---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Eric Reeves <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 4:50 PM
Subject: A Key Report on Darfur by UN Panel of Experts Consigned to Oblivion
To: Eric Reeves <[email protected]>
A Key Report on Darfur by UN Panel of Experts Consigned to Oblivion
To understand the surging violence in Darfur over the past year, a
lengthy and highly authoritative "unofficial" report covering most of
2011, from former members of the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan
(Darfur), is critically important. Why does the UN continue to keep
it confidential? The answer lies in the incompetence and political
bias of successors on the Panel, and the failure of the "unofficial"
report to square with the highly distorted UN/African Union narrative
about Darfur.
Eric Reeves, 27 April 2013
Reporting on Darfur by non-Sudanese news organizations has picked up
significantly in recent months as violence accelerates dramatically,
massive new human displacements occur continually in all three major
regions of Darfur, and large-scale fighting continues between the
Khartoum regime's regular Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), along with its
militia allies, and rebel forces that have become stronger and more
aggressive. These dispatches have come from Reuters, Associated
Press, Agence France-Presse, and the UN's Integrated Regional
Information Networks (IRIN). Although not allowed into Darfur for a
number of years, journalists are finding that enough information is
making its way out that reporting has become obligatory. To be sure
violence in Darfur has long continued, at much higher levels than the
UN and African Union have reported, either via the UN/AU "hybrid"
Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) or the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs. Former UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator
George Charpentier set the terrible precedent of refusing to speak
honestly about humanitarian and security conditions on the ground,
declaring with an utterly shameful mendacity:
"'UN humanitarian agencies are not confronted by pressure or
interference from the Government of Sudan,' [Charpentier said in a
written statement to the Institute for War and Peace reporting
(IWPR)]." ("UN Accused of Caving In to Khartoum Over Darfur: Agencies
said to be reluctant to confront Sudanese government about
obstructions to humanitarian aid effort," January 7, 2011) (all
emphases in all quotations have been added)
This statement was and is patently untrue, and was contradicted at the
time by UN officials speaking on and off the record, and by non-UN
relief workers in confidential interviews. But Charpentier set the
tone, and international non-governmental humanitarian organizations
were forced to follow suit or face expulsion by the Khartoum regime—a
regime that has expelled a great many organizations over the years,
and made the work of many others impossible.
The UN and AU continue their disingenuous ways, but no longer do we
see such deeply misleading reporting as appeared in The New York Times
just over a year ago. With a dateline of Nyuru, West Darfur (less
than 20 miles north of the major town of Mornei), the Times dispatch
("A Taste of Hope Brings Refugees Back to Darfur," February 26, 2012)
provides an astonishingly misleading account of realities in Darfur:
"More than 100,000 people in Darfur have left the sprawling camps
where they had taken refuge for nearly a decade and headed home to
their villages over the past year, the biggest return of displaced
people since the war began in 2003 and a sign that one of the world's
most infamous conflicts may have decisively cooled."
A UN official cited in the dispatch declared simply: "there are
pockets of insecurity in Darfur."
"'It's amazing,' said Dysane Dorani, head of the United Nations
peacekeeping mission [UNAMID] for the western sector of Darfur. 'The
people are coming together. It reminds me of Lebanon after the civil
war.'"
"On a recent morning, thousands of Nyuru's residents were back on
their land doing all the things they used to do, scrubbing clothes,
braiding hair, sifting grain and preparing for a joint feast of
farmers and nomads. Former victims and former perpetrators would later
sit down side by side together, some for the first time since Darfur's
war broke out, sharing plates of macaroni and millet—and even the
occasional dance—in a gesture of informal reconciliation."
In fact, what is "amazing" is not the returns, many of whom do not, in
fact, stay in areas to which they have "returned" because of security
concerns; the UN makes no mention of these, although Radio Dabanga has
repeatedly. What is truly of note is the number of newly displaced
civilians—more than 1.2 million since UNAMID took up its mandate on
January 1, 2008 (see Appendix One). Some fifty thousand people have
recently not returned from but fled to eastern Chad from Darfur,
according to the UN High Commission for Refugees and Doctors Without
Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), increasing the number of
Darfuri refugees in eastern Chad from 280,000 to 330,000 (see Appendix
One). For those interested in the realities of Darfur—instead of the
UN propaganda to which the Times correspondent succumbed during his
highly controlled visit to one location in West Darfur—Radio Dabanga
and the Sudan Tribune have long reported in detail on developments
relating to both security and humanitarian conditions. In a series of
contemporaneous articles, Radio Dabanga offered detailed research and
interviews with people from the Nyuru region that completely
undermined the credibility of the Times' claimed findings. Highly
informed Darfuris with whom I spoke and communicated directly
expressed their disbelief that a distinguished American newspaper
could so misrepresent the situation in Darfur.
