe felt firmly in control, he was relatively benign, running Zimbabwe like a ward boss in old Chicago, handing out patronage to his friends. But whenever Mugabe felt that his power was threatened -- by Nkomo, by white farmers, by the Movement for Democratic Change -- he lashed out. Usually his brutal crackdowns were timed to upcoming elections he thought he might lose.
Mugabe's confiscation of white-owned farms in the last six years has been highly political. Zimbabwe inherited an inequitable agricultural system from colonial Rhodesia. A quarter of a million whites owned most of the fertile, productive farm land in a nation of what was then 7 million blacks. The farms were efficient and bountiful, producing tobacco as a cash crop and more than enough corn to feed the country and to export. African demand for land reform was strong, but Mugabe did not want to jeopardize the economy, and despite some militant talk, he did almost nothing to redistribute land until he was challenged in the polls.
Suddenly Mugabe played the race card. He urged "war veterans" -- unemployed, demobilized guerrilla soldiers -- to occupy white farms. Ownership of many farms was simply transferred to Mugabe's cronies, who have proved to be either incapable of farming or totally disinterested in it. Most whites have left the country, sometimes invited to start over in neighboring Zambia or Mozambique. Thousands of black farmworkers lost their jobs, and agriculture has collapsed. Malnutrition is now widespread. Eighty percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed.
The whole country, now some 12 million people, has closed in upon itself, cut off from the rest of the world, trapped in its own private torment.
2002Parliament passes a law requiring all journalists to be licensed by a state-appointed commission.
2002 Tsvangirai, who is challenging Mugabe in the upcoming election, is charged with high treason for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mugabe. Mugabe wins a third term in this highly controversial election.
2002 A state of disaster is declared in Zimbabwe due to food shortages. The government blames drought, but international groups point to farm closures.
E. Descent into a One-Party State
Mugabe, now 82, has virtually achieved his one-party state. Zanu controls most of the seats in parliament. When Mugabe needs to, as in 2002, he rigs elections. His party, which only needs a 75 percent majority (which it has) to change the constitution, does so on a whim. He has silenced what used to be a robust and free press, jailing and torturing reporters. And he has become increasingly mercurial and brutal. Last year he launched his own version of slum clearance, called Operation Murambatsvina ("Clean the Filth"), evicting some 700,000 people from their homes in Harare and other cities -- mostly desperately poor people who, he feared, might support the opposition or stage food riots.
When condemned by the international community, Mugabe hisses back, claiming he is the target of a Western conspiracy. Paranoia has replaced the openness with which, 30 years ago, he solicited international support for his rebel cause.
All of this has caused me, and others, to wonder what exactly transformed Mugabe from a promising national hero to a tyrant. Is it simply that he has remained in power far too long? Or was there some other trigger?
2003 Government brutality against its own citizens escalates. MDC leader Tsvangirai is arrested twice, again charged with treason. He is eventually cleared of both charges.
Ian Smith, Mugabe's now-elderly enemy, has said he thinks Mugabe is simply "deranged." Mugabe's outbursts against homosexuals seem particularly bizarre, though perhaps this is political theater, aimed at tradition-bound, deeply conservative voters. Some speculate that Mugabe became unhinged after his wife, Sally, died in 1992. He subsequently married his secretary, who is some 40 years younger than he.
Others trying to fathom Mugabe's psyche look back further, to the horrors of the Rhodesian war and the emotional scars such a conflict can leave. There was one moment in particular during Mugabe's years in jail: His only son died and he was not allowed to attend the funeral. An extraordinary man like Nelson Mandela was able to rise above such torment and personal loss and went on to free his people and reconcile his nation. But few countries are fortunate enough to have a Mandela.
F. The Eclipse of that Early Promise
Long ago, Mugabe seemed to hold something of Mandela's promise. When I last spoke with him, on that rooftop in Maputo, he had come to a crossroads. His guerrilla army had taken the offensive, and he might, conceivably, have shot his way to power, but the toll in lives would have been high and it might have provoked a larger conflict, involving South Africa and perhaps even Britain and the United States. There was an apocalyptic mood back then, with South African apartheid leader P.W. Botha telling the BBC that World War III had already started in southern Africa between the West and the Soviet Union. At that moment, Mugabe had the good sense to accept a British offer to go to London and negotiate an end to the bitter conflict.
2005 The United States calls Zimbabwe one of the world’s six “outposts of tyranny.” Zimbabwe rejects the statement.
2005 Mugabe launches Operation Murambatsvina, a “cleanup” program that destroys tens of thousands of shanty dwellings and leaves about 700,000 people homeless.
2005 Zanu‑PF wins an overwhelming majority of seats in the newly created senate. The MDC splits over Tsvangirai’s decision to boycott the election.
The Lancaster House Agreement, which paved the way for majority rule in Zimbabwe, was signed just before Christmas in 1979. There would be no repeat of Angola, no spark for a third world war.
As a result, Mugabe entered office with a reputation for international statesmanship -- a reputation enhanced by his support, at some risk to his own country, for an end to apartheid in neighboring South Africa. The reluctance these days of African leaders to denounce Mugabe's human rights abuses is self-serving -- they don't want to call attention to their own shortcomings -- but it is also partly a legacy of respect for a man who was once a freedom fighter.
I have pondered the enigma of Robert Mugabe countless times -- and questioned my own naïveté in taking him at face value. It's unnerving when you misjudge someone so profoundly.
At the risk of sounding ridiculous, there is one thing that everyone notices but rarely mentions about Mugabe: his mustache. That small, distinctive streak of dark hair just under his nose is Hitleresque. Not a perfect match -- Hitler's was more of a square, Mugabe's is narrower -- but one can't help making the comparison, however unfair and stupid that might be. In fact, many political cartoonists who dislike Mugabe draw on the Hitler comparison. I never asked, but I can't help thinking: Is Mugabe being deliberately provocative? Or does his style of facial hair have no political symbolism whatsoever?
2006Inflation is higher than 1,000 percent. The national budget is depleted, government services have crumbled and there are shortages of nearly every basic commodity.
I can still remember my excitement at meeting Mugabe and filing my first radio story about him. This was history -- a man leading one of the last anticolonial struggles in Africa. He seemed to measure up -- a tough, university-educated African leader with British flourishes. When I asked him how he would describe U.S. policy toward Zimbabwe, he deadpanned, "A mixed grill."
What happened to the Mugabe I knew in the late 1970s still bewilders and disturbs me. Even if he lacked Mandela's transcendent humanity and compassion, Mugabe could have been an esteemed statesman and a popular president. Instead he has run his country into the ground, one more tyrant on a long-suffering continent, his people waiting for him to die.
6. ZIMBABWE’S RELATION TO OTHER SORROUNDING COUNTRIES
A. Zambia
Population: 11,502,010Average life expectancy: 40.03 years Average annual income (in US$): $450
Whereas Zimbabwean tourist destinations such as Victoria Falls are almost empty, Zambia is experiencing a boom in tourism. After years in Zimbabwe's shadow, Zambia's currency, the kwacha, is gaining steadily - making the country one of the few beneficiaries of Zimbabwe's woes.
B. Botswana
Population: 1,639,833Average life expectancy: 33.74 years Average annual income (in US$): $4,340
Some sources say that illegal Zimbabweans now make up one tenth of Botswana's population. There is a general perception in Botswana that Zimbabweans are increasing prostitution and fraud, and Zimbabwean media have accused the Botswana government of xenophobia. An electric fence recently erected by the Botswana government to control livestock has been attacked as an attempt to 'electrocute Zimbabweans.'
C. South Africa
Population: 44,187,637 Average life expectancy: 42.73 years Average annual income (in Us): 3,630
An estimated 3 million Zimbabwean refugees are now living in South Africa. Currently, about 45,000 are deported in a year. Deportees are held at the Lindela Detention Center before being sent back to Zimbabwe by train. Most deportees are back in South Africa within a few days of deportation.
D. Mozambique
Population: 19,686,505Average life expectancy: 39.82 yearsAverage annual income (in US$): $250
Each day, 2,000 to 3,000 Zimbabweans travel to Mozambique to work. Many earn money selling bed sheets, clothing and other products they bring with them by bus. Some estimates say there are about half a million Zimbabweans now based in Mozambique. Although some have found their English skills to be an asset in getting jobs, most have found the language barrier to be a major difficulty - Mozambicans speak Portuguese.
7. ZIMBABWE: AN END TO THE STALEMATE?
A. Executive Summary
After years of political deadlock and continued economic and humanitarian decline, a realistic chance has at last begun to appear in the past few months to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis, by retirement of President Robert Mugabe, a power-sharing transitional government, a new constitution and elections. Both factions of the divided Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition and powerful elements of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party support the concept in outline. Although many of his party’s leaders are pressing him to retire in twelve months, when his term expires, Mugabe seeks to extend his tenure to 2010 by a constitutional amendment to harmonise presidential and legislative elections in that year. Increased pressure and intervention including from the regional organisation, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the West, in the run-up to the mid-year parliamentary session, could lead to a new political order, but concessions to ZANU-PF should only be made in exchange for true restoration of democracy.
The economic meltdown, as well as the bite of European Union (EU) and U.S. targeted sanctions, is pushing ZANU-PF towards change, since business interests of key officials are suffering. The party is split over the succession issue but Mugabe’s long successful divide-and-rule tactics have started to backfire as the two main factions are coming together to try to prevent him from staying beyond the expiration of his present term in March 2008. They showed their strength by blocking his proposed constitutional amendment at the party’s annual conference in December 2006 and will seek to do so again at the central committee in March so they can explore a deal resulting in his retirement to make way for moderate leaders who could negotiate with the MDC and civil society on transitional mechanisms, seek SADC endorsement and reengage with the West and foreign investors.
A deal that merely removed Mugabe while in effect maintaining the political status quo by keeping ZANU-PF in power would be no change at all. The situation is reminiscent of the last stages of Mobutu’s reign in the Congo. The IMF predicts that inflation – already the world’s highest – could pass 4,000 per cent by year’s end, while foreign exchange is being wasted or stolen and smuggled abroad. Peaceful protests are repressed, and a new round of home and business demolitions similar to Operation Murambatsvina that displaced 700,000 in 2005 is being planned. Salaries of the security services and civil servants alike are mostly below the poverty line. Economic issues, discontent among underpaid police and troops and the increasing willingness of opposition parties and civil society to protest in the streets all increase the risk of sudden major violence.
The desire to remove Mugabe within the year provides a rare rallying point that cuts across partisan affiliations, and ethnic and regional identities. Opposition party leaders are keeping lines of communication open with the ZANU-PF dissidents while preparing for a non-violent campaign to demand immediate constitutional reform. The MDC’s credibility and effectiveness, however, will be severely compromised unless efforts underway to reconcile its competing factions led by Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara succeed.
SADC (including South Africa) and the wider international community can make a vital contribution to resolving the crisis. SADC governments, who for long have been extremely reluctant to press Mugabe, now privately acknowledge they want him out to pave the way for a moderate ZANU-PF government. Without applying public pressure, the SADC troika is quietly beginning to explore ways to negotiate a retirement package for the president while persuading the West to relax its pressures. Mugabe’s exit, however, should be only the starting point. Zimbabwe needs a more radical change to get back on its feet.
The West should both maintain pressure at this crucial point and increase support for democratic forces but also be more precise about the conditions for lifting sanctions and ending isolation. SADC, the EU and the U.S. should adopt a joint strategy with a clear sequence of benchmarks leading to a genuinely democratic process for which removal of sanctions and resumption of international aid to government institutions could be used at the appropriate time as incentives. Consultations are needed now to get such a strategy in place by July when the parliament will be expected to take crucial decisions either on Mugabe’s harmonisation scheme or on plans for transition.
B. Recomendations
1. To the Government of Zimbabwe and ZANU-PF:
1. Abandon plans to extend President Mugabe’s term beyond its expiration in March 2008 and support SADC-led negotiations to implement an exit strategy for him no later than that date.
2. Negotiate with the MDC on a constitutional framework, power-sharing agreement, detailed agenda and benchmarks for a two-year political transition, beginning in March 2008, including:
(a) adoption of a constitutional amendment in the July 2007 parliamentary session providing for nomination in March 2008, by two-thirds majority, of a non-executive president, an executive prime minister and de-linking of government and ZANU-PF party positions;
(b) a power-sharing agreement leading in early 2008 to a transitional government, including ZANU-PF and the MDC, tasked with producing a new draft constitution, repealing repressive laws, drawing up a new voters roll and demilitarising and depoliticising state institutions in accordance with agreed timelines and benchmarks, and leading to internationally supervised elections in 2010; and
(c) implementation of an emergency economic recovery plan to curb inflation, restore donor and foreign investor confidence and boost mining and agricultural production, including establishment of a Land Commission with a strong technocratic base and wide representation of Zimbabwean stakeholders to recommend policies aimed at ending the land crisis.
3. Abandon plans for a new urban displacement program and act to redress the damage done by Operation Murambatsvina by:
(a) providing shelter to its homeless victims; and
(b) implementing the recommendations of the Tibaijuka Report, including compensation for those whose property was destroyed, unhindered access for humanitarian workers and aid and creation of an environment for effective reconstruction and resettlement.
2. To the Movement for Democratic Change:
4. Proceed with internal efforts to establish minimum unity within the party and a common front for dealing with the government and ZANU-PF and contesting presidential and parliamentary elections, while retaining reunification as the ultimate goal.
5. Hold internal consultations between faction leaders to adopt a joint strategy aiming at:
(a) finalising negotiations with ZANU-PF over constitutional reforms, a power-sharing agreement and formation of a transitional government in March 2008; and
(b) preparing for a March 2008 presidential election if negotiations with ZANU-PF fail, and President Mugabe retains power.
3. To Zimbabwean and South African Civil Society Organisations:
6. Initiate legal proceedings in South African courts to attach any assets stolen from the Zimbabwean government and transferred to or invested in South Africa and to obtain the arrest and prosecution of egregious Zimbabwean human rights abusers visiting South Africa.
4. To SADC and South Africa:
7. Engage with the U.S. and the EU to adopt a joint strategy for resolving the crisis that includes:
(a) mediation by SADC of negotiations for an exit deal on expiration of President Mugabe’s term in 2008 and of an agreement between ZANU-PF and the MDC on a power-sharing transitional government to oversee development of a new constitution, repeal repressive laws and hold internationally supervised presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010; and
(b) understandings on the use by the U.S. and EU of incentives and disincentives to support the strategy in regard to targeted sanctions, political relations with the transitional government and resumption of assistance.
8. Engage with the Zimbabwe government to facilitate talks between ZANU-PF and the MDC leading to the above steps.
9. Convene an urgent meeting of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation to consider the regional consequences of the economic meltdown in Zimbabwe and recommend action by the Heads of State summit to deal with the situation.
5. To the United States and the European Union:
10. Engage with SADC countries to adopt the above-mentioned joint strategy, including understandings on timelines and benchmarks to be met by the Zimbabwean authorities in restoring and implementing a democratic process.
11. Increase pressure on President Mugabe and other ZANU-PF leaders if they do not cooperate with efforts to begin a transition and restore democracy, including by taking the following measures to close loopholes in targeted personal sanctions:
(a) apply the sanctions also to family members and business associates of those on the lists;
(b) cancel visas and residence permits of those on the lists and their family members; and
(c) add Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono to the EU list.
12. Portugal, holding the EU Presidency in the second half of 2007, should not invite President Mugabe and other members of the Zimbabwe government or ZANU-PF on the EU targeted sanctions list to the EU-AU summit unless significant reforms have already been undertaken.
13. Increase funding for training and other capacity-building assistance to democratic forces in Zimbabwe.
6. To the United Nations Secretary-General:
14. Assign a senior official – a new Special Envoy to Zimbabwe, the Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Africa or a high-level member of the Department of Political Affairs – responsibility for the Zimbabwe portfolio including to support the SADC-led initiative, and monitor the situation for the Secretary General.
7. To the United Nations Security Council:
15. Begin discussions aimed at placing the situation in Zimbabwe on the agenda as a threat to international peace and security.
8. To the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights or in the alternative the Human Rights Council:
16. Initiate a follow-up investigation on the Tibaijuka Report, including plans for a new urban displacement campaign, arrests of informal miners and political repression, and recommend actions to the member states, the Security Council and the Secretariat.
9. To the Commonwealth Secretariat:
17. Encourage Commonwealth member countries in Southern Africa to help mediate a political settlement for a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, setting benchmarks for a return of the country to the organisation.
