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 Re: الحكـومـة تقصف أقصى شمـال دارفـور (Re: Abureesh)
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>Subject: New Attacks on Civilians Far to the North in Darfur;
>Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 19:52:00 -0500
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>New Attacks on Civilians Far to the North in Darfur;
>More Than 1,000 Human Beings Now Dying Weekly in Darfur:
>What is the Threshold for an Emergency Humanitarian Intervention?
>
>Eric Reeves
>February 8, 2004
>
>A number of credible eyewitnesses from within far northern Darfur (near
>al-Atrun) are reporting a significant increase in fighting this past
>week, in a region far from any humanitarian or news presence of the sort
>that has begun to be established in the Tine area (on the Chad-Sudan
>border, over 300 kilometers to the south) and the al-Geneina
>(Darfur)/Adre (Chad) areas further south yet. Khartoum's clear
>strategy, having begun to consolidate its brutal grip in western Darfur,
>is to shift the military effort to the far north. There the Berti and
>Midop tribal groups (related to the Fur and Zaghawa tribal groups) have
>begun to experience the same genocidal tactics already widely reported
>by Amnesty International, the UN, and news wires.
>
>First the villages of these African tribal groups are bombed by
>Antonovs or helicopter gunships, and then they are attacked on the
>ground by Khartoum's regular and Arab militia forces. Confident that
>there is no humanitarian or news presence that might expand our scope of
>understanding, Khartoum is further exploiting the international
>community's unwillingness to do anything but talk about the urgency of
>the catastrophe in Darfur. One series of detailed accounts, coming to
>this writer and an Arabic-speaking human rights worker from Darfur,
>originates in the area of al-Malha, some 50 miles southeast of al-Atrun,
>far to the north in Darfur and almost 300 kilometers from the border
>with Chad (thus likely far beyond walking distance for most).
>
>Of the twenty villages in this area, seven have been burned and
>destroyed. 48 people, all civilians, are reported dead, including four
>blind women and two disabled civilians who were burned to death by
>militia ground forces after a bombing attack on a heavily-used water
>well (this is an increasingly common and vicious military tactic on
>Khartoum's part). The attacks were confirmed by means of telephone
>communications from multiple sources, several of whom are unknown to one
>another.
>
>The absence of humanitarian access in Darfur, as well as the extremely
>limited range of news reporting from the region, makes verification of
>such reports impossible, even as their great number and similarity is
>all too telling. Similar difficulties, of course, attend efforts to
>establish accurate numbers for the Darfur catastrophe as a whole. Even
>so, all available evidence suggests steep increases in the numbers of
>internally displaced persons and those war-affected. Internally, UN
>staff are now using the figure of over 1 million displaced and 3.5
>million war-affected (it would be useful for the UN to publicize these
>numbers, as well as explain precisely their meaning of "war-affected").
>The number of refugees in Chad has quickly grown to over 135,000
>according to the most recent UN public estimate (see UN Integrated
>Regional Information Networks, February 4, 2004).
>
>But for some time now, the total civilian casualty figure has remained
>at an implausibly low 3,000. In the absence of an alternative estimate,
>or an actual body count, UN organizations and other humanitarian and
>human rights groups have been obliged to continue with this figure.
>
>So it is especially important to note the figure of more than 30,000
>dead that was cited in the very recently distributed monthly report from
>the highly authoritative and experienced Sudan Focal Point/South Africa
>(late January 2004). This figure is based on very significant and
>recent field research, and has powerful implications if it is correct
>(it is likely already an estimate too low, given the continuing
>deterioration in food security and the cumulative effects of disease and
>exposure). For the time-frame of the current conflict in Darfur, and
>the humanitarian crisis it has precipitated, make it reasonable to
>assume that this total figure implies a present civilian casualty rate
>of over 1,000 civilians a week.
>
>The conflict in Darfur, which began in February 2003 as a response to
>years of marginalization and abuse at the hands of various governments
>in Khartoum, gradually accelerated through most of last year, with a
>brief (and partial) respite following a cease-fire accord in September
>2003. Since the collapse of the cease-fire, fighting and destruction
>has greatly intensified, with a very rapid deterioration in the
>humanitarian situation. If we correlate the Sudan Focal Point figure of
>30,000+ with the course of events over the last 50 weeks, and the very
>marked acceleration of human destruction reported since December 2003,
>it appears highly likely that casualties over the last three months
>likely reach toward 20,000. Certainly we are witnessing a crisis that
>has not been defined by an evenly distributed loss of life over these
>roughly 50 weeks. Rather, there has almost certainly been a dramatic
>increase that is coincident with the huge upsurge in refugees pouring
>into Chad: 30,000 in December alone and 20,000 in a ten-day period in
>January---over one third the total number.
>
>In short, not only do chronology, refugee numbers, and all available
>reports on humanitarian conditions and military attacks suggest that
>more than 1,000 civilians are dying every week: this number is almost
>certainly on the rise.