It should be noted in this context that Radio Dabanga
(http://www.radiodabanga.org/) has become a truly extraordinary
resource, offering both a substantive and textured sense of what is
occurring on the ground in Darfur. Developed by Darfuris, operating
out of Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Radio Dabanga has an astonishing
number of contacts on the ground in Darfur, including sheikhs, omdas,
nazirs, camp leaders, and the leadership of the various rebel
factions. The standards of their journalism continue to improve at a
rapid rate, with particularly valuable instruction coming from the
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, which has co-produced Radio
Dabanga since its initial reporting in late 2008. For every
disingenuous, misleading, or mendacious declaration by the UN and AU
leadership (see brief compendium in Appendix Two), Darfuris have been
able to respond in their own voices.
But there was in fact also much in the "unofficial" report from the
former members of the Panel of Experts that sharply and directly
contradicted the UN's politically motivated official accounts,
especially from eastern regions of Darfur. From January 2011 through
August 2011 three members of the UN Panel of Experts on the Sudan
(Darfur) conducted the last professional investigation as mandated by
UN Security Council Resolution 1591 (March 2005): (1) monitoring the
arms embargo on Darfur and (2) monitoring compliance with the Security
Council "demand" that the Khartoum regime cease all aerial military
assaults on Darfur. Following their resignation from the Panel in
August and September 2011, weapons experts Mike Lewis (Britain) and
Claudio Gramizzi (Italy), and Darfur and Chad specialist Jérôme
Tubiana (France) prepared a last, extensive report on their findings.
This document has, unfortunately, not been widely circulated outside
the UN (where it remains "confidential"), even as it remains the most
authoritative account we have from any international investigators on
the ground in Darfur. It also provides a clear warning of what was to
come in the following two years. What appears now a vast and
incoherent mélange of violence has a great deal more intelligibility
if we examine closely this highly detailed, professional, ground-based
research from 2011. The document is available at:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/72848070/Report%20of%20former%20members%20of%20the%20UNSC%20Panel%20of%20Experts%20on%20the%20Sudan%20January%202012.pdf
The Document
In a significant scoop, the highly authoritative Africa Confidential
provided the first account of the report in April 2012 (along with the
URL for the report itself):
"UN clash over Beijing bullets claim: UN experts' reports differ over
Darfur arms violations," Africa Confidential, 13th April 2012:
"A seismic diplomatic row is rumbling at United Nations headquarters
in New York over the circulation of a damning report by former UN
experts pointing to the supply of Chinese-made ammunition to the Sudan
government for use against civilians in Darfur. The row exposes fresh
divisions on Sudan at the UN Security Council and disarray in
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's office. It may also unpick Beijing's
careful diplomacy as it seeks to realign its relations between Sudan
and South Sudan.
"The report, which is circulating clandestinely at UN headquarters,
was written by three of the original members of the UN's Panel of
Experts, which monitors violations of the UN arms embargo in Darfur.
It argues that the Darfur crisis, far from winding down as Khartoum
and some press reports suggest, is worsening, with new incidents of
ethnic cleansing, arms deliveries and aerial bombing. Africa
Confidential has obtained two separate reports on Darfur (available to
download at the end of this article), one commissioned by Ban's
Under-Secretary for Political Affairs, B. Lynn Pascoe, which is highly
conservative in its findings, and a more forthright, detailed
unofficial version by the three specialists who resigned from Pascoe's
appointed Panel on Darfur in 2011.
"Weapons experts Mike Lewis (Britain) and Claudio Gramizzi (Italy),
and Darfur and Chad specialist Jérôme Tubiana (France) resigned,
Africa Confidential has learned, after Pascoe's department declined to
take seriously their complaints about the standards of competence and
neutrality on the Panel. The trio have now sent their own report—with
lengthy annexes—to the Security Council. This unofficial report
details Sudan army ammunition found in Darfur that appeared to be
Chinese-made. Some may have been made in the Sudan Technical Centre, a
Sudanese military company in Khartoum. The findings upset China, which
says the report is not an official document and should not be given a
hearing. Diplomats from the United States and Britain are nonetheless
backing the report in private."
I have also written previously (April 17, 2012) about this report and
its striking contrasts with the "official" UN Panel of Experts report
submitted by the highly politicized Panel that succeeded that of
Gramizzi, Tubiana, and Lewis. This "official" report is, by
comparison, a travesty:
[1] The "official" Panel of Experts offered only a very superficial
account of events in eastern Darfur, especially in the Shangal Tobay
region, where violence flared viciously in the wake of Minni Minawi's
defection from the Khartoum regime in late 2010. But the Panel
experts who resigned investigated much more fully, spent much more
time on the ground in the region, and interviewed a much greater range
and number of witnesses. On the basis of this extensive research,
they concluded that the attacks on Zaghawa civilians were deliberate
(Minawi is the Zaghawa leader of the Sudan Liberation Army/Minni
Minawi, or SLA/MM) and that the evidence was sufficiently compelling
to characterize the violence as "ethnic cleansing" by the Khartoum
regime and militia proxies.