18. Establish a group of Eminent Persons to engage with Zimbabwe, using the good offices of its regional members to facilitate access.
19. Work through Commonwealth civil society organisations to build up civil society capacity in Zimbabwe.
1. HISTORY
The landlocked country of Zimbabwe is characterized by vast stretches of grasslands and high plateau in an area slightly larger than the state of Montana. It is home to Victoria Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world, and its name is derived from the Shona phrase dzimba dzemabwe, which means “houses of stone.”
1. HISTORY
2. ECONOMY
3. THE MEDIA
4. ZIMBABWE: A MODEL FOR AFRICA?
5. ZIMBABWE: A POLITICAL TIMELINE
A. What Went So Horribly Wrong?
B. The Cauldron of the Cold War
C. Terrorist or Freedom Fighter
D. An All-Consuming Power
E. Descent into a One-Party State
F. The Eclipse of that Early Promise
6. ZIMBABWE’S RELATION TO OTHER SORROUNDING COUNTRIES
A. Zambia
B. Botswana
C. South Africa
D. Mozambique
7. ZIMBABWE: AN END TO THE STALEMATE?
A. Executive Summary
B. Recommendations
1. To the Government of Zimbabwe and ZANU-PF:
2. To the Movement for Democratic Change:
3. To Zimbabwean and South African Civil Society Organisations:
4. To SADC and South Africa:
5. To the United States and the European Union:
6. To the United Nations Secretary-General:
7. To the United Nations Security Council:
8. To the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights or in the alternative the Human Rights Council:
9. To the Commonwealth Secretariat:
But for years before it was Zimbabwe, it bore the name of a British colonial businessman, Cecil Rhodes, who obtained a charter for the land in 1889 as part of his grand ambition of building a railroad and an empire from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt. White settlers moved into Rhodesia, defeating the Ndebele tribe who had settled in the area decades earlier after fleeing Zulu violence and Boer migration in what is present-day South Africa. In 1923, Rhodesia became a self-governing British colony with the whites in power.
Over the next several decades, laws were passed guaranteeing rights to whites while working conditions and wages for blacks declined. In the 1960s, two black political parties emerged, the Zimbabwean African National Union (Zanu) and the Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu), but both were officially banned and their leaders imprisoned.
In 1965, Prime Minister Ian Smith unilaterally declared Rhodesia independent under white minority rule. The United Kingdom saw the move as an act of rebellion, and in 1968, the United Nations voted to impose economic sanctions on the country. In 1970, Smith declared Rhodesia a republic, but the international community refused to support the dramatically segregated social structure, which has been compared with South African apartheid.
While Smith governed, guerrilla armies fought back, eventually forcing the white government to allow elections. The 1979 constitution provided for democratic majority rule. In 1980, Zimbabwe became an independent nation governed by a coalition of Robert Mugabe's Zanu Party and Joshua Nkomo's Zapu Party. But fighting flared up between the two groups, and Mugabe, the new prime minister, ordered a crackdown in the southern Ndebele-speaking region of the country, where support was strong for Zapu.
By 1988, peace talks led to a reunification of the two groups and the formation of Zanu PF, a merger between Mugabe's party and Zapu.
Mugabe has won every election since 1980, but most have not been considered “free and fair,” with critics alleging that voters have been intimidated and opposition members harassed. Although some say Mugabe's reign is coming to an end, Zanu PF's most formidable opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), recently suffered a crippling split. In 2005, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai decided to boycott elections for a newly created senate, causing many members of the party to break off into a separate faction, the MDC UK.
2. ECONOMY
When Zimbabwe became independent in 1980, average annual growth rates were as high as 4.5 percent. During the 1990s, however, the economy hit a plateau, and by the end of the decade, it was on a steady decline.
Agriculture was once the backbone of the Zimbabwean economy, with cotton and tobacco the principal cash crops and corn the chief food source. Owing both to government seizures of white-owned farms and to drought over the past few years, supermarket shelves are empty and maize is hard to come by. Zimbabwe still exports some tobacco, but neighboring Zambia has taken over many of Zimbabwe's former markets.
Hyperinflation is devaluing the Zimbabwe dollar, and unemployment may be as high as 80 percent. Living standards are at their lowest levels in 25 years of independence. A recent article in Prospect magazine said a bowl of pasta now costs half a million Zimbabwean dollars. Out-of-control inflation means that piles and piles of bills are necessary to purchase even the cheapest commodities. Trying to keep up, the government recently printed a bill worth ZW$100,000.
The dire economic conditions are driving thousands of Zimbabweans every week across the borders into neighboring countries to purchase food or to find work as illegal migrants to support their families.
3. THE MEDIA
The government controls almost all of the newspapers and radio and television stations in Zimbabwe. Furthermore, restrictive media laws prohibit publication of “inaccurate” information.
A media law passed in 2002 requires journalists to officially register with the government-controlled Media and Information Commission. If they attempt to publish without a license, they risk imprisonment.
Dozens of reporters and editors - some who have received international accolades for their coverage - are routinely arrested for defaming Mugabe.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a U.S.-based organization that promotes freedom of the press, has named Zimbabwe as one of the worst places in the world to be a journalist. In 2004, Zimbabwe placed third on the list, behind Iraq and Cuba.
According to a 2005 report from the CPJ, at least 90 Zimbabwean journalists, including many of the nation's most prominent reporters, now live in exile in South Africa, other African nations, the United Kingdom and the United States, making it one of the largest groups of exiled journalists in the world.
Today Zimbabwe has no independent daily newspapers, no private radio news coverage and just two prominent independent weeklies - the Zimbabwe Independent and The Standard.
4. ZIMBABWE: A MODEL FOR AFRICA?
Zimbabwe was once one of the more stable nations in southern Africa. The country had a reputation for being the breadbasket of the region, and its agricultural exports seemed to ensure enduring economic prosperity. Now the agricultural economy has collapsed, and the country's population suffers from malnutrition.
Zimbabwe's basic infrastructure is also falling apart. For example, the nation used to have one of the best telephone systems in Africa. Now it is almost impossible to get a new phone line connected.
When Robert Mugabe first took office in 1980, he funneled resources into building up education and health care, providing services that had been denied to many Africans under Ian Smith's white-minority regime. But now schools and hospitals are badly neglected. The once-prestigious University of Zimbabwe is finding it almost impossible to continue functioning.
In a country where teachers were relatively well-paid and literacy rates were once above 90 percent, school attendance has plummeted, teachers can barely subsist on their salaries and families are in such bad shape that they send their children out to work instead of to the classroom.
Some reports estimate that at least 10,000 teachers have left Zimbabwe in hopes of finding better employment in South Africa or Britain.
5. ZIMBABWE: A POLITICAL TIMELINE
A look at Zimbabwe's political history, from colonial rule through independence to the present day.
1964 Ian Smith of the Rhodesian Front (RF) becomes prime minister.
1965 Smith declares Rhodesia independent from Britain under white minority rule; the international community imposes economic sanctions.
1970 Rhodesia declares itself a republic; no country recognizes its status. The United States closes its embassy in Salisbury (now Harare).
He was particularly keen on telling me how grateful he was for humanitarian aid from Sweden.
Mugabe spoke confidently, but without arrogance. A formal man, dressed casually in an African print shirt, he conveyed the dignity of a well-educated teacher, his previous profession. When his wife, Sally, who was from Ghana, entered the room, he rose to greet her with obvious warmth.
After all these years, it's still difficult and painful to reconcile my memory of this man with the tyrant he became.
A . What Went So Horribly Wrong?
Today, Mugabe is one of Africa's longest-reigning dictators, routinely denounced by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for abusing his people. "A disgrace to Africa," says Wole Soyinka, Nigeria's Nobel Prize-winning author. "A caricature of an African dictator," says Desmond Tutu, South Africa's Nobel laureate. And Pius Ncube, the Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, says he prays for "a popular uprising" to topple Mugabe's regime.
Of all the depressing statistics about Mugabe's broken country, the one that gnaws at me the most is that life expectancy has declined in the last two decades from 62 years to a mere 38 years.
1972 Guerrilla war against white rule intensifies, with rival nationalist groups Zanu (Zimbabwe African Peoples Union), led by Robert Mugabe, and Zapu (Zimbabwe African National Union), led by Joshua Nkomo, operating out of Zambia and Mozambique.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. When he came to power in 1980, in a landslide election victory after a negotiated settlement of the war, Mugabe was greeted as a national hero, at least by Zimbabwe's black majority. And at first, Mugabe delivered on promises of peace, reconciliation with the white minority, and social development.
Yet even as early as the 1980s, there was an ominous turn of events. Mugabe had formed a coalition "Patriotic Front" government with a rival guerrilla leader, Joshua Nkomo, but it soon fell apart when Mugabe accused Nkomo of plotting a coup against him. Mugabe shocked many of his international supporters by unleashing his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade against Nkomo's minority Ndebele tribe in southern Zimbabwe. Thousands were killed. FRONTLINE was one of the few media outlets in the United States to sound the alarm, in the 1983 documentary Crisis in Zimbabwe, reported by Charlie Cobb, an African American journalist, who, like me, was dismayed to see Mugabe acting as brutally and repressively as the white-minority rulers he had replaced.
Should I have seen signs of what was coming? Had Mugabe deceived me?
1979 Talks in London lead to a peace agreement between the Patriotic Front (PF), made up of Zapu and Zanu, and the Rhodesian government. The new constitution guarantees minority rights.
B. The Cauldron of the Cold War
In that hotel room back in 1977, Mugabe assured me he was doing everything possible to overcome differences between the two guerrilla factions, Zanu (Zimbabwean African National Union) and Nkomo's Zapu (Zimbabwe African People's Union). Mugabe's group was primarily Shona, Zimbabwe's majority ethnic group. Nkomo's base was among the Ndebele.
"If we make this attempt at unity and it fails, we fail the people of Zimbabwe," Mugabe insisted. He outlined in great detail the steps he was taking to try to integrate the Zanu and Zapu armies.
Mugabe had seen what had just happened in Angola in the mid-1970s, where three rival nationalist movements clashed as soon as Portugal ended its colonial rule. Angola's civil war became a Cold War cauldron, with Washington backing one side, Moscow the other and Beijing the third. Cuba sent troops, South Africa invaded. Thirty years later the country is still devastated.
In Zimbabwe, the Soviet Union backed Nkomo and China supported Mugabe, but Mugabe was pragmatic enough to realize that a repeat of Angola would be a disaster. For the time being, and through independence day on April 18, 1980, Mugabe would maintain his tactical alliance with Nkomo. And once in power, even after crushing Nkomo's opposition, Mugabe allowed Nkomo himself, his burly adversary, to remain part of the government as long as he lived.
1980The Zanu Party wins the majority of seats in a national election. Britain recognizes the country’s independence, and Rhodesia officially becomes Zimbabwe. Mugabe takes office as prime minister.
1982 Mugabe accuses Nkomo of plotting a coup and removes him from his cabinet. The national army and guerrilla forces align with the Zapu Party, and a five-year battle between the former allies ensues.
1983 Mugabe unleashes his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade, and the Gukurahundi, or Matabeleland genocide, begins. He brutally crushes the rebellion. Thousands of civilians are tortured and killed by government forces.
So the authoritarian impulse was probably there in Mugabe from the beginning, but I chose to see his pragmatism and his political skill.
After that first meeting with Mugabe in 1977, I interviewed him again in 1979 at an Organization of African Unity conference in Liberia (just before Liberia descended into civil war) and filmed him later that summer at his exile headquarters in Maputo, Mozambique. Looking at that old interview just now, I am immediately struck by Mugabe's apparent sincerity, his baritone voice, his reassuring manner.
At the time, the fighting across the border in Rhodesia was fierce. Ian Smith's white-minority regime was aided by a crude assortment of white mercenaries from around the world, and there was always the threat that South Africa's apartheid leaders might intervene to save their ally to the north. But Mugabe seemed cool and calm, even in the midst of his rundown guerrilla compound.
C. Terrorist or Freedom Fighter
The offices of Mugabe's Zanu Party were located in a funky high-rise building. Mozambique had only recently emerged from its own war of independence against Portuguese colonial rule and was a poor, struggling -- if momentarily euphoric -- country. The offices were spartan, the elevator not functioning. We lugged our camera equipment up many flights of stairs to the roof of the building, where we interviewed Mugabe against the city skyline. He joked that having to climb the stairs kept his staff in shape.
"In the West, many consider you a terrorist," I began.
1987Mugabe and Nkomo merge their parties in an effort to achieve ethnic unity, and form Zanu-PF, ending the violence in southern Zimbabwe.
1987 Mugabe amends the constitution and replaces the post of prime minister with executive president. He is sworn in as executive president and has sweeping powers.
"We are fighting an unjust system," he replied. "We are not fighting the whites as whites. ... We are not terrorists. ... We are fighters for democracy."
Political rhetoric, of course. Even in my 20s and sympathetic to his cause, I could recognize that. But it also meshed with my own experience. Back home, I had become friends with a number of Zimbabwean students studying in the States who were members of Mugabe's Zanu. The thing I remember about them most was how nonracist they were. For people engaged in a struggle with Ian Smith's notoriously racist government, they were themselves almost incomprehensibly free of animosity toward whites. Of course, the guerrilla war in Rhodesia was brutal, with atrocities on both sides. But the Zanu people I knew in the United States and those I was meeting in Mozambique defied the Mau Mau image prevalent in much of the West.
The Zimbabwean I knew best, Tirivafi Kangai -- who would later become an ambassador for Mugabe's government -- was a gentle soul, a teddy bear, with an easy laugh. He had a few malapropisms in his otherwise articulate stump speeches that still make me smile whenever I recall them. My favorite: He frequently declared that the people of Zimbabwe would be free, whatever it took, "by hooks or by crooks."
In retrospect, the "crooks" part seems eerily prescient.
Today, Mugabe and his cronies live in luxury behind high walls, having looted their country and impoverished their people. The man I once saw as modest, even ascetic, now acts like the late Mobutu Sese Seko, the dictator in his leopard-skin pillbox hat who plundered Zaire and lived in splendid isolation on a vast compound in his pillaged, ruined nation.
1998 An economic crisis provokes riots. Support grows for the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions, headed by Morgan Tsvangirai.
1999 Zimbabwe’s military involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s civil war becomes increasingly unpopular. Tsvangirai heads a new opposition group, the Movement for Democratic Change ( MDC ).
That's not the vision of Zimbabwe that Mugabe presented to me in 1979. Asked what kind of society he hoped to lead, Mugabe replied, "A truly democratic society devoid of racism ... a society where there is equality, where there are civil liberties. ... And as far as our own program is concerned, we are for a socialist society, you see."
In those days, nearly every African leader or would-be leader professed to be a socialist of some sort -- whether it was Julius Nyerere's "African socialism" in Tanzania or Nelson Mandela's left-wing ANC, which included the South African Communist Party. Raised as a Catholic and educated in part by Jesuits, Mugabe became a Marxist while studying in Ghana during the era of President Kwame Nkrumah, the grand old man of African nationalism. Mugabe's Marxism was an ideology that hardened during his 10-year prison term in Rhodesia and was influenced by his Maoist allies in China.
D. An All-Consuming Power
I should have paid closer attention to Mugabe's definition of socialism as a "socio-economic system ... which is planned and operated by those who are chosen by the people." For Mugabe, the goal became a one-party state, not a European-style social democracy. And his own power -- not the welfare of his people -- became his obsession.
I never had an opportunity to discuss all this with my friend Tirivafi. But if he was disgusted by his president's power grabs and personal aggrandizement, he never said so publicly. Tirivafi spent most of his career abroad, as a diplomat in India, Africa and Europe. He died of natural causes at an early age.
Mugabe's 26 years in power have turned out to be a textbook example of Lord Acton's famous dictum, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
2000 Mugabe announces at a rally that all white-owned farms can be seized and given to landless blacks.
2000 In parliamentary elections, the opposition MDC Party stuns the country by winning nearly as many seats as Zanu‑PF.
2001 Despite court rulings that land seizures are illegal, the government announces it plans to seize 5,000 white-owned farms. The finance minister announces economic crisis and serious food shortages, yet farmers are banned from cultivating fields. Most Western donors have cut aid because of the land seizure program.
In the first election after independence, Mugabe's Zanu Party won control of 57 out of 80 seats in parliament, easily overwhelming their nominal ally, Zapu. A pattern soon developed: When Mugabe felt firmly in control, he was relatively benign, running Zimbabwe like a ward boss in old Chicago, handing out patronage to his friends. But whenever Mugabe felt that his power was threatened -- by Nkomo, by white farmers, by the Movement for Democratic Change -- he lashed out. Usually his brutal crackdowns were timed to upcoming elections he thought he might lose.
