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.