[2] The "official" Panel of Experts offers only a few weak
conclusions—and even less research—about violations of the UN arms
embargo on Darfur (again, monitoring this embargo and the ban on
offensive military flights are the primary mandates for the UN Panel
of Experts on Darfur, per UN Security Council Resolution 1591). For
its part, on the basis of wide and impressively deep research, the
"unofficial" Panel of Experts finds overwhelming evidence that weapons
and ammunition manufactured after 2005 in Russia and China continue to
make their way to Khartoum and then onto Darfur. Unsurprisingly,
resistance to discussion of the "unofficial" Report comes primarily
from these two veto-wielding members of the Security Council.
[3] Nowhere is the contrast between the two reports greater than in
the broader generalizations drawn about insecurity on Darfur. Again,
it must be stressed that in character and quality of field research,
depth of analysis, annexes, footnotes, and time on the ground, there
is simply no comparison between the two reports. Indeed, the official
report of the UN Panel of Experts has five factitious and skimpy
annexes. The fifth is simply make-work—a "Summary of the Outgoing
Communications Sent by the Panel of Experts" (e.g., we learn that on
"February 18 Ethiopia [was contacted] for visa assistance").
By contrast the report of the Experts who resigned has twenty-eight
key annexes. It also has more than 150 detailed footnotes for
references. For its part, the "official" Panel of Experts typically
provides trivial and often meaningless sourcing, a large majority of
them baldly citing UNAMID (e.g., Footnote 50, on the important subject
of carjackings over the past four years has simply, in toto, "UNAMID
source"; Footnote 46 declares equally baldly, "Figures provided by
UNAMID"). Indeed, the entire report by the "official" Panel of Experts
reads like an uninspired, uninformed, and dismayingly listless
political exercise, allowing the UN and AU to check off a box on the
"to do list."
The conclusions drawn about human security are correspondingly, and
unsurprisingly, at odds in the two reports. On the basis of what is
finally paltry evidence from the ground, the "official" Report
concludes that:
"there has been a clear and relatively positive change compared to the
[security] situation in the previous years. Significant and tangible
changes have taken place in the political and security situation. The
Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) has set in motion a peace
process that has been garnering support from the Darfur population at
large."
These conclusions are simply preposterous: all evidence suggested that
even at the time of this statement violence was significant and
expanding; it has continued to escalate dramatically. And reports
from Darfuri leaders in the camps make clear that the Doha agreement
is a dead letter, a blue-print for nothing other than the perpetuation
of the status quo. This "agreement" is purely expedient UN political
posturing in the face of a situation in which it has made no progress
either diplomatically or in providing human security. Indeed, the
Sudan Tribune reports (April 25, 2013) that relations between Khartoum
and the one small rebel group to sign the peace "agreement" in July
2011 (el-Tigani Seisi's "Liberation and Justice Movement") are on the
verge of collapse—a collapse that cannot be averted by the recent
signing on to the agreement by a Justice and Equality Movement
splinter group.
By contrast, the report from the Experts who resigned notes:
"Nonetheless, from their [the authors'] experience and direct
observation elsewhere in Darfur, and from information and testimonies
gathered from sources in Darfur, Khartoum and countries neighboring
the Republic of Sudan, the Members of the Panel consider that some
elements emerging from the Shangal Tobay case-study represent a
reliable illustration of more generic trends of the recent evolution
of the conflict in neighboring areas of the same region [i.e., the
area of Shangal Tobay, between el-Fasher and Nyala and east],
straddling the border between North and South Darfur. Members of the
Panel also found that the most intense violence in Darfur during their
mandate happened in those areas of eastern Darfur, and in particular
Shangal Tobay area." [ ]
"Members of the Panel found that government officials and forces under
the control of the Government of Sudan had a primary role in the
violence in Shangal Tobay” [though, they note, some officials also
tried to stop the violence]."
The scandalous lack of even desk research by the "official" Panel of
Experts is constantly in evidence. So too is the inadequacy of desk
research, given the reporting patterns of UNAMID. The "unofficial"
report, for example, notes that,
"…events [the former members of the Panel] witnessed alongside UNAMID
personnel were not fully reported in UNAMID Patrol Reports or
Situation Reports."
The largest conclusion of the "unofficial" Report of the Experts on
Darfur is reflected in the violence that has been exploding in Darfur
since last July:
"UNAMID forces have not been able to protect Zaghawa or other
civilians, including those already living in IDP camps, from attacks,
harassment, and displacements, some of which took place just in front
of Shangal Tobay UNAMID team site."