Mugabe's confiscation of white-owned farms in the last six years has been highly political. Zimbabwe inherited an inequitable agricultural system from colonial Rhodesia. A quarter of a million whites owned most of the fertile, productive farm land in a nation of what was then 7 million blacks. The farms were efficient and bountiful, producing tobacco as a cash crop and more than enough corn to feed the country and to export. African demand for land reform was strong, but Mugabe did not want to jeopardize the economy, and despite some militant talk, he did almost nothing to redistribute land until he was challenged in the polls.
Suddenly Mugabe played the race card. He urged "war veterans" -- unemployed, demobilized guerrilla soldiers -- to occupy white farms. Ownership of many farms was simply transferred to Mugabe's cronies, who have proved to be either incapable of farming or totally disinterested in it. Most whites have left the country, sometimes invited to start over in neighboring Zambia or Mozambique. Thousands of black farmworkers lost their jobs, and agriculture has collapsed. Malnutrition is now widespread. Eighty percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed.
The whole country, now some 12 million people, has closed in upon itself, cut off from the rest of the world, trapped in its own private torment.
2002Parliament passes a law requiring all journalists to be licensed by a state-appointed commission.
2002 Tsvangirai, who is challenging Mugabe in the upcoming election, is charged with high treason for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mugabe. Mugabe wins a third term in this highly controversial election.
2002 A state of disaster is declared in Zimbabwe due to food shortages. The government blames drought, but international groups point to farm closures.
E. Descent into a One-Party State
Mugabe, now 82, has virtually achieved his one-party state. Zanu controls most of the seats in parliament. When Mugabe needs to, as in 2002, he rigs elections. His party, which only needs a 75 percent majority (which it has) to change the constitution, does so on a whim. He has silenced what used to be a robust and free press, jailing and torturing reporters. And he has become increasingly mercurial and brutal. Last year he launched his own version of slum clearance, called Operation Murambatsvina ("Clean the Filth"), evicting some 700,000 people from their homes in Harare and other cities -- mostly desperately poor people who, he feared, might support the opposition or stage food riots.
When condemned by the international community, Mugabe hisses back, claiming he is the target of a Western conspiracy. Paranoia has replaced the openness with which, 30 years ago, he solicited international support for his rebel cause.
All of this has caused me, and others, to wonder what exactly transformed Mugabe from a promising national hero to a tyrant. Is it simply that he has remained in power far too long? Or was there some other trigger?
2003 Government brutality against its own citizens escalates. MDC leader Tsvangirai is arrested twice, again charged with treason. He is eventually cleared of both charges.
Ian Smith, Mugabe's now-elderly enemy, has said he thinks Mugabe is simply "deranged." Mugabe's outbursts against homosexuals seem particularly bizarre, though perhaps this is political theater, aimed at tradition-bound, deeply conservative voters. Some speculate that Mugabe became unhinged after his wife, Sally, died in 1992. He subsequently married his secretary, who is some 40 years younger than he.
Others trying to fathom Mugabe's psyche look back further, to the horrors of the Rhodesian war and the emotional scars such a conflict can leave. There was one moment in particular during Mugabe's years in jail: His only son died and he was not allowed to attend the funeral. An extraordinary man like Nelson Mandela was able to rise above such torment and personal loss and went on to free his people and reconcile his nation. But few countries are fortunate enough to have a Mandela.
F. The Eclipse of that Early Promise
Long ago, Mugabe seemed to hold something of Mandela's promise. When I last spoke with him, on that rooftop in Maputo, he had come to a crossroads. His guerrilla army had taken the offensive, and he might, conceivably, have shot his way to power, but the toll in lives would have been high and it might have provoked a larger conflict, involving South Africa and perhaps even Britain and the United States. There was an apocalyptic mood back then, with South African apartheid leader P.W. Botha telling the BBC that World War III had already started in southern Africa between the West and the Soviet Union. At that moment, Mugabe had the good sense to accept a British offer to go to London and negotiate an end to the bitter conflict.
2005 The United States calls Zimbabwe one of the world’s six “outposts of tyranny.” Zimbabwe rejects the statement.
2005 Mugabe launches Operation Murambatsvina, a “cleanup” program that destroys tens of thousands of shanty dwellings and leaves about 700,000 people homeless.
2005 Zanu‑PF wins an overwhelming majority of seats in the newly created senate. The MDC splits over Tsvangirai’s decision to boycott the election.
The Lancaster House Agreement, which paved the way for majority rule in Zimbabwe, was signed just before Christmas in 1979. There would be no repeat of Angola, no spark for a third world war.
As a result, Mugabe entered office with a reputation for international statesmanship -- a reputation enhanced by his support, at some risk to his own country, for an end to apartheid in neighboring South Africa. The reluctance these days of African leaders to denounce Mugabe's human rights abuses is self-serving -- they don't want to call attention to their own shortcomings -- but it is also partly a legacy of respect for a man who was once a freedom fighter.
I have pondered the enigma of Robert Mugabe countless times -- and questioned my own naïveté in taking him at face value. It's unnerving when you misjudge someone so profoundly.
At the risk of sounding ridiculous, there is one thing that everyone notices but rarely mentions about Mugabe: his mustache. That small, distinctive streak of dark hair just under his nose is Hitleresque. Not a perfect match -- Hitler's was more of a square, Mugabe's is narrower -- but one can't help making the comparison, however unfair and stupid that might be. In fact, many political cartoonists who dislike Mugabe draw on the Hitler comparison. I never asked, but I can't help thinking: Is Mugabe being deliberately provocative? Or does his style of facial hair have no political symbolism whatsoever?
2006Inflation is higher than 1,000 percent. The national budget is depleted, government services have crumbled and there are shortages of nearly every basic commodity.
I can still remember my excitement at meeting Mugabe and filing my first radio story about him. This was history -- a man leading one of the last anticolonial struggles in Africa. He seemed to measure up -- a tough, university-educated African leader with British flourishes. When I asked him how he would describe U.S. policy toward Zimbabwe, he deadpanned, "A mixed grill."
What happened to the Mugabe I knew in the late 1970s still bewilders and disturbs me. Even if he lacked Mandela's transcendent humanity and compassion, Mugabe could have been an esteemed statesman and a popular president. Instead he has run his country into the ground, one more tyrant on a long-suffering continent, his people waiting for him to die.
6. ZIMBABWE’S RELATION TO OTHER SORROUNDING COUNTRIES
A. Zambia
Population: 11,502,010Average life expectancy: 40.03 years Average annual income (in US$): $450
Whereas Zimbabwean tourist destinations such as Victoria Falls are almost empty, Zambia is experiencing a boom in tourism. After years in Zimbabwe's shadow, Zambia's currency, the kwacha, is gaining steadily - making the country one of the few beneficiaries of Zimbabwe's woes.
B. Botswana
Population: 1,639,833Average life expectancy: 33.74 years Average annual income (in US$): $4,340
Some sources say that illegal Zimbabweans now make up one tenth of Botswana's population. There is a general perception in Botswana that Zimbabweans are increasing prostitution and fraud, and Zimbabwean media have accused the Botswana government of xenophobia. An electric fence recently erected by the Botswana government to control livestock has been attacked as an attempt to 'electrocute Zimbabweans.'
C. South Africa
Population: 44,187,637 Average life expectancy: 42.73 years Average annual income (in Us): 3,630
An estimated 3 million Zimbabwean refugees are now living in South Africa. Currently, about 45,000 are deported in a year. Deportees are held at the Lindela Detention Center before being sent back to Zimbabwe by train. Most deportees are back in South Africa within a few days of deportation.
D. Mozambique
Population: 19,686,505Average life expectancy: 39.82 yearsAverage annual income (in US$): $250
Each day, 2,000 to 3,000 Zimbabweans travel to Mozambique to work. Many earn money selling bed sheets, clothing and other products they bring with them by bus. Some estimates say there are about half a million Zimbabweans now based in Mozambique. Although some have found their English skills to be an asset in getting jobs, most have found the language barrier to be a major difficulty - Mozambicans speak Portuguese.
7. ZIMBABWE: AN END TO THE STALEMATE?
A. Executive Summary
After years of political deadlock and continued economic and humanitarian decline, a realistic chance has at last begun to appear in the past few months to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis, by retirement of President Robert Mugabe, a power-sharing transitional government, a new constitution and elections. Both factions of the divided Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition and powerful elements of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party support the concept in outline. Although many of his party’s leaders are pressing him to retire in twelve months, when his term expires, Mugabe seeks to extend his tenure to 2010 by a constitutional amendment to harmonise presidential and legislative elections in that year. Increased pressure and intervention including from the regional organisation, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the West, in the run-up to the mid-year parliamentary session, could lead to a new political order, but concessions to ZANU-PF should only be made in exchange for true restoration of democracy.
The economic meltdown, as well as the bite of European Union (EU) and U.S. targeted sanctions, is pushing ZANU-PF towards change, since business interests of key officials are suffering. The party is split over the succession issue but Mugabe’s long successful divide-and-rule tactics have started to backfire as the two main factions are coming together to try to prevent him from staying beyond the expiration of his present term in March 2008. They showed their strength by blocking his proposed constitutional amendment at the party’s annual conference in December 2006 and will seek to do so again at the central committee in March so they can explore a deal resulting in his retirement to make way for moderate leaders who could negotiate with the MDC and civil society on transitional mechanisms, seek SADC endorsement and reengage with the West and foreign investors.
A deal that merely removed Mugabe while in effect maintaining the political status quo by keeping ZANU-PF in power would be no change at all. The situation is reminiscent of the last stages of Mobutu’s reign in the Congo. The IMF predicts that inflation – already the world’s highest – could pass 4,000 per cent by year’s end, while foreign exchange is being wasted or stolen and smuggled abroad. Peaceful protests are repressed, and a new round of home and business demolitions similar to Operation Murambatsvina that displaced 700,000 in 2005 is being planned. Salaries of the security services and civil servants alike are mostly below the poverty line. Economic issues, discontent among underpaid police and troops and the increasing willingness of opposition parties and civil society to protest in the streets all increase the risk of sudden major violence.
The desire to remove Mugabe within the year provides a rare rallying point that cuts across partisan affiliations, and ethnic and regional identities. Opposition party leaders are keeping lines of communication open with the ZANU-PF dissidents while preparing for a non-violent campaign to demand immediate constitutional reform. The MDC’s credibility and effectiveness, however, will be severely compromised unless efforts underway to reconcile its competing factions led by Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara succeed.
SADC (including South Africa) and the wider international community can make a vital contribution to resolving the crisis. SADC governments, who for long have been extremely reluctant to press Mugabe, now privately acknowledge they want him out to pave the way for a moderate ZANU-PF government. Without applying public pressure, the SADC troika is quietly beginning to explore ways to negotiate a retirement package for the president while persuading the West to relax its pressures. Mugabe’s exit, however, should be only the starting point. Zimbabwe needs a more radical change to get back on its feet.
The West should both maintain pressure at this crucial point and increase support for democratic forces but also be more precise about the conditions for lifting sanctions and ending isolation. SADC, the EU and the U.S. should adopt a joint strategy with a clear sequence of benchmarks leading to a genuinely democratic process for which removal of sanctions and resumption of international aid to government institutions could be used at the appropriate time as incentives. Consultations are needed now to get such a strategy in place by July when the parliament will be expected to take crucial decisions either on Mugabe’s harmonisation scheme or on plans for transition.
B. Recomendations
1. To the Government of Zimbabwe and ZANU-PF:
1. Abandon plans to extend President Mugabe’s term beyond its expiration in March 2008 and support SADC-led negotiations to implement an exit strategy for him no later than that date.
2. Negotiate with the MDC on a constitutional framework, power-sharing agreement, detailed agenda and benchmarks for a two-year political transition, beginning in March 2008, including:
(a) adoption of a constitutional amendment in the July 2007 parliamentary session providing for nomination in March 2008, by two-thirds majority, of a non-executive president, an executive prime minister and de-linking of government and ZANU-PF party positions;
(b) a power-sharing agreement leading in early 2008 to a transitional government, including ZANU-PF and the MDC, tasked with producing a new draft constitution, repealing repressive laws, drawing up a new voters roll and demilitarising and depoliticising state institutions in accordance with agreed timelines and benchmarks, and leading to internationally supervised elections in 2010; and
(c) implementation of an emergency economic recovery plan to curb inflation, restore donor and foreign investor confidence and boost mining and agricultural production, including establishment of a Land Commission with a strong technocratic base and wide representation of Zimbabwean stakeholders to recommend policies aimed at ending the land crisis.
3. Abandon plans for a new urban displacement program and act to redress the damage done by Operation Murambatsvina by:
(a) providing shelter to its homeless victims; and
(b) implementing the recommendations of the Tibaijuka Report, including compensation for those whose property was destroyed, unhindered access for humanitarian workers and aid and creation of an environment for effective reconstruction and resettlement.
2. To the Movement for Democratic Change:
4. Proceed with internal efforts to establish minimum unity within the party and a common front for dealing with the government and ZANU-PF and contesting presidential and parliamentary elections, while retaining reunification as the ultimate goal.
5. Hold internal consultations between faction leaders to adopt a joint strategy aiming at:
(a) finalising negotiations with ZANU-PF over constitutional reforms, a power-sharing agreement and formation of a transitional government in March 2008; and
(b) preparing for a March 2008 presidential election if negotiations with ZANU-PF fail, and President Mugabe retains power.
3. To Zimbabwean and South African Civil Society Organisations:
6. Initiate legal proceedings in South African courts to attach any assets stolen from the Zimbabwean government and transferred to or invested in South Africa and to obtain the arrest and prosecution of egregious Zimbabwean human rights abusers visiting South Africa.
4. To SADC and South Africa:
7. Engage with the U.S. and the EU to adopt a joint strategy for resolving the crisis that includes:
(a) mediation by SADC of negotiations for an exit deal on expiration of President Mugabe’s term in 2008 and of an agreement between ZANU-PF and the MDC on a power-sharing transitional government to oversee development of a new constitution, repeal repressive laws and hold internationally supervised presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010; and
(b) understandings on the use by the U.S. and EU of incentives and disincentives to support the strategy in regard to targeted sanctions, political relations with the transitional government and resumption of assistance.
8. Engage with the Zimbabwe government to facilitate talks between ZANU-PF and the MDC leading to the above steps.
9. Convene an urgent meeting of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation to consider the regional consequences of the economic meltdown in Zimbabwe and recommend action by the Heads of State summit to deal with the situation.
5. To the United States and the European Union:
10. Engage with SADC countries to adopt the above-mentioned joint strategy, including understandings on timelines and benchmarks to be met by the Zimbabwean authorities in restoring and implementing a democratic process.
11. Increase pressure on President Mugabe and other ZANU-PF leaders if they do not cooperate with efforts to begin a transition and restore democracy, including by taking the following measures to close loopholes in targeted personal sanctions:
(a) apply the sanctions also to family members and business associates of those on the lists;
(b) cancel visas and residence permits of those on the lists and their family members; and
(c) add Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono to the EU list.
12. Portugal, holding the EU Presidency in the second half of 2007, should not invite President Mugabe and other members of the Zimbabwe government or ZANU-PF on the EU targeted sanctions list to the EU-AU summit unless significant reforms have already been undertaken.
13. Increase funding for training and other capacity-building assistance to democratic forces in Zimbabwe.
6. To the United Nations Secretary-General:
14. Assign a senior official – a new Special Envoy to Zimbabwe, the Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Africa or a high-level member of the Department of Political Affairs – responsibility for the Zimbabwe portfolio including to support the SADC-led initiative, and monitor the situation for the Secretary General.
7. To the United Nations Security Council:
15. Begin discussions aimed at placing the situation in Zimbabwe on the agenda as a threat to international peace and security.
8. To the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights or in the alternative the Human Rights Council:
16. Initiate a follow-up investigation on the Tibaijuka Report, including plans for a new urban displacement campaign, arrests of informal miners and political repression, and recommend actions to the member states, the Security Council and the Secretariat.
9. To the Commonwealth Secretariat:
17. Encourage Commonwealth member countries in Southern Africa to help mediate a political settlement for a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, setting benchmarks for a return of the country to the organisation.
18. Establish a group of Eminent Persons to engage with Zimbabwe, using the good offices of its regional members to facilitate access.
