Testimony of John Prendergast at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Entitled
'Sudan: Peace But at What Price?'
International Crisis Group (Brussels)
DOCUMENT
June 15, 2004
Posted to the web June 16, 2004
John Prendergast
Thank you for holding this urgently needed hearing on the complex crisis in Sudan.
While precious time has been lost, it is not too late to put forward concrete actions
that could prevent the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese, and to
conceive a much more comprehensive diplomatic strategy that might bring peace to this
long-tortured country.
Today, Sudan is three crises in one. This means that any response has to be more
complex and nuanced than what might have been believed six months ago:
* The first crisis is the longest running, the 21 year war between the government of
Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which has resulted in
two million deaths and a structural humanitarian emergency.
* The second crisis is that wrought by the Sudanese Government's support for the
Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a northern Ugandan insurgency that has wreaked havoc on
both southern Sudan and northern Uganda for years, resulting in the highest rate of
child abductions in the world, among other depredations.
* The third crisis is the most immediate and urgent human rights and humanitarian
disaster in the world today... the unfolding evidence of conditions of genocide in
Darfur.
On the first crisis, a peace deal between the government and the SPLM/A may be
imminent, but that will only signal a new phase of negotiations and challenges. Every
step of the way in the implementation process will be undermined by elements in
Khartoum opposed to the peace deal, and will be challenged by policy incoherence and a
lack of capacity on the part of the SPLM/A. Militias -- including the LRA -- will
continue to be used by elements of the ruling party to undermine cohesion in southern
Sudan, especially around the oilfields. The U.S. must be ready and willing to continue
its deep involvement in the peace implementation process. Providing funding for a
peace observation mission is a necessary but insufficient role. Additional
reconstruction resources must be found, diplomatic and intelligence capacities must be
committed, and willingness to confront efforts to undermine the implementation process
must be made clear.
On the second crisis, after well over a decade of death and destruction caused by the
LRA, there still remains no coherent international strategy to respond to this
tragedy. The U.S. should work with the Ugandan government and other interested actors
in crafting such a strategy, which in the first instance must seek an end to all
Sudanese Government support and safe haven for the LRA.
I will focus the remainder of my testimony on the third crisis: Darfur.
Vague pronouncements by the G-8 and UN Security Council cannot obscure the fact that
the existing global effort to prevent the onset of famine and vast loss life in Darfur
is grossly inadequate. Continued stonewalling by key members of the UN Security
Council from Europe, Africa and Asia has ensured that the world's highest
collaborative body fiddles as Darfur burns.
The current approach to preventing famine and further atrocities simply will not
succeed.
Although there are fancy charts and graphs that can now track the dying months in
advance, and millions of new dollars pledged in the Geneva donors conference earlier
this month, there is no overall strategic plan for preventing a killing famine and
bringing a comprehensive peace to Sudan. The world is still reacting, still behind the
curve of this slowly evolving disaster.
To prevent the deaths of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Sudanese, there needs
to be an immediate humanitarian surge in the delivery of relief assistance in order to
break the back of the impending famine. This surge needs to be supported by adequate
numbers of monitors, by actions to increase U.S. and multilateral leverage, and by a
robust diplomatic initiative to end the interrelated wars in Darfur, southern Sudan
and northern Uganda.
I. Is it Genocide?
It is appalling that we have been reduced to semantic debates about whether the
situation in Darfur is ethnic cleansing or genocide. The Genocide Convention prohibits
actions "calculated to bring about the physical destruction of groups in whole or in
part", and compels signatory states to act to prevent them. In ICG's judgement, the
situation in Darfur more than satisfies the Genocide Convention's conditions for
multilateral preventive action. But even if argument continues about whether this is a
case of actual or potential genocide, it cannot be contested that in Darfur a large
section of Sudan's population is alarmingly at risk, that the Government of Sudan has
so far failed comprehensively in its responsibility to protect them, and that it is
time for the international community, through the Security Council, to assume that
responsibility.
This is not Rwanda of 1994, a country to which very little attention was being paid.
Sudan has been at the top of the Bush Administration's radar screen since it came to
office. It is not credible to say now that we did not know what was happening. Over
the past year, Darfur has been Rwanda in painfully slow motion.
II. The Present Situation
The humanitarian situation is worse than is still generally appreciated, due to
ongoing state-sponsored violence, layers of aid obstruction, the lack of an overall
humanitarian strategic plan, and the weakened state of displaced Sudanese.
There tends to be an assumption that because the Government of Sudan has finally begun
to act on promises to grant a higher level of access, the numbers at risk will be
dramatically reduced. That is not accurate. The government has provided access much
too late, IDPs and refugees have been displaced for long periods, they are in terribly
weakened states, they are subject to sexual abuse and attack, they do not have
shelter, their encampments lack latrines and are horrendously overcrowded, and it is
now raining in southern and western Darfur. Infectious diseases and dysentery will
drive up the body counts rapidly. And the Khartoum government, its use of food as a
weapon well honed by years of practice in the south and Nuba Mountains, continues to
apply layers of obstruction - for example, by instituting long delays in customs
clearance of relief supplies, and insisting that only Sudanese trucks can be used in
the delivery of such supplies.