These Experts also note that the failure to understand sufficiently
the "chain of violence" in Shangal Tobay was due to "under-reporting
or deliberately omitting to report some incidents." This has been
true for years and includes the dramatically inadequate and misleading
reporting by the AU and UN leadership (again, see Appendix Two for
some of the most telling examples). UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
and the Secretariat as a whole, in various reports on UNAMID and
Darfur, have been either spectacularly credulous or disgracefully
disingenuous. One revealing example: in the first two reports on
Darfur and UNAMID in 2012, Ban's report mentions not a single incident
of sexual violence—not one—even as the epidemic of rape continues
unabated; reporting by Radio Dabanga also makes clear that UNAMID
refuses to respond to threats or acts of rape.
This "under-reporting or deliberately omitting to report" has
contributed greatly to the failure of the international community to
understand the dynamics by which violence has escalated to the point
where there is simply no security anywhere in Darfur, and mass
civilian displacements from violence are reported on an almost daily
basis. This comparison of the two reports will be continued in
subsequent briefs. Of particular significance for this period, the
"unofficial" report of the Panel of Experts estimates that
approximately 70,000 people were newly displaced from the greater
Shangal Tobay/Khor Abeche region during their time on the ground in
2011:
"This cycle of violence provoked one of the most significant
displacements that Darfur has experienced since the height of the
conflict between 2003-2005, with the reported registration of around
70,000 new IDPs…. Most of those new displaced persons belong to the
Zaghawa group."
Presently human displacement is surging throughout Darfur and into
Chad; MSF reports some 50,000 new refugees in eastern Chad in recent
weeks, including 40 percent of the major town of Umm Dukhum in West
Darfur. Altogether, many hundreds of thousands of people have fled
their homes within Darfur over the past months and years into highly
uncertain circumstances, amidst rapidly decreasing security (see
Appendix One).
Indeed, as I have argued in a series of recent analyses, security in
Darfur is in "free-fall":
"Human Security in Darfur Enters Free-Fall," March 20, 2013
http://www.sudanreeves.org/?p=3838
"Human Security in Darfur, Year's End 2012: North Darfur," January 17,
2013 http://www.sudanreeves.org/?p=3736
"Human Security in Darfur, Year's End 2012: South Darfur," January 11,
2013 http://www.sudanreeves.org/?p=3727
"Human Security in Darfur, Year's End 2012: West Darfur," December 27,
2012 http://www.sudanreeves.org/?p=3692
"Growing Violence in Darfur Deserves Honest Reporting, Not More
Flatulent UN Nonsense," December 1, 2012
http://www.sudanreeves.org/?p=3627
"Violence in Hashaba, North Darfur: A brutal portent, another UN
disgrace," October 30, 2012 http://www.sudanreeves.org/?p=3525
Despite overwhelming evidence of a rapidly deteriorating security
environment—posing a wide range of acute dangers for civilians, both
in the camps and rural areas—the UN and African Union continues to
minimize the scale of current violence, as it has done for many years
now; this is true even as UNAMID's performance continues to
deteriorate and morale falls. It is especially revealing that the UN
Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and its Undersecretary Hervé
Ladsous, continues to claim that circumstances on the ground actually
permit a draw-down of peacekeeping forces. There is evidently no
inclination within UN DPKO to continue funding at present exorbitant
levels a peacekeeping force that is performing so poorly, given other
acute needs for peacekeepers around the world.
Realities
The UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) has very
recently offered not only a more realistic assessment of the total
number of displaced—2.3 million in Darfur and Chad—but cites an
estimate by the International Monitoring Centre:
"An estimated 2.3 million people remain displaced by Darfur's
decade-long conflict. A number of peace agreements - most recently
the 2011 Doha Document for Peace in Darfur—have failed to halt the
intermittent clashes between the government and rebel groups in the
region…. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre,
more than 150,000 people were displaced by renewed violence in Darfur
in the first three months of 2013." (April 19, 2013)
Many additional tens of thousands of people have been displaced since
violence began to accelerate so dramatically last July, producing a
figure of newly displaced that dwarfs highly dubious UN claims about
the number of "returning" displaced persons (see Appendix One). An
epidemic of rape continues to surge throughout Darfur amidst a climate
of complete impunity; displaced persons camps are increasingly
attacked or subject to brutal, often violent extortion schemes by
militias and the feared Abu Tira (Central Reserve Police); major roads
are too insecure for travel except with the heaviest of armed escorts.