19. Work through Commonwealth civil society organisations to build up civil society capacity in Zimbabwe.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
SUDAN IN WAR
War in Darfur
The War in Darfur is a military conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Unlike the Second Sudanese Civil War, the current lines of conflict are seen to be ethnic and tribal, rather than religious. One side of the armed conflict is composed mainly of the Sudanese military and the Janjaweed, a militia group recruited mostly from the Arab Abbala tribes of the northern Rizeigat, camel-herding nomads. The other side comprises a variety of rebel groups, notably the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, recruited primarily from the land-tilling non-Arab Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups. The Sudanese government, while publicly denying that it supports the Janjaweed, has provided money and assistance to the militia and has participated in joint attacks targeting the tribes from which the rebels draw support.
1. BACKGROUND
2. TIMELINE
3. WHO ARE AT WAR
3. a. Military of Sudan
3. a.1 Sudan People's Armed Forces
3.a. 2. Janjaweed
3. b. Forces against the Government Forces
3. b. 1. Sudan Liberation Movement
3. b. 2. Justice and Equality Movement
3. b. 3. Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan
4. CHAD-SUDAN CONFLICT
5. MEDIATION
5.a. Chadian demands
5. b. Sudan suggestion
5. c. United Nations statement
6. INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
6. a.UN Security Council Chamber
6. b. International Criminal Court
7. CRITISICM OF INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
8. CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS
The conflict began in February of 2003.
The combination of decades of drought, desertification, and overpopulation are among the causes of the Darfur conflict, because the Baggara nomads searching for water have to take their livestock further south, to land mainly occupied by Black African farming communities.
1. BACKGROUND
The conflict taking place in Darfur has many interwoven causes. On June 16, 2007, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a statement in which he proposed that the slaughter in Darfur was caused "at least in part from climate change", and that it "derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming"."The scale of historical climate change, as recorded in Northern Darfur, is almost unprecedented: the reduction in rainfall has turned millions of hectares of already marginal semi-desert grazing land into desert. The impact of climate change is considered to be directly related to the conflict in the region, as desertification has added significantly to the stress on the livelihoods of pastoralist societies, forcing them to move south to find pasture," the UNEP report states.
A point of particular confusion has been the characterization of the conflict as one between 'Arab' and 'African' populations, a dichotomy that one historian describes as "both true and false". It is important to distinguish the Sudanese Arab from other Arabs of the Middle East. Sudanese Arabs are descended primarily from the ancient Nubians. In terms of racial origin, it is not clear what specific racial or ethnic group the Nubians originated from. Over a period of centuries, Arab immigration into the Sudan, intermarriage among Nubians and Arabs, and the introduction of Islam and the Arabic language, Arabised the Nubians into the Sudanese Arab of today. In appearance, the Nubians look similar to the Ethiopians and Eritreans; at one point, they shared a common history with the latter.
In the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, the Keira dynasty of the Fur people of the Marrah Mountains established a sultanate with Islam as the state religion. The sultanate was conquered by the Turco-Egyptian force expanding south along the Nile, which was in turn defeated by the Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi. The Mahdist state collapsed under the onslaught of the British force led by Herbert Kitchener, who established an Anglo-Egyptian co-dominium to rule Sudan. The British allowed Darfur de jure autonomy until 1916 when they invaded and incorporated the region into Sudan. Within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the bulk of resources were devoted toward Khartoum and Blue Nile Province, leaving the rest of the country relatively undeveloped.
The inhabitants of the Nile Valley, which had received the bulk of British investment, continued the pattern of economic and political marginalization after independence was achieved in 1956. In the 1968 elections, factionalism within the ruling Umma Party led candidates, notably Sadiq al-Mahdi, to try to split off portions of the Darfuri electorate either by blaming the region's underdevelopment on the Arabs, in the case of appeals to the stationary peoples, or by appealing to the Baggara semi-nomads to support their fellow Nile Arabs. This Arab-African dichotomy, which was not an indigenously developed way of perceiving local relations, was exacerbated after Libyan President Muammar al-Gaddafi became focused on establishing an Arab belt across the Sahel and promulgated an ideology of Arab supremacy. As a result of a sequence of interactions between Sudan, Libya and Chad from the late 1950s through the 1980s, including the creation of the Libyan-supported Islamic Legion, Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry established Darfur as a rear base for the rebel force led by Hissène Habré, which was attempting to overthrow the Chadian government and was also anti-Gaddafi.
In 1983 and 1984, the rains failed and the region was plunged into a famine. The famine killed an estimated 95,000 people out of a population of 3.1 million. Nimeiry was overthrown on 5 April 1985, and Sadiq al-Mahdi came out of exile, making a deal with Gaddafi, which al-Mahdi did not honor, to turn over Darfur to Libya if he was supplied with the funds to win the upcoming elections.[
In early 2003, two local rebel groups — the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) — accused the government of oppressing non-Arabs. The SLM, which is much larger than the JEM, is generally associated with the Fur and Masalit, as well as the Wagi clan of the Zaghawa, while the JEM is associated with the Kobe clan of Zaghawa. Later that year, leaders of both groups, the Sudanese Government and representatives of the International diplomatic community were brought together in Geneva by the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue to look at ways of addressing the humanitarian crisis. In 2004, the JEM joined the Eastern Front, a group set up in 2004 as an alliance between two eastern tribal rebel groups, the Rashaida tribe's Free Lions and the Beja Congress. The JEM has also been accused of being controlled by Hassan al-Turabi.
On January 20, 2006, SLM declared a merger with the Justice and Equality Movement to form the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. However, in May of that year, the SLM and JEM were again negotiating as separate entities.
2. TIMELINE
A rebellion started in 2003 against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, with two local rebel groups - the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) - accusing the government of oppressing non-Arabs in favor of Arabs. The government was also accused of neglecting the Darfur region of Sudan. In response, the government mounted a campaign of aerial bombardment supporting ground attacks by an Arab militia, the Janjaweed. Literally translated, Janjaweed means 'devils on horseback'. The government-supported Janjaweed were accused of committing major human rights violations, including mass killing, looting, and systematic rape of the non-Arab population of Darfur. They have frequently burned down whole villages, driving the surviving inhabitants to flee to refugee camps, mainly in Darfur and Chad; many of the camps in Darfur are surrounded by Janjaweed forces. By the summer of 2004, 50,000 to 80,000 people had been killed and at least a million had been driven from their homes, causing a major humanitarian crisis in the region.
On September 18, 2004, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1564, which called for a Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to assess the Sudanese conflict. On January 31, 2005, the UN released a 176-Page report saying that while there were mass murders and rapes, they could not label it as genocide because "genocidal intent appears to be missing". Many activists, however, refer to the crisis in Darfur as a genocide, including the Save Darfur Coalition and the Genocide Intervention Network. These organizations point to statements by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, referring to the conflict as a genocide. Other activists organizations, such as Amnesty International, while calling for international intervention, avoid the use of the term genocide.
In May 2006 Minni Minnawi's faction of the main rebel group, the Sudanese Liberation Movement, agreed to a draft peace agreement with the Sudanese government. The other faction of the SLM, led by Abdel Wahid Mohammed Ahmed El-Nur, the founding leader of SLM, refrained from signing the agreement. On May 5th, the agreement, drafted in Abuja, Nigeria, was signed by Minnawi's faction and the Sudanese government..
3. WHO ARE AT WAR
3. a. Military of Sudan
3. a.1 Sudan People's Armed Forces
The Sudan People's Armed Forces is a 117,000-member army supported by a strong Air Force and Navy by regional standards. Irregular tribal and former rebel militias and Popular Defence Forces supplement the army’s strength in the field. This is mixed force, having the additional duty of maintaining internal security. Some rebels who fought in the South were former army members. Sudan’s military forces have historically been hampered by limited and outdated equipment. In the 1980s, the U.S. worked with the Sudanese Government to upgrade equipment with special emphasis on airlift capacity and logistics. All U.S. military assistance was terminated following the military coup of 1989.
During the 1990s, periodic purges of the professional officer corps by the ruling Islamist regime has eroded command authority as well as war-fighting capabilities. Oil revenues have allowed the government to purchase modern weapons systems, including 16 Hind helicopter gun ships, 3 MiG-23, 22 F-7 fighters and fourth generation fighters such as the 24 MiG-29, Antonov medium transport aircraft, mobile artillery pieces, and light assault weapons. Sudan now receives most of its military equipment from the People's Republic of China, Russia, and Libya in violation of a UN arms embargo in place since 2005.
3.a.2. Janjaweed
The Janjaweed (Arabic: جنجويد; variously transliterated Janjawid, Janjawed or Jingaweit etc.– thought to mean "devil on horseback", or "a man with a gun on a horse") is a blanket term used to describe mostly armed gunmen in Darfur, western Sudan, and now eastern Chad. Using the United Nations definition, the Janjaweed comprised nomadic Arabic-speaking African tribes (i.e. Black Arabs, or Afro-Arabs), the core of whom are from the Abbala (camel herder) background with significant Lambo recruitment from the Baggara (cattle herder) people. This UN definition may not necessarily be the case, as instances of members from other tribes have been noted.
In the past, they were at odds with Darfur's sedentary population over natural grazing grounds and farmland, as rainfall dwindled and water became scarce. They are currently in conflict with Darfur rebel groups — the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement. Since 2003 they have been one of the main players in the Darfur conflict, which has pitted the largely nomadic tribes against the sedentary population of the region in a battle over resource and land allocation.
The Janjaweed are armed partisans drawn from Darfurian and Arabic-speaking tribes that became notorious for alleged massacre, rape, forced displacement and torture in 1990 and from 2001-2005. The Janjaweed first emerged in 1988 after Chadian President Hissène Habré, backed by France and the United States, defeated the Libyan army, thereby ending Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi’s territorial designs on Chad. Libya’s Chadian protégé, Acheickh Ibn Omer Saeed, retreated with his partisan forces to Darfur, where they were hosted by Sheikh Musa Hilal, the newly-elevated chief of the Mahamid Rizeigat Arabic speaking African tribes of north Darfur. Hilal’s tribesmen had earlier smuggled Libyan weapons to Ibn Omer’s forces. A French-Chadian incursion destroyed Ibn Omer’s camp, but his weapons remained with his Mahamid hosts.
Throughout the 1990s, the Janjaweed were a combination of Chadian and Darfurian "Arab" partisans, tolerated by the Sudan Government, pursuing local agendas of controlling land. The majority of Darfur’s Arabs, the Baggara confederation, began their presence in the war over grazing territory, and remain involved. In 1999-2000, faced with threats of insurgencies in Western and Northern Darfur, Khartoum’s security armed the Janjaweed forces. When the insurgency escalated in February 2003, spearheaded by the Sudan Liberation Movement, and the Justice and Equality Movement, the Sudanese Government responded by using the Janjaweed as its main counter-insurgency force. Protracting the forces to attack and recover the rebel held areas of Darfur, the Janjaweed conducted a campaign targeting rebels in the region of Darfur. By October 2007, only the United States' government had declared the Janjaweed killings in Darfur to be genocide, since they had killed an estimated 200,000-400,000 civilians over the previous three years. The U.S. State Department and others in 2004 named leading Janjaweed commanders including Musa Hilal as suspected genocide criminals. The UN Security Council called for the Janjaweed to be disarmed. On July 14, 2008 the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation using the Janjaweed tribes.
By early 2006, many Janjaweed had been absorbed into the Sudan Armed Forces including the Popular Defence Forces and Border Guards. Meanwhile, the Janjaweed expanded to include some Arabic-speaking tribes in eastern Darfur, not historically associated with the original Janjaweed. Chadian "Arabs" were also increasingly active in seeking to reestablish a political base in Chad, as part of the Unified Forces for a Democratic Change (FUC) coalition.
Musa Hilal, who heads a small but powerful Darfurian "Arab" tribe is suspected by the US State Department of being a leader of the Janjaweed. The New Yorker quotes him: " I am a tribal leader. ... The government call to arms is carried out through the tribal leaders." He admits recruiting, but denies being in the military chain of command, according to Human Rights Watch.
3. b. Forces against the Government Forces
3. b. 1. Sudan Liberation Movement
The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army or (Arabic: حركة تحرير السودانḥarakat taḥrīr as-Sūdan) (abbreviated as either SLM or SLA) is a loose association of Sudanese rebel groups who fought against the Sudanese government forces, and the government sponsored Janjaweed militiamen (accused of perpetrating widespread atrocity against Sudanese civilians thoughout Darfur) in the Darfur conflict.
Currently, it has largely divided into factions. The leader of the most brutal faction is Minni Minnawi and is now allied with the government. Other leaders of factions that continue fighting the government include Ahmed Abdulshafi Bassey and, the founder of the movement, Abdulwahid Mohamed Nour who is largely supported by the people of Darfur. Minnawi is hated by many people of Darfur including people from his own Zaghawa tribe.[citation needed] The peace agreement that is signed by Minnawi's faction is widely rejected by the Darfurians and especially by the Fur, the largest ethnic group in Darfur. The Jebel Marrah ("bad mountains") is home of the Fur tribe and current strong hold for the Fur faction of the SLA, led by Abdul Waheed.
The Sudan Liberation Movement was known as the Darfur Liberation Front for a brief period of time after its emergence in February 2003. While the Darfur Liberation Front maintained a secessionist position, however, the Sudan Liberation Movement claims to have no secessionist intentions, and instead aims to overthrow the Khartoum regime and "create a united, democratic Sudan."
On January 20, 2006, SLM declared a merger with the Justice and Equality Movement to form the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. However, by May of that year, the SLM and JEM were again negotiating as separate entities.
On 30 September 2007, approximately 1,000 Sudan Liberation Army rebels mounted a major raid on an AMIS base, claiming the lives of at least 12 peacekeepers and wounding many more. At least 50 personnel are as yet unaccounted for, presumed missing in action. The attack occurred just after sunset in the flashpoint, northern Darfur town of Haskanita, and comes amid increasing tensions and violence between the rebels and foreign peacekeepers, with the latter often accused of abrogating their neutrality and bias towards the central government.
3. b. 2. Justice and Equality Movement
The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) is a rebel group involved in the Darfur conflict of Sudan. It is led by Khalil Ibrahim. Along with other rebel groups such as the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), they are fighting against the government. The JEM is also a member of the Eastern Front, a rebel coalition formerly active in the east of Sudan along the Eritrean border. After the Eastern Front signed a peace deal with the central government, the JEM lost access to its funding from Eritrea.
The JEM traces its foundation to the writers of the Black Book, a manuscript published in 2000 that details the structural inequity in the country. JEM espouses an Islamist ideology, and the government links the group to Hassan al-Turabi, although leaders of the group and Turabi himself deny the claim. However, al-Turabi blames the government for "aggravating the situation."
On January 20, 2006, the Justice and Equality Movement declared a merger with the Sudan Liberation Movement, along with other rebel groups, to form the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. However, the JEM and SLM negotiated as separate groups with peace talks with the government in May 2006.
In October of 2007, the JEM attacked the Defra oilfield in the Kordofan region of Sudan. The Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, a Chinese-led consortium, controls the field. The next month, a group of 135 Chinese engineers arrived in Darfur to work on the Defra field. Ibrahim told reporters, "We oppose them coming because the Chinese are not interested in human rights. It is just interested in Sudan's resources." The JEM claims that the revenue from oil sold to China funds the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militia.
On the morning of December 11, 2007, Khalil Ibrahim claimed that JEM forces fought and defeated Sudanese government troops guarding a Chinese-run oilfield in the Kordofan region. Khartoum officials, however, denied that any oil fields had come under attack. Ibrahim said that the attack was part of a JEM campaign to rid Sudan of Chinese-run oilfields and stated that "[The JEM] want all Chinese companies to leave. They have been warned many times. They should not be there."
On May 11, 2008 JEM attacked the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The government declared victory, saying that the attack had been repelled and leading members of the group had been killed, although the JEM said that the attack was successful. Eltahir Elkaki, the General Secretary of JEM's legislative council, vowed that the war would henceforth be fought across the country, saying that "We haven't changed our tactics. From the beginning, Jem is a national movement and it has a national agenda." Khalil Ibrahim declared that "This is just the start of a process and the end is the termination of this regime".
3. b. 3. Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan
The Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan was formed on January 20, 2006, when the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement merged to form a single rebel alliance in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
ARFWS issued a press statement in French and Arabic in the Chadian capital of N'Djamena stating that "The two movements have agreed to join and coordinate all political, military and social forces, their international relations and to double their combat capacity in a collective body under the name, the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. This union will strengthen the solidarity, cohesion and unity of the people of Sudan in general and that of the west in particular. It will further strengthen the position of the armed movements in (peace) negotiations" currently under way in Abuja in Nigeria."