Conventional responses are simply inadequate to prevent rapidly increasing mortality
rates, and the current response will fail unless buttressed by a number of bold and
urgent actions.
Compounding the problem, in our judgment, is that the numbers of at-risk civilians
will continue to increase. The Janjaweed continue to undertake attacks against
villages, prey on internally displaced persons (IDPs), and obstruct aid activities: it
cannot be assumed that the centrally-directed ethnic cleansing campaign is over. The
Janjaweed are being integrated into the army and police; no one has been charged with
any crime, and their actions are not being challenged. There remains a state of total
impunity. It is absolutely critical to demand that Khartoum take action to curtail the
impact of the Janjaweed, to disarm them, to disband their headquarters, and to begin
to charge those responsible for war crimes. All this must aim to reverse in full the
ethnic cleansing campaign that has occurred over the last year.
III. What Must be Done
In order to fully confront the multifaceted crisis in Sudan, we need to push the
envelope of response further than it has been pushed before. The U.S. must work
multilaterally as much as possible, but be prepared as a last option to work
unilaterally when others continue to bury their heads in the sand. European, African
and Asian members have obstructed more assertive action by the UN Security Council,
while the U.S. has been unwilling to date to expend diplomatic capital to help sway
these countries towards a more robust posture.
In the first instance, nothing could be more effective than working through the UN
Security Council to immediately pass a Darfur-specific resolution that comprehensively
responds to the present emergency and lays the groundwork for sustainable peace. This
Security Council resolution should endorse actions that would prevent starvation, stop
further fighting and atrocities and press for a negotiated peace - while warning of
possible further coercive measures should these objectives be resisted.
More broadly, the U.S. Congress and the Bush Administration should work through the UN
Security Council and unilaterally toward the following urgent, interrelated objectives:
A. In Order to Prevent a Killing Famine:
* Public Condemnation: The U.S. through the UN Security Council and directly should
strongly and publicly condemn the various layers of obstruction that the Sudan
government currently employs to delay the delivery of relief assistance. We need only
note the Khartoum government's fifteen year track record of ceasing unacceptable
activity only when it becomes the source of public condemnation and exposure. With
this amount of empirical evidence to support the need for public and assertive
pressure, anyone arguing for quiet diplomacy and constructive engagement at this
juncture would be providing political cover for the government's atrocities.
* Surge Capacity: Working with the European Union and other donors, the U.S. should
expand the existing capacity for emergency relief deliveries to the internally
displaced in Darfur and refugees in Chad to meet the growing humanitarian need. This
will require additional resources for securing urgently needed non-food items and the
capacity to deliver those items. There is a need to establish immediately a surge
capacity through the utilization of both civilian and military assets in the region -
recognizing the particular value of European Union and U.S. military assets,
especially airlift capacity - that would allow for short-term, front-loaded increases
in deliveries that address deficiencies and gaps in food, medicine, clean water,
sanitation, and shelter.
* Humanitarian Monitoring: The U.S. and EU should work with the UN to support a large
increase in the number of WFP, UNICEF, and NGO monitors that are allowed into Darfur
to oversee the relief effort and should provide them adequate security;
* UN Leadership: President Bush should request the UN Secretary General to take the
lead personally in efforts at humanitarian diplomacy.
* Chapter VII Planning: In the event full access is denied, Janjaweed attacks
continue, and mortality rates escalate, the U.S. should accelerate contingency
planning for using military assets to protect emergency aid and Sudanese civilians.
The U.S. should work through the UN Security Council to request a UN Department of
Peacekeeping Operations assessment of possible scenarios and define operational plans
for guaranteeing humanitarian relief and protection of civilians through the
deployment of sufficient civilian and military forces under Chapter VII authority -.
Such a deployment would seek to take control of, stabilize and protect IDP camps in
Darfur, and create a logistical pipeline to deliver assistance to these camps.
B. In Order to Stop Further Fighting and Atrocities:
* Janjaweed Control: The U.S. should work through the UN Security Council for
multilateral condemnation of the Sudanese Government's support for Janjaweed militias
through direct assistance, provision of barracks, supply of arms, etc. The Security
Council should demand that the Government of Sudan arrest Janjaweed commanders who
continue attacking villages and IDPs, and immediately demobilize and disarm the
Janjaweed militia. If this does not occur, Chapter VII authority should be sought to
disarm and demobilize the Janjaweed.
* Human Rights Monitoring: The U.S. should work through the UN Security Council and
the UN Human Rights Commission for the immediate deployment of UN human rights
monitors in Darfur.
* Ceasefire Monitoring: The U.S. should support the African Union and the parties to
the Darfur conflict to negotiate a substantial increase in the number of ceasefire
monitors and work with the EU and other donors to fully resource these monitors.