Relief efforts are ever more endangered, and there is a steady
increase in reports of food shortages, food inflation, lack of clean
water and primary medical care, and a lack of livelihoods. In many
cases, returns by displaced persons to their villages and lands is
impossible because they are now occupied by Arab
pastoralists—typically armed and threatening—including groups from
Chad and Niger.
Indiscriminate aerial bombardment continues unabated (see
www.sudanbombing.org), particularly in the Jebel Marra region, but in
a great many other locations in Darfur. UNAMID confirms virtually
none of these, in part because it is so frequently denied access by
the security forces of the Khartoum regime. Humanitarian access—both
because of insecurity but also because of Khartoum's denial of
access—continues to deteriorate rapidly. Assaults on camps and even
in towns have become more frequent and more indiscriminate. Basic
services, including water and always sparse electricity, continue to
be degraded. And there is no end in sight to the violence. But
current realities have a history, and our most detailed account for
2011 comes from the reporting work of Mike Lewis, Claudio Gramizzi,
and Jérôme Tubiana. §
§ The report of the former members of the Panel of Experts,
with its highly defined mandate, is amply supplemented by a report
from the Small Arms Survey by Claudio Gramizzi and Jérôme Tubiana.
They have provided a remarkably full overview of this violence in a
report from the Small Arms Survey (Geneva): "Forgotten Darfur: Old
Tactics and New Players,” (July 2012). Their report is based on field
research conducted from October 2011 through June 2012, and
supplemented by extensive interviews, a full desk review of available
reports, and a wide range of communication with regional and
international actors.
APPENDIX ONE: Displacement, "returns," and current trends (a
compendium of reports; see also, “How many Internally Displaced
Persons (IDPs) are there in Darfur?” Dissent Magazine [on-line], April
28, 2011):
It is important to realize that the UN, in totaling the number of
returning IDPs, takes no obvious account of those who must abandon
their attempt to regain their lands and way of life. For example,
"[Seven] families who came back to the Guldo region [West Darfur] in
the framework of the Sudanese Government’s voluntary repatriation
initiative were found in an extremely worrying state. Witnesses told
Radio Dabanga that they were part of 25 families who left Kalma Camp
(South Darfur) as a part of the Voluntary Return program. However, the
journey was too dangerous, and 18 families were forced to travel back
to their original camp in South Darfur. Furthermore, they reported to
Radio Dabanga that the remaining families did not receive any support
from the province of West Darfur, even though it organized the
deportation. They now call for international action to save these
families, who are currently in a critical state.” (Radio Dabanga, July
26, 2011, "Voluntary Repatriation: 7 families found in a critical
state")
Displacement and returns have been central issues in Darfur since the
beginning of major fighting in 2003. Darfur Humanitarian Profile No.
34 (representing conditions as of January 2009) was the last that OCHA
produced. Its release in March 2009 came just as Khartoum was
expelling thirteen distinguished international humanitarian
organizations and closing three important Sudanese relief
organizations—altogether roughly half the humanitarian capacity in
Darfur. This last Profile found that there were "nearly 2.7 million
Internally Displaced Persons in Darfur." An accompanying graph showed
a slow but steady increase, much of it clearly the result of massive
civilian destruction and attacks such as had occurred in the
Muhajeriya area of South Darfur (October 2007) and the regions north
of el-Geneina in West Darfur (February 2008), the latter described in
brutal detail by one of the last meaningful UN human rights reports on
Darfur (March 20, 2008):
"Military attacks in Sirba, Silea and Abu Suruj (8 February), involved
aerial bombardments by helicopter gunships and fixed-wing aircraft,
accompanied by ground offensives by militia and SAF. Consistent
information gathered by UNAMID Human Rights Officers indicated that
these actions violated the principle of distinction stated in
international humanitarian law, failing to distinguish between
civilian objects and military objectives. Moreover, the scale of
destruction of civilian property, including objects indispensable for
the survival of the civilian population, suggests that the damage was
a deliberate and integral part of a military strategy. Information on
extensive pillaging during and after the attacks was also gathered. In
addition, consistent and credible accounts of rape committed by armed
uniformed men during and after the attack in Sirba were collected."
Such reports worked to explain the steady rise in IDPs that had
featured prominently in news and human rights reporting on Darfur;
both the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Internal
Displacement Monitoring Center used the 2.7 million figure. But OCHA
issued a massive (and unexplained) "correction" in July 2010, tied to
no public or private report. As of July 2010 OCHA referred to 1.9
million IDPs—800,000 people had suddenly become "undisplaced"
(http://ochaonline.un.org/humanitarianappeal/webpage.asp?Page=1878 ).
The only "source" offered by OCHA for this radical downsizing of an
intensely distressed population was buried in a terse footnote,
referring simply to work by the intergovernmental International
Organization for Migration (IOM): "IOM Sudan (2009)." There was no
indication of precise date, title, researchers, links, or anything
that would allow a reader to understand what was signified by this
reference.