JEM president and doctor Ibrahim Khalil told reporters, "We have set up this union in the interests of the people of Darfur. To lose time without uniting our efforts means extending the days of the (Khartoum) regime which has become a factor in the disintegration of the regime."
The press statement was also signed by SLM leader Mina Arko Minawi.
ARFWS and the Government of Chad were united in opposition to Sudan heading the African Union at the upcoming summit on January 23.
4. CHAD-SUDAN CONFLICT
Alleged Sudanese support for Chadian rebels
Members of the Chadian government repeatedly accused Sudan of supporting the United Front for Democratic Change rebel alliance financially, territorially, and by providing weapons. On December 30, the Chadian government broadened their accusation, alleging that rebels had been given airtime on Sudanese State television and that after the second attack on Adré, Sudanese citizens were among the rebels taken prisoner.
Chadian Deputy Foreign Minister Lucienne Dillah told the Chadian parliament in Ndjamena, which then voted to back President Idriss Déby's anti-rebel activities, "It seems clear that Sudan is arming, financing and equipping Chadian rebels on its territory to destabilise Chad. The presence of Sudanese among the attackers taken prisoner (after the December 18 attack on Adré) is a blatant example. Khartoum warmly welcomed the desertion of some elements of the Chadian army and the defection of some senior officials in December."
Dillah went on to say that Chadian rebel leaders "made several appearances on Sudanese television before satellite channel Al-Jazeera showed the Chadian rebel base on Sudanese soil on December 11."
Dillah showed the Parliament several photographs of Mohammed Nour posing next to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. After Dillah's speech the Parliament called on Khartoum not to jeopardize "the historic links" between Sudan and Chad.
Déby also alleges that the Sudanese-sponsored Janjaweed militia killed 55 shepherds in Madioun village before Chad's army killed 17 of "the horse-men who were wearing the military uniform". Three Chadian soldiers were killed.
The African Union will set up a commission of enquiry to investigate Chad's evidence.
Peter Takirambudde, the Africa director of Human Rights Watch said in a statement in February 2006, "You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn't get worse, but it has. Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad."
Alleged foreign support for Sudanese rebels
U.N. experts working in Darfur reported on January 9 that rebels were getting "financial, political and other material support from neighbouring countries including Libya, Chad and Eritrea". On January 12 Chadian Information Minister Doumgor said, "This lying information attributed to a supposed report by United Nations experts has no other aim than to justify the Sudanese aggression which Chad is a victim of."
On January 20, 2006, representatives from the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement met in the Chadian capital N'Djamena, and decided to combine the two groups into the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan, the largest rebel alliance in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
ARFWS issued a press statement in French and Arabic stating that "The two movements have agreed to join and coordinate all political, military and social forces, their international relations and to double their combat capacity in a collective body under the name, the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. This union will strengthen the solidarity, cohesion and unity of the people of Sudan in general and that of the west in particular. It will further strengthen the position of the armed movements in (peace) negotiations" currently under way in Abuja in Nigeria."
JEM president and doctor Ibrahim Khalil told reporters, "We have set up this union in the interests of the people of Darfur. To lose time without uniting our efforts means extending the days of the (Khartoum) regime which has become a factor in the disintegration of the regime."
The press statement was also signed by SLM leader Mina Arko Minawi.
ARFWS and the Government of Chad are united in opposition to Sudan heading the African Union at the upcoming summit on January 23.
5. MEDIATION
5.a. Chadian demands
On December 27, 2005, Déby met with President Obasanjo near the Nigerian city of Lagos. After the meeting Déby told reporters, "I came to complain to the current AU chairman about the continued Sudanese aggression toward Chad." Déby opposed Sudan hosting a summit of AU heads of state on January 23-24, 2006, and instead proposed that Nigeria once again hold the summit. In Ivory Coast, Alpha Oumar Konare, chairperson of the African Union Commission and former President of Mali, stated, "We already have a very difficult situation in Darfur. If today we must add complications between Chad and Sudan it will be a catastrophe."
On January 9, the Chadian government posted four demands of Sudan on their website:
disarm Chadian army deserters and other armed groups in its territory
turn militants over to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR
halt Sudanese militia raids into Chad
pay compensation to those affected by previous raids
Chadian government spokesman Doumgor stated, "If these four conditions are met, Chad sees no obstacle to resuming direct contact with Sudan to renew the ancient ties (based on) non-interference in each others' internal affairs."
5. b. Sudan suggestion
Sudan has suggested that the two countries use joint border patrols, just as they previously did in 2003 to prevent attacks from Chad by Fur rebel groups into Sudan, to prevent future attacks, but Chad has thus far refused. Déby accuses Sudan of stationing 50 armored vehicles in the Sudanese town of Geneina near the Chad-Sudan border to launch further attacks into Chad.
On January 19, Sudanese authorities arrested Abdelwahit About, the former head of FIDEL and current commander within FUC, along with 19-20 other rebels depending on reports, after About gave an interview on Sudanese radio stating that he was in Khartoum and that FUC has friendly ties with the Sudanese government.
"I think he was arrested because he had given an interview with a journalist and they discovered he was in Khartoum," RDL spokesman Abdel Karim said. Karim also stated that FUC requests a meeting with the AU. The AU did not comment.
African Union
The AU has sent delegates to both nations. The delegation to Sudan is headed by Baba Gana Kingibe. The Chadian Foreign Ministry told the Sudanese ambassador to Chad to "cease all aggression against Chad." On December 30 Nigerian President and then African Union chairman Olusegun Obasanjo suggested a five-way, one-day summit grouping the leaders of Egypt, Libya, Chad, Sudan and Nigeria to solve the conflict and Egypt proposed the location and date of the summit as Tripoli on January 4, 2006,[55] but this summit has been postponed. The meeting would have discussed the AU committee report on the differences between Chad's account of the attack on Adré and Sudan's.
5. c. United Nations statement
The United Nations Security Council issued a statement condemning the attacks on Adré and supporting the mediation of the African Union, "It [United Nations Security Council] firmly condemned, in that context, recent attacks perpetrated by armed elements within Chad and, in particular, the attack on 19 December on positions of the Chadian national army in the town of Adré, and supported efforts to reduce tensions on the border… The Security Council also appeals to donors to continue both supporting the crucial work of AMIS in stemming the violence in this suffering region and providing critical humanitarian assistance to millions of war-afflicted civilians in Darfur and across the border in Chad.".
Keith McKenzie, UNICEF's special representative to Darfur, told reporters that "Darfur is complicated enough without the Chadians getting involved."
Almost 200 United Nations aid workers left two humanitarian bases in Guereda in eastern Chad on 2006-01-22, after a meeting between UN officials and local government officials who were being briefed on the status of the 200,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad was forcibly ended by up to 100 armed men of unknown, but most likely Janjaweed, affiliation. Five Chadian government officials including the top government official of Guereda and the head of the local branch of the military police were kidnapped, jeeps belonging to two aid groups were stolen, and five local residents suffered gun shot wounds. One of the jeeps was later seen crossing into Sudan.
Chadian government spokesman Doumgor told reporters on January 23 that Chadian authorities did not know who was behind the latest attack, and that kidnappers have made no demands for ransom.
"We've had no contact from them at the moment, but the Chadian army is fanning out in the area to try and find them."]
There will be a 20% reduction in humanitarian staff in eastern Chad with 90 UN and other aid agencies workers evacuated from Guereda and 80 workers from Iriba to regional headquarters in Abeche.
Claire Bourgeois, UNHCR deputy representative in Chad, said, "The situation is serious enough at this stage, especially when taking into account the number of security incidents in the past days… This measure is temporary. We have kept enough staff in field offices to continue delivering services to the refugees living around Guereda and Iriba. Two NGO vehicles were reported stolen in the past four days and other partners have also been victims of robbery."[
6. INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
International attention to the Darfur conflict largely began with reports by the advocacy organizations Amnesty International in July 2003 and the International Crisis Group in December 2003. However, widespread media coverage did not start until the outgoing United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, called Darfur the "world's greatest humanitarian crisis" in March 2004. A movement advocating for humanitarian intervention has emerged in several countries since then.
United Nations
6. a.UN Security Council Chamber
The on-going conflict in Darfur, Sudan, which started in 2003, was declared a "genocide" by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell on September 9, 2004 in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.[33] Since that time however, no other permanent member of the United Nations Security Council has followed suit. In fact, in January 2005, an International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1564 of 2004, issued a report to the Secretary-General stating that "the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide." Nevertheless, the Commission cautioned that "The conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the Government authorities, directly or through the militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region. International offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide."
To address the dire human rights and humanitarian emergency in Darfur, the United Nations has taken several steps, but all of these have been frustrated by the Government of Sudan with the support of a number of other governments, including Egypt and Algeria.
In January 2005, the UN Secretary-General's International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur issued a well documented report that indicated that there was by then already some 1.6 million internally displaced persons as a result of the ongoing violence, more than 200,000 refugees from Darfur into neighbouring Chad, and that Government forces and allied militia had committed widespread and consistent war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, torture, mass rape, summary executions and arbitrary detention. The Commission found that technically there was not a genocide in the legal sense of the term but that massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law were continuing. The Commission also found that the Janjaweed militia operated alongside or with ground or air logistical support from the Government's armed forces
In early 2007, a High Level Mission on the situation of human rights in Darfur was set up to look into reports of ongoing violations and to try to work with the Government of the Sudan to put a stop to the atrocities. The Mission was led by Nobel Prize Winner Jody Williams and included a number of diplomats and human rights practitioners. The Mission travelled to Ethiopia and Chad but it was never admitted into Sudanese territory itself because the Government refused to issue visas to the Mission. As a result, the High Level Mission could only collect information and in its report of March 2007, it underlined the Government's responsibility to protect civilians in Darfur, noting with regret the Government's abject failure to fulfill this responsibility.
Around the same time, the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed seven UN human rights special rapporteurs to form a group of experts on Darfur. This group was composed of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Sudan, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders, the Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons and the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Coordinator of the group of experts was Lyal Sunga. In June 2007, the group of experts issued a report that compiled pre-existing recommendations that had been already issued by UN human rights bodies in order to get the Government to implement them. On 11 December 2007, the group of experts issued its final 106-page report to the Human Rights Council which details the status of the Government's implementation of the recommendations the group had brought together and which concluded that the Government's implementation of human rights recommendations has been largely inadequate.
Attacks in January 2008 and February 2008 by Sudanese forces on Darfur villagers are described in a U.N. report, from March 20, 2008, as "violations of international humanitarian and human rights law."
International Criminal Court
6. b. International Criminal Court
As Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute the International Criminal Court can not investigate crimes that may have taken place in Darfur unless the United Nations Security council asks them to under Article 13.b of the Rome Statute ("A situation in which one or more of such crimes appears to have been committed is referred to the Prosecutor by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations").
In March 2005, the Security Council formally referred the situation in Darfur to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, taking into account the report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1564 of 2004, but without mentioning any specific crimes. Two permanent members of the Security Council, the United States and China, abstained from the vote on the referral resolution.[43] As of his fourth report to the Security Council, the Prosecutor has found "reasonable grounds to believe that the individuals identified [in the UN Security Council Resolution 1593] have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes," but did not find sufficient evidence to prosecute for genocide.
In April 2007, the Judges of the ICC issued arrest warrants against the former Minister of State for the Interior, Ahmad Harun, and a Militia Janjaweed leader, Ali Kushayb, for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Sudan Government says that the ICC had no jurisdiction to try Sudanese citizens and that it will not hand the two men over to its custody.
On July 14, 2008, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC), filed ten charges of war crimes against Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. The ICC's prosecutors have claimed that al-Bashir "masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part" three tribal groups in Darfur because of their ethnicity. The ICC's prosecutor for Darfur, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is expected within months to ask a panel of ICC judges to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir.
The evidence was submitted to 3 judges who will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant in the coming months. 300,000 people have died and 5 million people were forced from their homes, and still under attack from government-backed janjaweed militia.
If formally charged, al-Bashir would become the first sitting head of state charged with genocide. Bashir has rejected the charges and said, "Whoever has visited Darfur, met officials and discovered their ethnicities and tribes ... will know that all of these things are lies."
It is suspected that al-Bashir would not face trial in The Hague any time soon, as Sudan reject's the ICC's jurisdiction.
Payam Akhavan, a professor of international law at McGill University in Montreal and a former war crimes prosecutor, says although he may not go to trial, "He will effectively be in prison within the Sudan itself...Al-Bashir now is not going to be able to leave the Sudan without facing arrest."
7. CRITICISM OF INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
Gérard Prunier, a scholar specializing in African conflicts, argues that the world's most powerful countries have largely limited their response to expressions of concern and demands that the United Nations take action. The UN, lacking both the funding and military support of the wealthy countries, has left the African Union to deploy a token force (AMIS) without a mandate to protect civilians. In the lack of foreign political will to address the political and economic structures that underlie the conflict, the international community has defined the Darfur conflict in humanitarian assistance terms and debated the "genocide" label.
On October 16, 2006, Minority Rights Group (MRG) published a critical report, challenging that the UN and the great powers could have prevented the deepening crisis in Darfur and that few lessons appear to have been drawn from their ineptitude during the Rwandan Genocide. MRG's executive director, Mark Lattimer, stated that: "this level of crisis, the killings, rape and displacement could have been foreseen and avoided ... Darfur would just not be in this situation had the UN systems got its act together after Rwanda: their action was too little too late."[52] On October 20, 120 genocide survivors of the Holocaust, the Cambodian and Rwandan Genocides, backed by six aid agencies, submitted an open letter to the European Union, calling on them to do more to end the atrocities in Darfur, with a UN peacekeeping force as "the only viable option." Aegis Trust director, James Smith, stated that while "the African Union has worked very well in Darfur and done what it could, the rest of the world hasn't supported those efforts the way it should have done with sufficient funds and sufficient equipment."
"Human Rights First" claimed that over 90% of the light weapons currently being imported by Sudan and used in the conflict are from China; however, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)'s "Arms Transfers Data for 2007", between 2003-2007, Sudan received 87 per cent of its major conventional weapons from Russia and 8 per cent from China. Human rights advocates and opponents of the Sudanese government portray China's role in providing weapons and aircraft as a cynical attempt to obtain oil and gas just as colonial powers once supplied African chieftains with the military means to maintain control as they extracted natural resources. According to China's critics, China has offered Sudan support threatening to use its veto on the U.N. Security Council to protect Khartoum from sanctions and has been able to water down every resolution on Darfur in order to protect its interests in Sudan. In response to these allegations, Chinese Ambassador to Sudan Li Chengwen said that "China played an important role in promoting the agreement of the Sudanese government, the African Union and the UN for the deployment of the Hybrid Force in Darfur. China's view is that intensive economic development of the region is a more effective means than harsh economic sanctions, in the effort to stabilize the crisis and alleviate the suffering of the people". Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reiterated these views on February 20, 2008, and "pointed out that China was the first non-African nation to send peacekeepers to Darfur and the biggest development aid provider to the region".. However accusations of the supply of weapons from China in breach of a UN embargo continue to arise.
There has been further evidence of the Sudanese government's murder of civilians to actually facilitate the extraction of oil. The U.S.-funded Civilian Protection Monitoring Team, which investigates attacks in southern Sudan concluded that "as the Government of Sudan sought to clear the way for oil exploration and to create a cordon sanitaire around the oil fields, vast tracts of the Western Upper Nile Region in southern Sudan became the focus of extensive military operations." Sarah Wykes, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, an NGO that campaigns for better natural resource governance, says: "Sudan has purchased about $100m in arms from China and has used these weapons against civilians in Darfur."
Calls for sustained pressure and possible boycotts of the Olympics have come from French presidential candidate François Bayrou,[64] actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow, Genocide Intervention Network Representative Ronan Farrow, author and Sudan scholar Eric Reeves[66] and The Washington Post editorial board. Sudan divestment efforts have also concentrated on PetroChina, the national petroleum company with extensive investments in Sudan.