>
>For how could it be otherwise? Humanitarian access within Darfur
>remains denied by Khartoum or insecure because of the fighting that
>Khartoum has directed primarily against civilians. Food production in
>Darfur as a whole has fallen off precipitously with the war, and most of
>the African tribal groups that are the targets of Khartoum's genocidal
>campaign are now too fearful to plant or harvest crops. Cattle #####ng
>by Khartoum's Arab militias has been rampant, thus stripping people of
>their essential food reserve and insurance against famine. Those within
>Chad, along the border with Sudan, have made great efforts to assist
>refugees, who are often of the same ethnic group. But they, too, are
>largely subsistence farmers and their ability to assist is rapidly
>coming to a halt. International humanitarian efforts and
>resources---and indeed funding---for the crisis in Darfur haven't begun
>to keep pace with the accelerating catastrophe.
>
>As a consequence, the future (near- and longer-term) will inevitably be
>much worse than the past, even as what we are seeing now in the way of
>threats to the civilian population are far greater than what could have
>been seen or predicted even half a year ago. It is not impossible,
>given the terrible food insecurity throughout the area, and the lack of
>shelter and medical relief, that people will soon die in numbers closer
>to 10,000 per week. There is nothing in the evidence available that
>allows for any discounting of the possibility that such vast human
>destruction and suffering is in the offing.
>
>Khartoum---because it has yet to pay any real price for its
>unrestrained military efforts to crush the insurgency groups in Darfur,
>and to destroy the civilian base of support for these groups---has been
>emboldened to attempt a final solution. The suspension of the Naivasha
>(Kenya) peace talks between the Khartoum regime and the Sudan People's
>Liberation Movement (SPLM) offers the perfect moment of military
>opportunity. The brutal attacks reported to this writer from far
>northern Darfur, in the area southeast of al-Atrun, are almost certainly
>being replicated throughout Darfur, especially the exceedingly remote
>northern Darfur. What Amnesty International has so thoroughly
>chronicled of Khartoum's conduct of the war (see
>http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAFR540082004) shows no sign of
>abating, nor does Khartoum give any evidence of being willing to begin
>serious peace negotiations under meaningful international auspices.
>
>The ghastly impotence of the international community in the face of
>such stark evidence of genocidal destruction is at once appalling and a
>guarantee that such destruction will continue so long as Khartoum feels
>it will not be held accountable and will confront no meaningful
>response.
>
>If this is to change, the international community---chiefly the UN, the
>US, the UK, Norway, Italy, and France---must accept the urgent need to
>plan for a cross-border humanitarian intervention of the sort intimated
>last week by Andrew Natsios, Administrator for the US Agency for
>International Development, and by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. Since
>Chad is the only site that is truly practicable for such a humanitarian
>intervention, France should immediately use its immense diplomatic
>leverage with Chad to secure from President Idris Deby permission for
>such an urgent mission. French Foreign Minister Dominique De Villepin
>is due in Sudan shortly (Al-Anbaa newspaper [Khartoum], February 7,
>2004), and this trip should focus sharply on Darfur, as well as making
>clear French willingness to assist in the immediate future with a
>humanitarian intervention through Chad.
>
>Just as important is the urgent need for a clear and unambiguous signal
>to Khartoum: "war crimes from this time forward will be prosecuted,
>either (and preferably) in the International Criminal Court or by means
>of an ad hoc tribunal on the model of that presently convened for the
>Rwandan genocide of 1994." Khartoum must be put on notice that Naivasha
>will not be the occasion for any negotiated immunity from war crimes
>committed by the regime in Darfur.
>
>A blunt statement to this effect from Western governments most involved
>in the peace talks at Naivasha---the US, the British, the Norwegians,
>the Italians---would go a great distance toward forcing an end to a war
>effort that is nothing more than serial violations of international law,
>the Geneva Conventions, and a host of international treaties to which
>Sudan is nominally party (see Section 5 of the Amnesty International
>report: "International human rights and humanitarian law"). If the
>senior members of the National Islamic Front truly believed that they
>would be held accountable for all future war crimes, violations of
>international law, and crimes against humanity, the nature of war in
>Darfur could change precipitously.
>
>As it stands, the regime understands from negotiations in Naivasha how
>unlikely it is that there will be a criminal tribunal for its all too
>similar conduct of the war in southern Sudan over the past fifteen
>years. The simple assumption, all too well warranted, is that the same
>will be true of Darfur. But we catch a glimpse of some telling anxiety
>on the part of the National Islamic Front with President Omar Bashir's
>recent duplicitous effort to encourage Darfur refugees in Chad to return
>to Sudan (Agence France-Presse, February 5, 2004), this even as the UN
>is moving many refugees further into Chad for safety, this at the
>request of the refugees themselves, who continue to feel unsafe near the
>border (UN News Centre, February 6, 2004). As Bashir realizes, these
>refugees have seen too much, and have far too much to tell organizations
>such as Amnesty International and other human rights and humanitarian
>organizations, as well as news reporters (e.g., the BBC filed a dispatch
>from the Chad/Sudan border today).
>
>But if the present conduct of the war is to change from its primary
>military effort of genocidal civilian destruction, there must be a clear
>articulation of consequences by those countries with the power to insure
>that war crimes will be prosecuted. To date, not a single country has
>declared as much, even though such a declaration has no diplomatic costs
>and would have future implications only if war crimes were indeed being
>committed. Since all evidence available suggests not only that war
>crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are being committed, but
>that they will continue until pressure is brought to halt them, the
>reason for this international silence is unfathomable---like the
>suffering of the people of Darfur.
>
>Eric Reeves
>Smith College
>Northampton, MA 01063
>
>413-585-3326
>[email protected]
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Abureesh
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