The IOM did not announce a publication or completed study on
displacement in Darfur; nor did OCHA subsequently explain what IOM had
uncovered that justified such an enormous decline in the population
considered "displaced." IOM's 2009 annual report makes no reference to
research on IDPs in Darfur, although the report does note that
Khartoum prevented IOM missions from traveling to South Darfur for
much of the year (in summer 2010 Khartoum expelled two senior IOM
officials for no reason).
What had happened? Since 2009, many within the humanitarian community
in Darfur had thought some recalibration of IDP numbers was necessary,
for a variety of reasons: double-counting of people registered in two
locations; manipulation within the camps of UN World Food Program
ration cards; the many deaths (but of course also many births) that
had occurred in the camps; and confusion over whether a person already
displaced counted for one or two "IDPs" if displaced a second time.
But the new IOM "figure" was relevant for the year 2008, not 2010,
even less for 2011, 2012, and 2013. Moreover, during the period of
study IOM's database was significantly incomplete. For example, only
488,997 IDPs were registered with IOM in South Darfur, a region with
half of Darfur's total population (6.5 million). Some camps and
concentrations of IDPs had never been registered. This was not an
issue of bad faith on the part of IOM, which was simply doing the best
it could with limited data (including data from the UN World Food
Program). For the beginning of 2008, a figure of 1.9 million was at
least representative of the data available to IOM. IOM made clear to
OCHA that the figure was a work-in-progress with very significant
limits; OCHA ignored this and peremptorily reduced the figure on the
basis of the "IOM Sudan (2009)" reference. IOM had no intention of the
figure of 1.9 million IDPs replacing earlier assessments, precisely
because of the issues that are raised here, according to former IOM
officials.
The Data Extant
To gain any true sense of scale of displacement in Darfur, we should
also bear in mind UN and other figures for total displacement, of all
kinds, in the immediately preceding years.
• OCHA estimated that 300,000 Darfuris were newly displaced in 2007;
• OCHA estimated that 317,000 Darfuris were newly displaced in 2008;
• In 2009—the year of humanitarian expulsions—OCHA promulgated no
figure of its own, but the Canadian "Peace Operations Monitor" found
evidence suggesting that "over 214,000 people were newly displaced [in
Darfur] between January & June [2009] alone
(http://pom.peacebuild.ca/SudanRelief.shtml) Given the reports of
violent displacement that followed June 2009, a total figure for the
year of 250,000 seems conservative;
• The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre collected data
suggesting that in 2010 approximately 300,000 people were newly
displaced. The OCHA Sudan Bulletin (January 7 - 13, 2011) reported
that the "overall number of people displaced during the December 2010
fighting in the area of Khor Abeche stands at 43,000." 300,000 newly
displaced for the year again seems a conservative figure;
• UN IRIN (Nairobi) reports, March 16, 2011:
"Tens of thousands of people continue to flee their homes in Sudan's
western region of Darfur for the safety of internally displaced
people's camps after recent fighting between government forces and
armed militias. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), an estimated 66,000 IDPs have arrived in
camps in North and South Darfur since January. At least 53,000 are in
and around North Darfur State's Zam Zam IDP Camp."
• Radio Dabanga alone reported on March 27, 2012 a finding by the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization (these are precisely the sorts of
stories—accounts from UN humanitarian agencies—that so rarely figure
in international reporting on Darfur):
"The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN said on Monday
[March 26, 2012] that about 3,000 people from the areas of Dar Es
Salam and Zam Zam camps in North Darfur have been displaced to Kalimdo
and other areas with El Fasher. The FAO said that the displaced people
are in need aid, food and medicines."
• Radio Dabanga reported, April 2, 2012:
7,000 flee after government forces raze villages in North Darfur
"More than 7,000 people have fled their homes in North Darfur after
government forces and militants reportedly burned down their villages
last week. '7,000 have left the villages of Adam Khatir, Nagojora,
Hamid Dilli, Amar Jadid, Koyo and Duga Ferro near Donki Hosh and fled
to the surrounding areas where there is no food, water or shelter,'
said a newly displaced witness to Radio Dabanga from a safe area.
'They attacked us for three days, from Tuesday until Thursday evening.
They burned down five villages, looted more than 20 and destroyed
water wells and pumps,' added the witness. She appealed to the UN and
humanitarian organisations to protect them and provide them with
desperately needed assistance."
• Radio Dabanga reported, April 16, 2012:
5,000 South Sudanese forced out of Darfuri camp (Sharef [South Darfur]
16 Apr 2012)
"South Sudanese citizens living in a camp in the Sharef area of East
[formerly South] Darfur had their homes burned down and destroyed on
Monday by a group of militia. Witnesses told Radio Dabanga their camp
was completely looted yesterday including the clothes they were
wearing. They said today the militants came back and indiscriminately
burned down their homes forcing the traumatised camp residents out
into the surrounding areas."