On the opposite side of the issue, publicity given to the Darfur conflict has been criticized in some segments of the Arab media as exaggerated. Statements to this effect take the view that "the (Israeli) lobby prevents any in-depth discussion and diverts the attention from the crimes committed every day in Palestine and Iraq." and that Western attention to the Darfur crisis is "a cover for what is really being planned and carried out by the Western forces of hegemony and control in our Arab world." While "in New York, ... there are thousands of posters screaming 'genocide' and '400,000 people dead," in reality only "200,000 have been killed." Furthermore, "what has been done" in Darfur is "not genocide," simply "war crimes." Another complaint made is that "there is no ethnic cleansing being perpetrated" in Darfur, only "great instability" and "clashes between the Sudanese government, rebel movements and the Janjaweed."
8. CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS
Question and Answer
On July 14, 2008, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) requested a warrant of arrest for Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir on charges of ten counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The request for a warrant raises a number of questions, answers for some of which are below:
1. Has an arrest warrant for al-Bashir been issued? When will it be issued?
An arrest warrant has not yet been issued for al-Bashir. The prosecutor has requested the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC, a judicial body consisting of three judges, to issue a warrant for President Omar al-Bashir on the basis of his investigations so far. The Pre-Trial Chamber will issue a warrant if it determines that the summary of evidence presented by the prosecutor establishes “reasonable grounds to believe” that the president has committed the crimes alleged in the request. Only the Pre-Trial Chamber has the authority to issue arrest warrants or summonses. In previous ICC cases, the Pre-Trial Chamber has taken several weeks to issue a decision on the prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant.
2. What factors does the Pre-Trial Chamber consider in making its decision on the arrest warrant? When determining whether or not to issue a warrant under the Rome Statute, the Pre-Trial Chamber is likely to take into account the following factors: • whether the alleged crimes occurred in a location and during a time period over which the ICC has jurisdiction; • whether the case is sufficiently grave as to fall within ICC jurisdiction (the ICC mandate is to investigate and prosecute only the “most serious crimes of concern to the international community,” including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide); and • whether the Sudanese national justice system has shown itself to be unwilling or genuinely unable to proceed in relation to these cases. If the Pre-Trial Chamber is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person has committed a crime within the authority of the court and that the case is eligible to be heard before the ICC, it should issue a warrant of arrest if the arrest of the person appears necessary to ensure that he will appear at trial, that he will not obstruct the court’s work, or that he will no longer commit this crime. Alternatively, the court may issue a summons to appear.
3. Can the ICC prosecutor bring charges against a head of state? Are presidents, prime ministers, and other heads of state and government not immune from prosecution? The Rome Statute applies to all persons regardless of their official capacity. In addition, any immunities that the person may have in their own country as a result of their position does not prevent the International Criminal Court from bringing charges. Article 27 of the Rome Statute states explicitly that heads of state are not immune from prosecution.
4. What must be shown to prove genocide? Under the Rome Statute, genocide is the widespread commission of certain acts, carried out with a specific intent to eliminate a group, in whole or in part, based on their nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion. The specified acts are killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction, imposing measures intended to prevent births, and forcibly transferring children from their community. To prove genocide, the ICC prosecutor has to show that some or all of the above acts were committed and that they were done with the specific intent and purpose of destroying a part of a population.
5. What must be shown to prove crimes against humanity? Under the Rome Statute, to prove a crime against humanity, the prosecutor must show that the accused committed one of a number of acts (such as murder, extermination, deportation or forcible transfer of a population, rape, torture, persecution, enforced disappearances, or other inhumane acts) as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. The prosecutor needs to show that a number of the acts listed above were committed as part of a state or organizational policy and that the accused had knowledge of the attacks.
6. How can the prosecutor show that al-Bashir was involved in crimes in Darfur? Under the Rome Statute there are two forms of criminal responsibility. Individual responsibility is when the person commits a crime within the jurisdiction of the court directly by committing the crime individually or jointly; by ordering, soliciting, or inducing the commission of a crime; by aiding and abetting the crime; or by otherwise contributing to the commission of a crime. Command responsibility is when a military commander or a civilian effectively acting as a military commander fails to exercise control over forces under his or her effective command and control where he or she knew or should have known that the forces were committing or about to commit such crimes and failed to prevent the crimes or to punish them.
7. What has Human Rights Watch found regarding al-Bashir’s role in crimes in Darfur? As documented in our December 2005 report, “Entrenching Impunity: Government Responsibility for International Crimes in Darfur,” Human Rights Watch found that the highest levels of the Sudanese leadership, including al-Bashir, were responsible for the creation and coordination of the Sudanese government’s counterinsurgency policy that deliberately and systematically targeted civilians in Darfur in violation of international law. Al-Bashir, as commander-in-chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces, played a pivotal leadership role in the military campaign in Darfur. His public statements were precursors to military operations and peaks in abuses by Sudanese security forces. There are indications that they echoed the private directives given to civilian administration, military and security services. For instance, on December 30, 2003, al-Bashir announced that: “Our top priority will be the annihilation of the rebellion and any outlaw who carries arms.” A few days later, in January 2004, the Sudanese security forces began an offensive that used systematic force in violation of international humanitarian law to drive hundreds of thousands of people from rural areas in Darfur. The methodological use of aerial support to target civilians in the military campaign, despite protests from air force officers, also appears to reflect the involvement of high-level officials in Khartoum. Al-Bashir was undoubtedly aware of abuses committed by the security forces. Beginning in May 2002, reports of tens of thousands of displaced people and information from dozens of police complaints, press accounts, and reports by numerous organizations, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, made it clear that massive abuses were taking place in Darfur. Apart from this specific information, the government’s previous use of ethnic militias in the southern Sudan conflict provided ample warning that such forces invariably targeted civilians and committed other war crimes. There is no evidence that al-Bashir or other senior government took serious measures to prevent or stop the abuses. The armed forces and government-backed militia called “Janjaweed” continued to carry out crimes for months after the reports were widely known. Even after al-Bashir established a national inquiry into the crimes (which reported to him personally), attacks that took place in December 2004 displayed all the characteristics of previous offenses, including military coordination of the Janjaweed, aerial bombardment of villages, and massed forced displacement of civilians.
8. Will the issuance of warrants affect the peace process in Darfur? Should the ICC prosecutor have taken these considerations into account? It is difficult to predict the effect of the request for an arrest warrant on political developments in Sudan, but the peace process in Darfur has long been stalled for reasons wholly unrelated to the ICC. Rather, the parties do not appear committed to finding a solution through the peace talks. Indeed, al-Bashir has not even participated in the Darfur peace talks to date. The historical record from other conflicts shows that stigmatizing and marginalizing leaders who are under warrant for arrest can strengthen peace processes. The arrest warrants against Charles Taylor of Liberia and Radovan Karadzic in Bosnia and Herzegovina removed them from peace processes and ultimately facilitated the reaching of agreements. In addition, many credit the ICC warrants against the leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda for their willingness to participate in peace talks for the first time in years. In any case, the ICC prosecutor is not mandated to take issues such as the peace process into account in his decisions to prosecute. The prosecutor is responsible for investigating and prosecuting those most responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide regardless of their position. The prosecutor must act independently and apolitically to fulfill his mandate and is not empowered to make decisions about peace and security.
9. What effect will the request for a warrant have on deployment of peacekeepers? Sudan remains obligated to proactively facilitate the full deployment of UNAMID, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur. This is required by Security Council resolution 1769 and is not in any way affected by the prosecutor’s request for warrants. A year after the Security Council authorized UNAMID, Sudan has continually obstructed the full deployment of the force, which is operating at barely a third of its authorized capacity and with few camps established. Unrelated to the ICC action, the United Nations Security Council and concerned governments should maintain pressure on Sudan to allow full deployment of UNAMID, including by having the Security Council impose targeted sanctions on the Sudanese government and top officials.
10. What will the effect of the prosecutor’s request be on humanitarian agencies and peacekeepers on the ground? Human Rights Watch has long been concerned by the Sudanese government’s failure to ensure access to populations in need in Darfur by humanitarian agencies and peacekeepers, and those concerns remain. International law requires the government of Sudan to ensure the full, safe, and unhindered access of relief personnel to all those in need in Darfur as well as the delivery of humanitarian assistance, in particular to internally displaced persons and refugees. In addition, international law prohibits as war crimes those attacks directed against personnel involved in a humanitarian or peacekeeping mission. The prosecutor’s request has no bearing on Khartoum’s obligation to abide by international law. Should the government of Sudan violate international law by deliberately attacking or obstructing humanitarian personnel or peacekeepers, the United Nations Security Council should respond by taking appropriate measures, including sanctions, to ensure Sudan’s compliance with its obligations.
The War in Darfur is a military conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Unlike the Second Sudanese Civil War, the current lines of conflict are seen to be ethnic and tribal, rather than religious. One side of the armed conflict is composed mainly of the Sudanese military and the Janjaweed, a militia group recruited mostly from the Arab Abbala tribes of the northern Rizeigat, camel-herding nomads. The other side comprises a variety of rebel groups, notably the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, recruited primarily from the land-tilling non-Arab Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups. The Sudanese government, while publicly denying that it supports the Janjaweed, has provided money and assistance to the militia and has participated in joint attacks targeting the tribes from which the rebels draw support.
1. BACKGROUND
2. TIMELINE
3. WHO ARE AT WAR
3. a. Military of Sudan
3. a.1 Sudan People's Armed Forces
3.a. 2. Janjaweed
3. b. Forces against the Government Forces
3. b. 1. Sudan Liberation Movement
3. b. 2. Justice and Equality Movement
3. b. 3. Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan
4. CHAD-SUDAN CONFLICT
5. MEDIATION
5.a. Chadian demands
5. b. Sudan suggestion
5. c. United Nations statement
6. INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
6. a.UN Security Council Chamber
6. b. International Criminal Court
7. CRITISICM OF INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
8. CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS
The conflict began in February of 2003.
The combination of decades of drought, desertification, and overpopulation are among the causes of the Darfur conflict, because the Baggara nomads searching for water have to take their livestock further south, to land mainly occupied by Black African farming communities.
1. BACKGROUND
The conflict taking place in Darfur has many interwoven causes. On June 16, 2007, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a statement in which he proposed that the slaughter in Darfur was caused "at least in part from climate change", and that it "derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming"."The scale of historical climate change, as recorded in Northern Darfur, is almost unprecedented: the reduction in rainfall has turned millions of hectares of already marginal semi-desert grazing land into desert. The impact of climate change is considered to be directly related to the conflict in the region, as desertification has added significantly to the stress on the livelihoods of pastoralist societies, forcing them to move south to find pasture," the UNEP report states.
A point of particular confusion has been the characterization of the conflict as one between 'Arab' and 'African' populations, a dichotomy that one historian describes as "both true and false". It is important to distinguish the Sudanese Arab from other Arabs of the Middle East. Sudanese Arabs are descended primarily from the ancient Nubians. In terms of racial origin, it is not clear what specific racial or ethnic group the Nubians originated from. Over a period of centuries, Arab immigration into the Sudan, intermarriage among Nubians and Arabs, and the introduction of Islam and the Arabic language, Arabised the Nubians into the Sudanese Arab of today. In appearance, the Nubians look similar to the Ethiopians and Eritreans; at one point, they shared a common history with the latter.
In the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, the Keira dynasty of the Fur people of the Marrah Mountains established a sultanate with Islam as the state religion. The sultanate was conquered by the Turco-Egyptian force expanding south along the Nile, which was in turn defeated by the Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi. The Mahdist state collapsed under the onslaught of the British force led by Herbert Kitchener, who established an Anglo-Egyptian co-dominium to rule Sudan. The British allowed Darfur de jure autonomy until 1916 when they invaded and incorporated the region into Sudan. Within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the bulk of resources were devoted toward Khartoum and Blue Nile Province, leaving the rest of the country relatively undeveloped.
The inhabitants of the Nile Valley, which had received the bulk of British investment, continued the pattern of economic and political marginalization after independence was achieved in 1956. In the 1968 elections, factionalism within the ruling Umma Party led candidates, notably Sadiq al-Mahdi, to try to split off portions of the Darfuri electorate either by blaming the region's underdevelopment on the Arabs, in the case of appeals to the stationary peoples, or by appealing to the Baggara semi-nomads to support their fellow Nile Arabs. This Arab-African dichotomy, which was not an indigenously developed way of perceiving local relations, was exacerbated after Libyan President Muammar al-Gaddafi became focused on establishing an Arab belt across the Sahel and promulgated an ideology of Arab supremacy. As a result of a sequence of interactions between Sudan, Libya and Chad from the late 1950s through the 1980s, including the creation of the Libyan-supported Islamic Legion, Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry established Darfur as a rear base for the rebel force led by Hissène Habré, which was attempting to overthrow the Chadian government and was also anti-Gaddafi.
In 1983 and 1984, the rains failed and the region was plunged into a famine. The famine killed an estimated 95,000 people out of a population of 3.1 million. Nimeiry was overthrown on 5 April 1985, and Sadiq al-Mahdi came out of exile, making a deal with Gaddafi, which al-Mahdi did not honor, to turn over Darfur to Libya if he was supplied with the funds to win the upcoming elections.[
In early 2003, two local rebel groups — the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) — accused the government of oppressing non-Arabs. The SLM, which is much larger than the JEM, is generally associated with the Fur and Masalit, as well as the Wagi clan of the Zaghawa, while the JEM is associated with the Kobe clan of Zaghawa. Later that year, leaders of both groups, the Sudanese Government and representatives of the International diplomatic community were brought together in Geneva by the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue to look at ways of addressing the humanitarian crisis. In 2004, the JEM joined the Eastern Front, a group set up in 2004 as an alliance between two eastern tribal rebel groups, the Rashaida tribe's Free Lions and the Beja Congress. The JEM has also been accused of being controlled by Hassan al-Turabi.
On January 20, 2006, SLM declared a merger with the Justice and Equality Movement to form the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. However, in May of that year, the SLM and JEM were again negotiating as separate entities.
2. TIMELINE
A rebellion started in 2003 against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, with two local rebel groups - the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) - accusing the government of oppressing non-Arabs in favor of Arabs. The government was also accused of neglecting the Darfur region of Sudan. In response, the government mounted a campaign of aerial bombardment supporting ground attacks by an Arab militia, the Janjaweed. Literally translated, Janjaweed means 'devils on horseback'. The government-supported Janjaweed were accused of committing major human rights violations, including mass killing, looting, and systematic rape of the non-Arab population of Darfur. They have frequently burned down whole villages, driving the surviving inhabitants to flee to refugee camps, mainly in Darfur and Chad; many of the camps in Darfur are surrounded by Janjaweed forces. By the summer of 2004, 50,000 to 80,000 people had been killed and at least a million had been driven from their homes, causing a major humanitarian crisis in the region.
On September 18, 2004, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1564, which called for a Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to assess the Sudanese conflict. On January 31, 2005, the UN released a 176-Page report saying that while there were mass murders and rapes, they could not label it as genocide because "genocidal intent appears to be missing". Many activists, however, refer to the crisis in Darfur as a genocide, including the Save Darfur Coalition and the Genocide Intervention Network. These organizations point to statements by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, referring to the conflict as a genocide. Other activists organizations, such as Amnesty International, while calling for international intervention, avoid the use of the term genocide.
In May 2006 Minni Minnawi's faction of the main rebel group, the Sudanese Liberation Movement, agreed to a draft peace agreement with the Sudanese government. The other faction of the SLM, led by Abdel Wahid Mohammed Ahmed El-Nur, the founding leader of SLM, refrained from signing the agreement. On May 5th, the agreement, drafted in Abuja, Nigeria, was signed by Minnawi's faction and the Sudanese government..
3. WHO ARE AT WAR
3. a. Military of Sudan
3. a.1 Sudan People's Armed Forces
The Sudan People's Armed Forces is a 117,000-member army supported by a strong Air Force and Navy by regional standards. Irregular tribal and former rebel militias and Popular Defence Forces supplement the army’s strength in the field. This is mixed force, having the additional duty of maintaining internal security. Some rebels who fought in the South were former army members. Sudan’s military forces have historically been hampered by limited and outdated equipment. In the 1980s, the U.S. worked with the Sudanese Government to upgrade equipment with special emphasis on airlift capacity and logistics. All U.S. military assistance was terminated following the military coup of 1989.
During the 1990s, periodic purges of the professional officer corps by the ruling Islamist regime has eroded command authority as well as war-fighting capabilities. Oil revenues have allowed the government to purchase modern weapons systems, including 16 Hind helicopter gun ships, 3 MiG-23, 22 F-7 fighters and fourth generation fighters such as the 24 MiG-29, Antonov medium transport aircraft, mobile artillery pieces, and light assault weapons. Sudan now receives most of its military equipment from the People's Republic of China, Russia, and Libya in violation of a UN arms embargo in place since 2005.