* Satellite Imagery: The U.S. should share its satellite imagery with the UN Human
Rights Commission and the UN Security Council, as well as collaborate in more closely
tracking the activities of the Janjaweed and other government military assets that are
attacking villages or IDPs. Such imagery could also reveal any ceasefire violations by
any party to the conflict.
* Reversal of Ethnic Cleansing: The U.S. should work through the UN Secretary General
to initiate a process now to determine the conditions which would enable the safe,
secure and sustainable return of the victims of ethnic cleansing under international
guarantees, support and control.
C. In Order to Press for Sustainable Peace:
* Comprehensive Peace Strategy: There must be a coordinated diplomatic strategy to end
the three interrelated wars in south/central Sudan, Darfur, and northern Uganda. This
requires a rapid conclusion to the comprehensive agreement between the government and
the SPLM/A, the construction of a credible process to settle the conflict in Darfur,
and the development of a strategy to end the crisis created by the Lord's Resistance
Army in northern Uganda and southern Sudan. Leaving behind any one of these will
undermine the entire effort to achieve peace in Sudan.
* Peace Envoy: Now that Senator Danforth has been nominated to be U.S. Ambassador to
the UN, President Bush should move rapidly to name another Special Envoy for peace in
Sudan. Such an envoy should be tasked to work full time and simultaneously on all
three conflicts bedeviling Sudan, and should be given the necessary resources to carry
out the mission.
* Negotiations Structure: The direct negotiations between Sudanese Vice President Ali
Osman Taha and SPLM/A Chairman John Garang were instrumental in moving that peace
process forward. The Darfur and LRA efforts should utilize this relationship in
seeking a rapid end to those crises.
The U.S. must make clear that if Sudan does not provide full humanitarian access,
neutralize the Janjaweed, and move forward on peace efforts, the imposition of
targeted sanctions (travel restrictions and asset freezes) will be authorized against
those officials responsible for the atrocities. Ruling party companies with which
these officials are associated should also be targeted. Further, the U.S. should work
through the UN Security Council to make clear that such intransigence would also lead
to the imposition of an arms embargo and the deployment of an international commission
of inquiry or a high level panel to investigate the commission of war crimes in
Darfur, a necessary prerequisite for the establishment of a future mechanism of
accountability.
IV. What the United States Congress Can Do
All the actions outlined above may not be practical in conventional circumstances. But
with two million already dead as a result of the government-SPLM/A war and hundreds of
thousands more at risk today in Darfur, circumstances in Sudan require unconventional
responses.
If the Bush administration continues to debate internally about what to do, certain
European countries remain reserved due to tactical and commercial considerations, and
the UN Security Council remains muzzled by the reservations of a few members, then the
U.S. Congress should provide desperately needed leadership.
We should not forget that it was Congressional pressure that provided the impetus for
the U.S. to stop the slaughter in Bosnia, confront apartheid in South Africa, and
countless other cases of Congressional leadership. Historically, Congress has been a
major force in helping administrations find their better angels.
The Senate should demand that the Bush administration develop a much more robust and
comprehensive multilateral strategy to break the back of the emerging famine in Darfur.
The Senate should urge President Bush to name a new Special Envoy whose brief is more
operational than Senator Danforth's and more comprehensive, in order to deal with all
three conflicts plaguing Sudan.
Relevant Links
East Africa
North Africa
United States, Canada and Africa
Aid
Sudan
Humanitarian Abuses and Civilians
Civil War and Communal Conflict
The Senate should pass the House version of its Sudan resolution, which calls for
targeted sanctions against senior Khartoum officials, and ensure that the resolution
language on targeted sanctions is in forthcoming Authorization and Appropriations
bills. The Senate should also look for other ways to introduce accountability into the
discussion of what to do about Sudan, in order to confront the continuing genocidal
actions of the Janjaweed and its supporters in the Sudan government, as outlined above
The best way to end this tragedy is to bring home the costs of the atrocities in
Darfur to the Sudanese officials who are directing them
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/TTwplB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
**********DISCOUNTED HOTELS & FLIGHTS!!!*************
http://affiliates.travelhero.com/index.cfm/country/NG/city/ABUJA/AID/1837/index.html
++++++++++++++
"You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this
world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation
to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget
tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them
over a lifetime."
-- Dale Carnegie
---
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
**********Keep Hope Alive!!!*************
****Internet Solution****
A one stop solution for your web site. It is fully Nigerian, with Hausa, Yoruba and
Ibo Alphabets and so many Nigeria/African resources easy to use and a 24/7 support
access. Why go further when a Nigerian has it right here, try this one you wont go
elsewhere. I ve my signature to it... http://www.africaservice.com
PJ Adamz Abuja Nigeria.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/abujaNig/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
--------------------------------------------
This service is hosted on the Infocom network
http://www.infocom.co.ug