• UN OCHA reported, April 29, 2012:
"According to IOM [the International Organization for Migration], some
3,400 newly displaced people have been verified and registered in
Zamzam IDP camp, North Darfur. These newly displaced people fled their
homes because of inter-tribal fighting between Zaghawa and Birgid
tribesmen in Alauna village (approximately 25km north of Dar el Salam,
North Darfur) that started on 22 February."
• August 5, 2012: a report from a highly reliable and experienced
source on the ground in North Darfur (received via e-mail):
"Kutum town has been overrun by Arab militia since last Thursday
[August 3, 2012]…all of the INGOs [International Nongovernmental
Humanitarian Organizations] and UN offices in the area have been
thoroughly looted and their staff relocated to el-Fasher. All of the
IDPs from Kassab IDP camp have been displaced [approximately 30,000
civilians—ER]. The markets in Kutum and in Kassab have both been
thoroughly looted."
• Radio Dabanga reported, August 9, 2012:
"Representatives of the Kassab and Fatta Barno camps in North Darfur,
revealed on Wednesday that the situation in both camps remains
critical and over 70,000 IDPs fled so far. UNAMID promised to provide
support to both camps within 24 hours."
• Radio Dabanga reported, September 30, 2012:
"[M]ore than 2,000 people who fled the recent attacks around Hashaba
have arrived to Ba’ashim area, north of Mellit, North Darfur, on
Sunday, 30 September. Sources told Radio Dabanga that these people
traveled for three days by foot, hiding around mountains and valleys
when it was light and moving only by night. This way, sources
explained, the victims could avoid being found by pro-government
militias.
"Witnesses said these people are suffering from fatigue, adding that
they barely ate or drank anything during the three days they traveled.
Upon arrival in Ba’ashim, a remote area, most people were transferred
to Mellit city where there are enough facilities to support them,
sources explained. They added that the 2,000 people who arrived in
Ba’ashim represent only one fourth of the victims who fled the Hashaba
attacks."
• UN IRIN reported February 8, 2013:
"The Darfur-based Radio Dabanga reported on 6 February that some
16,000 newly displaced people had arrived in the North Darfur towns of
Kabkabiya and Saraf Omra following threats by rival tribal militias.
Many of the displaced are living on the streets with no humanitarian
support."
• Reuters (AlertNet), reported (February 13, 2103):
"The latest violence left more than 100 people dead and forced some
100,000 to flee their homes in what aid agencies say is the largest
displacement in recent years inside Sudan's troubled western region of
Darfur. The United Nations said in mid-January it was alarmed by
confirmed reports of killings of civilians, as well as the burning of
more than three dozen villages."
• Radio Dabanga reported (March 19, 2013):
"Some 4,000 people in South Darfur were displaced after having their
villages 'burnt by aerial bombings by the Sudanese air force' during
last week's battles." (http://www.radiodabanga.org/node/44938).
• Radio Dabanga reported, March 26, 2013:
"A Nertiti camps activist disclosed on Tuesday [February 26, 2013]
that between 23,000 and 25,000 families [likely over 100,000
civilians] have arrived in the area fleeing the battles between
government and rebel forces in [formerly West] Darfur that erupted on
23 December last year. Speaking to Radio Dabanga, he noted that some
15 or 20 families continue arriving in the camps every day from Golo
and the Jildu garrison area in West Jebel Marra, where much of the
fighting took place. Nertiti is already home to more than 42,000
displaced persons according to the UN OCHA."
• Radio Dabanga reports, April 23, 2013:
"Pro-government militias reportedly attacked 300 civilians who were
fleeing battles between government forces and rebels in South Darfur
on Monday. The displaced were heading to El Salam camp near the
state’s capital which has received '7,000 families' [perhaps more than
30,000 civilians] since March."
• Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported,
April 26, 2013:
"TISSI, CHAD/NEW YORK, APRIL 26, 2013—Violent clashes in Sudan's
Darfur region have driven approximately 50,000 people across the
border into southeastern Chad since early March, where a lack of food,
water, shelter, and basic services is developing into a humanitarian
crisis, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors
Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today."
• UN IRIN reported, April 19, 2013:
"An estimated 2.3 million people remain displaced by Darfur’s
decade-long conflict. A number of peace agreements—most recently the
2011 Doha Document for Peace in Darfur—have failed to halt the
intermittent clashes between the government and rebel groups in the
region…. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre,
more than 150,000 people were displaced by renewed violence in Darfur
in the first three months of 2013."