3.a.2. Janjaweed
The Janjaweed (Arabic: جنجويد; variously transliterated Janjawid, Janjawed or Jingaweit etc.– thought to mean "devil on horseback", or "a man with a gun on a horse") is a blanket term used to describe mostly armed gunmen in Darfur, western Sudan, and now eastern Chad. Using the United Nations definition, the Janjaweed comprised nomadic Arabic-speaking African tribes (i.e. Black Arabs, or Afro-Arabs), the core of whom are from the Abbala (camel herder) background with significant Lambo recruitment from the Baggara (cattle herder) people. This UN definition may not necessarily be the case, as instances of members from other tribes have been noted.
In the past, they were at odds with Darfur's sedentary population over natural grazing grounds and farmland, as rainfall dwindled and water became scarce. They are currently in conflict with Darfur rebel groups — the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement. Since 2003 they have been one of the main players in the Darfur conflict, which has pitted the largely nomadic tribes against the sedentary population of the region in a battle over resource and land allocation.
The Janjaweed are armed partisans drawn from Darfurian and Arabic-speaking tribes that became notorious for alleged massacre, rape, forced displacement and torture in 1990 and from 2001-2005. The Janjaweed first emerged in 1988 after Chadian President Hissène Habré, backed by France and the United States, defeated the Libyan army, thereby ending Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi’s territorial designs on Chad. Libya’s Chadian protégé, Acheickh Ibn Omer Saeed, retreated with his partisan forces to Darfur, where they were hosted by Sheikh Musa Hilal, the newly-elevated chief of the Mahamid Rizeigat Arabic speaking African tribes of north Darfur. Hilal’s tribesmen had earlier smuggled Libyan weapons to Ibn Omer’s forces. A French-Chadian incursion destroyed Ibn Omer’s camp, but his weapons remained with his Mahamid hosts.
Throughout the 1990s, the Janjaweed were a combination of Chadian and Darfurian "Arab" partisans, tolerated by the Sudan Government, pursuing local agendas of controlling land. The majority of Darfur’s Arabs, the Baggara confederation, began their presence in the war over grazing territory, and remain involved. In 1999-2000, faced with threats of insurgencies in Western and Northern Darfur, Khartoum’s security armed the Janjaweed forces. When the insurgency escalated in February 2003, spearheaded by the Sudan Liberation Movement, and the Justice and Equality Movement, the Sudanese Government responded by using the Janjaweed as its main counter-insurgency force. Protracting the forces to attack and recover the rebel held areas of Darfur, the Janjaweed conducted a campaign targeting rebels in the region of Darfur. By October 2007, only the United States' government had declared the Janjaweed killings in Darfur to be genocide, since they had killed an estimated 200,000-400,000 civilians over the previous three years. The U.S. State Department and others in 2004 named leading Janjaweed commanders including Musa Hilal as suspected genocide criminals. The UN Security Council called for the Janjaweed to be disarmed. On July 14, 2008 the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in Darfur with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation using the Janjaweed tribes.
By early 2006, many Janjaweed had been absorbed into the Sudan Armed Forces including the Popular Defence Forces and Border Guards. Meanwhile, the Janjaweed expanded to include some Arabic-speaking tribes in eastern Darfur, not historically associated with the original Janjaweed. Chadian "Arabs" were also increasingly active in seeking to reestablish a political base in Chad, as part of the Unified Forces for a Democratic Change (FUC) coalition.
Musa Hilal, who heads a small but powerful Darfurian "Arab" tribe is suspected by the US State Department of being a leader of the Janjaweed. The New Yorker quotes him: " I am a tribal leader. ... The government call to arms is carried out through the tribal leaders." He admits recruiting, but denies being in the military chain of command, according to Human Rights Watch.
3. b. Forces against the Government Forces
3. b. 1. Sudan Liberation Movement
The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army or (Arabic: حركة تحرير السودانḥarakat taḥrīr as-Sūdan) (abbreviated as either SLM or SLA) is a loose association of Sudanese rebel groups who fought against the Sudanese government forces, and the government sponsored Janjaweed militiamen (accused of perpetrating widespread atrocity against Sudanese civilians thoughout Darfur) in the Darfur conflict.
Currently, it has largely divided into factions. The leader of the most brutal faction is Minni Minnawi and is now allied with the government. Other leaders of factions that continue fighting the government include Ahmed Abdulshafi Bassey and, the founder of the movement, Abdulwahid Mohamed Nour who is largely supported by the people of Darfur. Minnawi is hated by many people of Darfur including people from his own Zaghawa tribe.[citation needed] The peace agreement that is signed by Minnawi's faction is widely rejected by the Darfurians and especially by the Fur, the largest ethnic group in Darfur. The Jebel Marrah ("bad mountains") is home of the Fur tribe and current strong hold for the Fur faction of the SLA, led by Abdul Waheed.
The Sudan Liberation Movement was known as the Darfur Liberation Front for a brief period of time after its emergence in February 2003. While the Darfur Liberation Front maintained a secessionist position, however, the Sudan Liberation Movement claims to have no secessionist intentions, and instead aims to overthrow the Khartoum regime and "create a united, democratic Sudan."
On January 20, 2006, SLM declared a merger with the Justice and Equality Movement to form the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. However, by May of that year, the SLM and JEM were again negotiating as separate entities.
On 30 September 2007, approximately 1,000 Sudan Liberation Army rebels mounted a major raid on an AMIS base, claiming the lives of at least 12 peacekeepers and wounding many more. At least 50 personnel are as yet unaccounted for, presumed missing in action. The attack occurred just after sunset in the flashpoint, northern Darfur town of Haskanita, and comes amid increasing tensions and violence between the rebels and foreign peacekeepers, with the latter often accused of abrogating their neutrality and bias towards the central government.
3. b. 2. Justice and Equality Movement
The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) is a rebel group involved in the Darfur conflict of Sudan. It is led by Khalil Ibrahim. Along with other rebel groups such as the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), they are fighting against the government. The JEM is also a member of the Eastern Front, a rebel coalition formerly active in the east of Sudan along the Eritrean border. After the Eastern Front signed a peace deal with the central government, the JEM lost access to its funding from Eritrea.
The JEM traces its foundation to the writers of the Black Book, a manuscript published in 2000 that details the structural inequity in the country. JEM espouses an Islamist ideology, and the government links the group to Hassan al-Turabi, although leaders of the group and Turabi himself deny the claim. However, al-Turabi blames the government for "aggravating the situation."
On January 20, 2006, the Justice and Equality Movement declared a merger with the Sudan Liberation Movement, along with other rebel groups, to form the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. However, the JEM and SLM negotiated as separate groups with peace talks with the government in May 2006.
In October of 2007, the JEM attacked the Defra oilfield in the Kordofan region of Sudan. The Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, a Chinese-led consortium, controls the field. The next month, a group of 135 Chinese engineers arrived in Darfur to work on the Defra field. Ibrahim told reporters, "We oppose them coming because the Chinese are not interested in human rights. It is just interested in Sudan's resources." The JEM claims that the revenue from oil sold to China funds the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militia.
On the morning of December 11, 2007, Khalil Ibrahim claimed that JEM forces fought and defeated Sudanese government troops guarding a Chinese-run oilfield in the Kordofan region. Khartoum officials, however, denied that any oil fields had come under attack. Ibrahim said that the attack was part of a JEM campaign to rid Sudan of Chinese-run oilfields and stated that "[The JEM] want all Chinese companies to leave. They have been warned many times. They should not be there."
On May 11, 2008 JEM attacked the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The government declared victory, saying that the attack had been repelled and leading members of the group had been killed, although the JEM said that the attack was successful. Eltahir Elkaki, the General Secretary of JEM's legislative council, vowed that the war would henceforth be fought across the country, saying that "We haven't changed our tactics. From the beginning, Jem is a national movement and it has a national agenda." Khalil Ibrahim declared that "This is just the start of a process and the end is the termination of this regime".
3. b. 3. Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan
The Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan was formed on January 20, 2006, when the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement merged to form a single rebel alliance in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
ARFWS issued a press statement in French and Arabic in the Chadian capital of N'Djamena stating that "The two movements have agreed to join and coordinate all political, military and social forces, their international relations and to double their combat capacity in a collective body under the name, the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. This union will strengthen the solidarity, cohesion and unity of the people of Sudan in general and that of the west in particular. It will further strengthen the position of the armed movements in (peace) negotiations" currently under way in Abuja in Nigeria."
JEM president and doctor Ibrahim Khalil told reporters, "We have set up this union in the interests of the people of Darfur. To lose time without uniting our efforts means extending the days of the (Khartoum) regime which has become a factor in the disintegration of the regime."
The press statement was also signed by SLM leader Mina Arko Minawi.
ARFWS and the Government of Chad were united in opposition to Sudan heading the African Union at the upcoming summit on January 23.
4. CHAD-SUDAN CONFLICT
Alleged Sudanese support for Chadian rebels
Members of the Chadian government repeatedly accused Sudan of supporting the United Front for Democratic Change rebel alliance financially, territorially, and by providing weapons. On December 30, the Chadian government broadened their accusation, alleging that rebels had been given airtime on Sudanese State television and that after the second attack on Adré, Sudanese citizens were among the rebels taken prisoner.
Chadian Deputy Foreign Minister Lucienne Dillah told the Chadian parliament in Ndjamena, which then voted to back President Idriss Déby's anti-rebel activities, "It seems clear that Sudan is arming, financing and equipping Chadian rebels on its territory to destabilise Chad. The presence of Sudanese among the attackers taken prisoner (after the December 18 attack on Adré) is a blatant example. Khartoum warmly welcomed the desertion of some elements of the Chadian army and the defection of some senior officials in December."
Dillah went on to say that Chadian rebel leaders "made several appearances on Sudanese television before satellite channel Al-Jazeera showed the Chadian rebel base on Sudanese soil on December 11."
Dillah showed the Parliament several photographs of Mohammed Nour posing next to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. After Dillah's speech the Parliament called on Khartoum not to jeopardize "the historic links" between Sudan and Chad.
Déby also alleges that the Sudanese-sponsored Janjaweed militia killed 55 shepherds in Madioun village before Chad's army killed 17 of "the horse-men who were wearing the military uniform". Three Chadian soldiers were killed.
The African Union will set up a commission of enquiry to investigate Chad's evidence.
Peter Takirambudde, the Africa director of Human Rights Watch said in a statement in February 2006, "You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn't get worse, but it has. Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad."
Alleged foreign support for Sudanese rebels
U.N. experts working in Darfur reported on January 9 that rebels were getting "financial, political and other material support from neighbouring countries including Libya, Chad and Eritrea". On January 12 Chadian Information Minister Doumgor said, "This lying information attributed to a supposed report by United Nations experts has no other aim than to justify the Sudanese aggression which Chad is a victim of."
On January 20, 2006, representatives from the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement met in the Chadian capital N'Djamena, and decided to combine the two groups into the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan, the largest rebel alliance in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
ARFWS issued a press statement in French and Arabic stating that "The two movements have agreed to join and coordinate all political, military and social forces, their international relations and to double their combat capacity in a collective body under the name, the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan. This union will strengthen the solidarity, cohesion and unity of the people of Sudan in general and that of the west in particular. It will further strengthen the position of the armed movements in (peace) negotiations" currently under way in Abuja in Nigeria."
JEM president and doctor Ibrahim Khalil told reporters, "We have set up this union in the interests of the people of Darfur. To lose time without uniting our efforts means extending the days of the (Khartoum) regime which has become a factor in the disintegration of the regime."
The press statement was also signed by SLM leader Mina Arko Minawi.
ARFWS and the Government of Chad are united in opposition to Sudan heading the African Union at the upcoming summit on January 23.
5. MEDIATION
5.a. Chadian demands
On December 27, 2005, Déby met with President Obasanjo near the Nigerian city of Lagos. After the meeting Déby told reporters, "I came to complain to the current AU chairman about the continued Sudanese aggression toward Chad." Déby opposed Sudan hosting a summit of AU heads of state on January 23-24, 2006, and instead proposed that Nigeria once again hold the summit. In Ivory Coast, Alpha Oumar Konare, chairperson of the African Union Commission and former President of Mali, stated, "We already have a very difficult situation in Darfur. If today we must add complications between Chad and Sudan it will be a catastrophe."
On January 9, the Chadian government posted four demands of Sudan on their website:
disarm Chadian army deserters and other armed groups in its territory
turn militants over to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR
halt Sudanese militia raids into Chad
pay compensation to those affected by previous raids
Chadian government spokesman Doumgor stated, "If these four conditions are met, Chad sees no obstacle to resuming direct contact with Sudan to renew the ancient ties (based on) non-interference in each others' internal affairs."
5. b. Sudan suggestion
Sudan has suggested that the two countries use joint border patrols, just as they previously did in 2003 to prevent attacks from Chad by Fur rebel groups into Sudan, to prevent future attacks, but Chad has thus far refused. Déby accuses Sudan of stationing 50 armored vehicles in the Sudanese town of Geneina near the Chad-Sudan border to launch further attacks into Chad.
On January 19, Sudanese authorities arrested Abdelwahit About, the former head of FIDEL and current commander within FUC, along with 19-20 other rebels depending on reports, after About gave an interview on Sudanese radio stating that he was in Khartoum and that FUC has friendly ties with the Sudanese government.
"I think he was arrested because he had given an interview with a journalist and they discovered he was in Khartoum," RDL spokesman Abdel Karim said. Karim also stated that FUC requests a meeting with the AU. The AU did not comment.
African Union
The AU has sent delegates to both nations. The delegation to Sudan is headed by Baba Gana Kingibe. The Chadian Foreign Ministry told the Sudanese ambassador to Chad to "cease all aggression against Chad." On December 30 Nigerian President and then African Union chairman Olusegun Obasanjo suggested a five-way, one-day summit grouping the leaders of Egypt, Libya, Chad, Sudan and Nigeria to solve the conflict and Egypt proposed the location and date of the summit as Tripoli on January 4, 2006,[55] but this summit has been postponed. The meeting would have discussed the AU committee report on the differences between Chad's account of the attack on Adré and Sudan's.
5. c. United Nations statement
The United Nations Security Council issued a statement condemning the attacks on Adré and supporting the mediation of the African Union, "It [United Nations Security Council] firmly condemned, in that context, recent attacks perpetrated by armed elements within Chad and, in particular, the attack on 19 December on positions of the Chadian national army in the town of Adré, and supported efforts to reduce tensions on the border… The Security Council also appeals to donors to continue both supporting the crucial work of AMIS in stemming the violence in this suffering region and providing critical humanitarian assistance to millions of war-afflicted civilians in Darfur and across the border in Chad.".
Keith McKenzie, UNICEF's special representative to Darfur, told reporters that "Darfur is complicated enough without the Chadians getting involved."
Almost 200 United Nations aid workers left two humanitarian bases in Guereda in eastern Chad on 2006-01-22, after a meeting between UN officials and local government officials who were being briefed on the status of the 200,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad was forcibly ended by up to 100 armed men of unknown, but most likely Janjaweed, affiliation. Five Chadian government officials including the top government official of Guereda and the head of the local branch of the military police were kidnapped, jeeps belonging to two aid groups were stolen, and five local residents suffered gun shot wounds. One of the jeeps was later seen crossing into Sudan.
Chadian government spokesman Doumgor told reporters on January 23 that Chadian authorities did not know who was behind the latest attack, and that kidnappers have made no demands for ransom.
"We've had no contact from them at the moment, but the Chadian army is fanning out in the area to try and find them."]
There will be a 20% reduction in humanitarian staff in eastern Chad with 90 UN and other aid agencies workers evacuated from Guereda and 80 workers from Iriba to regional headquarters in Abeche.
Claire Bourgeois, UNHCR deputy representative in Chad, said, "The situation is serious enough at this stage, especially when taking into account the number of security incidents in the past days… This measure is temporary. We have kept enough staff in field offices to continue delivering services to the refugees living around Guereda and Iriba. Two NGO vehicles were reported stolen in the past four days and other partners have also been victims of robbery."[
6. INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
International attention to the Darfur conflict largely began with reports by the advocacy organizations Amnesty International in July 2003 and the International Crisis Group in December 2003. However, widespread media coverage did not start until the outgoing United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Mukesh Kapila, called Darfur the "world's greatest humanitarian crisis" in March 2004. A movement advocating for humanitarian intervention has emerged in several countries since then.
United Nations
6. a.UN Security Council Chamber
The on-going conflict in Darfur, Sudan, which started in 2003, was declared a "genocide" by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell on September 9, 2004 in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.[33] Since that time however, no other permanent member of the United Nations Security Council has followed suit. In fact, in January 2005, an International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1564 of 2004, issued a report to the Secretary-General stating that "the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide." Nevertheless, the Commission cautioned that "The conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the Government authorities, directly or through the militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region. International offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide."
To address the dire human rights and humanitarian emergency in Darfur, the United Nations has taken several steps, but all of these have been frustrated by the Government of Sudan with the support of a number of other governments, including Egypt and Algeria.
In January 2005, the UN Secretary-General's International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur issued a well documented report that indicated that there was by then already some 1.6 million internally displaced persons as a result of the ongoing violence, more than 200,000 refugees from Darfur into neighbouring Chad, and that Government forces and allied militia had committed widespread and consistent war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, torture, mass rape, summary executions and arbitrary detention. The Commission found that technically there was not a genocide in the legal sense of the term but that massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law were continuing. The Commission also found that the Janjaweed militia operated alongside or with ground or air logistical support from the Government's armed forces
In early 2007, a High Level Mission on the situation of human rights in Darfur was set up to look into reports of ongoing violations and to try to work with the Government of the Sudan to put a stop to the atrocities. The Mission was led by Nobel Prize Winner Jody Williams and included a number of diplomats and human rights practitioners. The Mission travelled to Ethiopia and Chad but it was never admitted into Sudanese territory itself because the Government refused to issue visas to the Mission. As a result, the High Level Mission could only collect information and in its report of March 2007, it underlined the Government's responsibility to protect civilians in Darfur, noting with regret the Government's abject failure to fulfill this responsibility.
Around the same time, the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed seven UN human rights special rapporteurs to form a group of experts on Darfur. This group was composed of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Sudan, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders, the Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons and the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Coordinator of the group of experts was Lyal Sunga. In June 2007, the group of experts issued a report that compiled pre-existing recommendations that had been already issued by UN human rights bodies in order to get the Government to implement them. On 11 December 2007, the group of experts issued its final 106-page report to the Human Rights Council which details the status of the Government's implementation of the recommendations the group had brought together and which concluded that the Government's implementation of human rights recommendations has been largely inadequate.
Attacks in January 2008 and February 2008 by Sudanese forces on Darfur villagers are described in a U.N. report, from March 20, 2008, as "violations of international humanitarian and human rights law."
International Criminal Court
6. b. International Criminal Court
As Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute the International Criminal Court can not investigate crimes that may have taken place in Darfur unless the United Nations Security council asks them to under Article 13.b of the Rome Statute ("A situation in which one or more of such crimes appears to have been committed is referred to the Prosecutor by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations").
In March 2005, the Security Council formally referred the situation in Darfur to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, taking into account the report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1564 of 2004, but without mentioning any specific crimes. Two permanent members of the Security Council, the United States and China, abstained from the vote on the referral resolution.[43] As of his fourth report to the Security Council, the Prosecutor has found "reasonable grounds to believe that the individuals identified [in the UN Security Council Resolution 1593] have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes," but did not find sufficient evidence to prosecute for genocide.
In April 2007, the Judges of the ICC issued arrest warrants against the former Minister of State for the Interior, Ahmad Harun, and a Militia Janjaweed leader, Ali Kushayb, for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Sudan Government says that the ICC had no jurisdiction to try Sudanese citizens and that it will not hand the two men over to its custody.
On July 14, 2008, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC), filed ten charges of war crimes against Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. The ICC's prosecutors have claimed that al-Bashir "masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part" three tribal groups in Darfur because of their ethnicity. The ICC's prosecutor for Darfur, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is expected within months to ask a panel of ICC judges to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir.
The evidence was submitted to 3 judges who will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant in the coming months. 300,000 people have died and 5 million people were forced from their homes, and still under attack from government-backed janjaweed militia.
If formally charged, al-Bashir would become the first sitting head of state charged with genocide. Bashir has rejected the charges and said, "Whoever has visited Darfur, met officials and discovered their ethnicities and tribes ... will know that all of these things are lies."
It is suspected that al-Bashir would not face trial in The Hague any time soon, as Sudan reject's the ICC's jurisdiction.
Payam Akhavan, a professor of international law at McGill University in Montreal and a former war crimes prosecutor, says although he may not go to trial, "He will effectively be in prison within the Sudan itself...Al-Bashir now is not going to be able to leave the Sudan without facing arrest."
7. CRITICISM OF INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
Gérard Prunier, a scholar specializing in African conflicts, argues that the world's most powerful countries have largely limited their response to expressions of concern and demands that the United Nations take action. The UN, lacking both the funding and military support of the wealthy countries, has left the African Union to deploy a token force (AMIS) without a mandate to protect civilians. In the lack of foreign political will to address the political and economic structures that underlie the conflict, the international community has defined the Darfur conflict in humanitarian assistance terms and debated the "genocide" label.
On October 16, 2006, Minority Rights Group (MRG) published a critical report, challenging that the UN and the great powers could have prevented the deepening crisis in Darfur and that few lessons appear to have been drawn from their ineptitude during the Rwandan Genocide. MRG's executive director, Mark Lattimer, stated that: "this level of crisis, the killings, rape and displacement could have been foreseen and avoided ... Darfur would just not be in this situation had the UN systems got its act together after Rwanda: their action was too little too late."[52] On October 20, 120 genocide survivors of the Holocaust, the Cambodian and Rwandan Genocides, backed by six aid agencies, submitted an open letter to the European Union, calling on them to do more to end the atrocities in Darfur, with a UN peacekeeping force as "the only viable option." Aegis Trust director, James Smith, stated that while "the African Union has worked very well in Darfur and done what it could, the rest of the world hasn't supported those efforts the way it should have done with sufficient funds and sufficient equipment."
"Human Rights First" claimed that over 90% of the light weapons currently being imported by Sudan and used in the conflict are from China; however, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)'s "Arms Transfers Data for 2007", between 2003-2007, Sudan received 87 per cent of its major conventional weapons from Russia and 8 per cent from China. Human rights advocates and opponents of the Sudanese government portray China's role in providing weapons and aircraft as a cynical attempt to obtain oil and gas just as colonial powers once supplied African chieftains with the military means to maintain control as they extracted natural resources. According to China's critics, China has offered Sudan support threatening to use its veto on the U.N. Security Council to protect Khartoum from sanctions and has been able to water down every resolution on Darfur in order to protect its interests in Sudan. In response to these allegations, Chinese Ambassador to Sudan Li Chengwen said that "China played an important role in promoting the agreement of the Sudanese government, the African Union and the UN for the deployment of the Hybrid Force in Darfur. China's view is that intensive economic development of the region is a more effective means than harsh economic sanctions, in the effort to stabilize the crisis and alleviate the suffering of the people". Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reiterated these views on February 20, 2008, and "pointed out that China was the first non-African nation to send peacekeepers to Darfur and the biggest development aid provider to the region".. However accusations of the supply of weapons from China in breach of a UN embargo continue to arise.
There has been further evidence of the Sudanese government's murder of civilians to actually facilitate the extraction of oil. The U.S.-funded Civilian Protection Monitoring Team, which investigates attacks in southern Sudan concluded that "as the Government of Sudan sought to clear the way for oil exploration and to create a cordon sanitaire around the oil fields, vast tracts of the Western Upper Nile Region in southern Sudan became the focus of extensive military operations." Sarah Wykes, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, an NGO that campaigns for better natural resource governance, says: "Sudan has purchased about $100m in arms from China and has used these weapons against civilians in Darfur."
Calls for sustained pressure and possible boycotts of the Olympics have come from French presidential candidate François Bayrou,[64] actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow, Genocide Intervention Network Representative Ronan Farrow, author and Sudan scholar Eric Reeves[66] and The Washington Post editorial board. Sudan divestment efforts have also concentrated on PetroChina, the national petroleum company with extensive investments in Sudan.
On the opposite side of the issue, publicity given to the Darfur conflict has been criticized in some segments of the Arab media as exaggerated. Statements to this effect take the view that "the (Israeli) lobby prevents any in-depth discussion and diverts the attention from the crimes committed every day in Palestine and Iraq." and that Western attention to the Darfur crisis is "a cover for what is really being planned and carried out by the Western forces of hegemony and control in our Arab world." While "in New York, ... there are thousands of posters screaming 'genocide' and '400,000 people dead," in reality only "200,000 have been killed." Furthermore, "what has been done" in Darfur is "not genocide," simply "war crimes." Another complaint made is that "there is no ethnic cleansing being perpetrated" in Darfur, only "great instability" and "clashes between the Sudanese government, rebel movements and the Janjaweed."
8. CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS
Question and Answer
On July 14, 2008, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) requested a warrant of arrest for Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir on charges of ten counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The request for a warrant raises a number of questions, answers for some of which are below:
1. Has an arrest warrant for al-Bashir been issued? When will it be issued?
An arrest warrant has not yet been issued for al-Bashir. The prosecutor has requested the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC, a judicial body consisting of three judges, to issue a warrant for President Omar al-Bashir on the basis of his investigations so far. The Pre-Trial Chamber will issue a warrant if it determines that the summary of evidence presented by the prosecutor establishes “reasonable grounds to believe” that the president has committed the crimes alleged in the request. Only the Pre-Trial Chamber has the authority to issue arrest warrants or summonses. In previous ICC cases, the Pre-Trial Chamber has taken several weeks to issue a decision on the prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant.
2. What factors does the Pre-Trial Chamber consider in making its decision on the arrest warrant? When determining whether or not to issue a warrant under the Rome Statute, the Pre-Trial Chamber is likely to take into account the following factors: • whether the alleged crimes occurred in a location and during a time period over which the ICC has jurisdiction; • whether the case is sufficiently grave as to fall within ICC jurisdiction (the ICC mandate is to investigate and prosecute only the “most serious crimes of concern to the international community,” including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide); and • whether the Sudanese national justice system has shown itself to be unwilling or genuinely unable to proceed in relation to these cases. If the Pre-Trial Chamber is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person has committed a crime within the authority of the court and that the case is eligible to be heard before the ICC, it should issue a warrant of arrest if the arrest of the person appears necessary to ensure that he will appear at trial, that he will not obstruct the court’s work, or that he will no longer commit this crime. Alternatively, the court may issue a summons to appear.
3. Can the ICC prosecutor bring charges against a head of state? Are presidents, prime ministers, and other heads of state and government not immune from prosecution? The Rome Statute applies to all persons regardless of their official capacity. In addition, any immunities that the person may have in their own country as a result of their position does not prevent the International Criminal Court from bringing charges. Article 27 of the Rome Statute states explicitly that heads of state are not immune from prosecution.
4. What must be shown to prove genocide? Under the Rome Statute, genocide is the widespread commission of certain acts, carried out with a specific intent to eliminate a group, in whole or in part, based on their nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion. The specified acts are killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction, imposing measures intended to prevent births, and forcibly transferring children from their community. To prove genocide, the ICC prosecutor has to show that some or all of the above acts were committed and that they were done with the specific intent and purpose of destroying a part of a population.
5. What must be shown to prove crimes against humanity? Under the Rome Statute, to prove a crime against humanity, the prosecutor must show that the accused committed one of a number of acts (such as murder, extermination, deportation or forcible transfer of a population, rape, torture, persecution, enforced disappearances, or other inhumane acts) as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. The prosecutor needs to show that a number of the acts listed above were committed as part of a state or organizational policy and that the accused had knowledge of the attacks.
6. How can the prosecutor show that al-Bashir was involved in crimes in Darfur? Under the Rome Statute there are two forms of criminal responsibility. Individual responsibility is when the person commits a crime within the jurisdiction of the court directly by committing the crime individually or jointly; by ordering, soliciting, or inducing the commission of a crime; by aiding and abetting the crime; or by otherwise contributing to the commission of a crime. Command responsibility is when a military commander or a civilian effectively acting as a military commander fails to exercise control over forces under his or her effective command and control where he or she knew or should have known that the forces were committing or about to commit such crimes and failed to prevent the crimes or to punish them.
7. What has Human Rights Watch found regarding al-Bashir’s role in crimes in Darfur? As documented in our December 2005 report, “Entrenching Impunity: Government Responsibility for International Crimes in Darfur,” Human Rights Watch found that the highest levels of the Sudanese leadership, including al-Bashir, were responsible for the creation and coordination of the Sudanese government’s counterinsurgency policy that deliberately and systematically targeted civilians in Darfur in violation of international law. Al-Bashir, as commander-in-chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces, played a pivotal leadership role in the military campaign in Darfur. His public statements were precursors to military operations and peaks in abuses by Sudanese security forces. There are indications that they echoed the private directives given to civilian administration, military and security services. For instance, on December 30, 2003, al-Bashir announced that: “Our top priority will be the annihilation of the rebellion and any outlaw who carries arms.” A few days later, in January 2004, the Sudanese security forces began an offensive that used systematic force in violation of international humanitarian law to drive hundreds of thousands of people from rural areas in Darfur. The methodological use of aerial support to target civilians in the military campaign, despite protests from air force officers, also appears to reflect the involvement of high-level officials in Khartoum. Al-Bashir was undoubtedly aware of abuses committed by the security forces. Beginning in May 2002, reports of tens of thousands of displaced people and information from dozens of police complaints, press accounts, and reports by numerous organizations, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, made it clear that massive abuses were taking place in Darfur. Apart from this specific information, the government’s previous use of ethnic militias in the southern Sudan conflict provided ample warning that such forces invariably targeted civilians and committed other war crimes. There is no evidence that al-Bashir or other senior government took serious measures to prevent or stop the abuses. The armed forces and government-backed militia called “Janjaweed” continued to carry out crimes for months after the reports were widely known. Even after al-Bashir established a national inquiry into the crimes (which reported to him personally), attacks that took place in December 2004 displayed all the characteristics of previous offenses, including military coordination of the Janjaweed, aerial bombardment of villages, and massed forced displacement of civilians.
8. Will the issuance of warrants affect the peace process in Darfur? Should the ICC prosecutor have taken these considerations into account? It is difficult to predict the effect of the request for an arrest warrant on political developments in Sudan, but the peace process in Darfur has long been stalled for reasons wholly unrelated to the ICC. Rather, the parties do not appear committed to finding a solution through the peace talks. Indeed, al-Bashir has not even participated in the Darfur peace talks to date. The historical record from other conflicts shows that stigmatizing and marginalizing leaders who are under warrant for arrest can strengthen peace processes. The arrest warrants against Charles Taylor of Liberia and Radovan Karadzic in Bosnia and Herzegovina removed them from peace processes and ultimately facilitated the reaching of agreements. In addition, many credit the ICC warrants against the leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda for their willingness to participate in peace talks for the first time in years. In any case, the ICC prosecutor is not mandated to take issues such as the peace process into account in his decisions to prosecute. The prosecutor is responsible for investigating and prosecuting those most responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide regardless of their position. The prosecutor must act independently and apolitically to fulfill his mandate and is not empowered to make decisions about peace and security.
9. What effect will the request for a warrant have on deployment of peacekeepers? Sudan remains obligated to proactively facilitate the full deployment of UNAMID, the United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur. This is required by Security Council resolution 1769 and is not in any way affected by the prosecutor’s request for warrants. A year after the Security Council authorized UNAMID, Sudan has continually obstructed the full deployment of the force, which is operating at barely a third of its authorized capacity and with few camps established. Unrelated to the ICC action, the United Nations Security Council and concerned governments should maintain pressure on Sudan to allow full deployment of UNAMID, including by having the Security Council impose targeted sanctions on the Sudanese government and top officials.
10. What will the effect of the prosecutor’s request be on humanitarian agencies and peacekeepers on the ground? Human Rights Watch has long been concerned by the Sudanese government’s failure to ensure access to populations in need in Darfur by humanitarian agencies and peacekeepers, and those concerns remain. International law requires the government of Sudan to ensure the full, safe, and unhindered access of relief personnel to all those in need in Darfur as well as the delivery of humanitarian assistance, in particular to internally displaced persons and refugees. In addition, international law prohibits as war crimes those attacks directed against personnel involved in a humanitarian or peacekeeping mission. The prosecutor’s request has no bearing on Khartoum’s obligation to abide by international law. Should the government of Sudan violate international law by deliberately attacking or obstructing humanitarian personnel or peacekeepers, the United Nations Security Council should respond by taking appropriate measures, including sanctions, to ensure Sudan’s compliance with its obligations.
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