• Radio Dabanga reports, April 26, 2011:
2,200 families fleeing Sudan army, rebels battles arrive in camp (KALMA CAMP)
"In line with “preliminary assessments” at least 2,200 families have
arrived in a South Darfur camp over the last month due to clashes
between Sudanese and rebel troops in two states of the region."
NB: the IRIN figure in its April 19 dispatch evidently includes much
of what is excluded from the commonly cited UN figure of "1.4 million
internally displaced in Darfur":
• 330,000 refugees in Chad;
• 300,000 IDPs registered in camps, but not registered for feeding by
the UN's World Food Program (OCHA weekly report, Issue 06 | September
2, 2012); it is this population that when omitted yields the figure of
1.4 million displaced that OCHA itself has done far too much to
promulgate without qualification.
• Recently displaced persons who figure in no census—perhaps as many
as 200,000, judging from reports from the UN, Radio Dabanga, and other
sources (see above);
• Those displaced but living with host families or villages, not in
camps; early in its reporting, the UN Darfur Humanitarian Profiles
estimated this figure to be as high as 600,000.
This readily available data, in aggregate suggests that more than 1.2
million civilians have been newly displaced since January 1, 2008, the
official beginning of UNAMID's mandate. Indeed, the figure may be
much greater than 1.2 million. Yet despite these data, most news
reports continue to cite a figure of "1.4 million" as "remaining
displaced" in Darfur; this is a gross misrepresentation of realities
on the ground. Even so, the new UN/AU Joint Special Representative
Aichatu Mindaoudou claims on the basis of this figure that "the
numbers of people affected by violence had decreased each year between
2008 and 2011." It did not take Ms. Mindaoudou long to learn the
mendacious ways of UNAMID (see Appendix Two below).
APPENDIX TWO: UN and African Union misrepresentations of Darfur's realities
[ It is worth noting here that the spokesman for UNAMID, Aicha
Elbasri, resigned on April 23, 2013, as Radio Dabanga and the Sudan
Tribune reported (April 23, 2013):
"The spokesperson of the African Union-United Nations Mission in
Darfur (UNAMID), Aicha Elbasri, announced her resignation on Tuesday
eight months after her appointment, saying she was blocked from
accessing information. 'I resigned from my post because I wasn't
receiving the support I needed in terms of access to information in a
timely manner, including the accurate and up-to-date information the
media was asking for,' Elbasri told Radio Dabanga."
A "rogue's gallery" of UN and AU commentary:
• August 2009 statement by departing head of UNAMID forces Martin
Agwai: "as of today, I would not say there is a war going on in
Darfur, [but rather] very low intensity engagements."
[In 2009 data suggest that some 250,000 Darfuris were newly, and
typically violently displaced—ER]
• Departing UN/AU special representative to UNAMID, Rodolphe Adada
(August 2009):
"'I have achieved results' in Darfur. [ ] 'There is no more fighting
proper on the ground.' 'Right now there is no high-intensity conflict
in Darfur. Call it what you will but this is what is happening in
Darfur—a lot of banditry, carjacking, attacks on houses.'''
(http://inform.com/politics/darfur-war-departing-chief-646947a )
• UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Georg
Charpentier offered a similarly optimistic assessment of Darfur in
early 2011: "We are seeing a 'trend of decreasing overall violent
incidents in Darfur.'" (January 20, 2011)
• In a truly despicably moment of mendacity, Charpentier declared:
"'UN humanitarian agencies are not confronted by pressure or
interference from the Government of Sudan,' [Charpentier said in a
written statement to the Institute for War and Peace reporting
(IWPR)]." (January 7, 2011)
• A year and half ago former JSR Ibrahim Gambari gave a statistical
account of UNAMID's success: "Our figures have shown that the number
of armed attacks in all three Darfur states has fallen by as much 70
percent over the past three years, which has resulted in more
displaced people returning to their homes." (Radio Netherlands
International, September 14, 2011)
• In an interview with Radio Dabanga (May 20, 2012), the spokesman for
the UN/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), Christopher
Cycmanick, "described the security situation in Darfur as 'relatively
calm.'"
• Former JSR Gambari declared in anticipation of his retirement party
in September 2012, "I am gratified to note that barely 31 months on,
all the objectives I set out to meet have largely been met."
Fearing no contradiction, UN and AU officials—including senior UN
officials in New York—have deliberately and disastrously understated
the scale of insecurity and humanitarian need in Darfur.
--
Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
[email protected]
Eric Reeves' new book-length study of greater Sudan (Compromising With
Evil: An archival history of greater Sudan, 2007 - 2012) is available
in eBook format, at no cost: www.CompromisingWithEvil.org
Websites: www.sudanreeves.org
www.sudanbombing.org
www.CompromisingWithEvil.org
Skype: ReevesSudan
Twitter: @SudanReeves
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