{"id":1538,"date":"2016-10-14T11:26:16","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T16:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chgs-blog.org\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2016-10-14T11:26:16","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T16:26:16","slug":"urgent-action-in-relation-to-the-chemical-attacks-in-darfur-open-letters-to-u-s-government-officials-and-un-personnel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/urgent-action-in-relation-to-the-chemical-attacks-in-darfur-open-letters-to-u-s-government-officials-and-un-personnel\/","title":{"rendered":"Urgent Action in Relation to the Chemical Attacks in Darfur: Open Letters to U.S. Government Officials and UN Personnel"},"content":{"rendered":"

October 14, 2016<\/p>\n

To: President Barack Obama;<\/p>\n

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon;<\/p>\n

Prince Zeid, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights<\/p>\n

The Special Advisors on the Prevention of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity to the UN Secretary General, respectively.<\/p>\n

U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR); U.S. Senator McGovern (D-MA); and, U.S. House of Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Eliot Engel (D-NY)<\/p>\n

From: Scholars of Genocide Studies from Across the Globe, Human Rights Activists, Anti-genocide Activists, and People of the Cloth<\/p>\n

Re., Actions That Must Be Taken Immediately in Regard to the Chemical Attacks on Darfur<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As most of you are no doubt aware of, this past week Amnesty International issued a report in which it decried and spelled out in great detail how the Government of Sudan has recently carried out chemical attacks against civilians in Darfur. In part, the report asserts that \u201chorrific evidence,\u201d including satellite imagery and more than 200 in-depth interviews with survivors, along with the analysis of dozens of images, suggest \u201cat least 30 chemical attacks between January and September took place in the Jebel Marra region.\u201d AI estimates that between 200 and 250 people were killed as a result of these attacks, \u201cwith many or most of them being children.\u201d Whether you deem it a continuation of the genocidal actions against the Darfurians, a case of crimes against humanity, or war crimes, it is an outrage.<\/em><\/p>\n

And the horror for the civilians of Darfur does not end there. Tellingly, AI cited satellite imagery that indicated that over 170 black villages had been damaged or destroyed between January and September, \u201cthe overwhelming majority\u201d of which had no formal relationship with the rebel forces in the region.<\/p>\n

What is it going to take to move the international community (the UN, the United States, the European Union, the African Union, etc.) to once and for all quell the violence in Darfur against the civilian population and then guarantee the million plus internal displaced persons and half a million (and rising) refugees are able to safely return to the land and villages from which they were forced off and out of as a result of the GoS\u2019s scorched earth actions between 2003 and today? Can anyone say? Will anyone say?<\/p>\n

As you know, on September 9, 2004, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, \u201cThe Government of Sudan had committed genocide, and was possibly still doing so.\u201d As it was allowed to do under the UN Charter, the U.S. Government then referred the matter to the United Nations. The United Nations then chose to carry out its own commission of inquiry (UN Commission of Inquiry into Darfur).\u00a0 And while tens of thousands of innocent people (women, children, infants, the elderly) were shot and killed, sliced open and left to die where they dropped, not to mention burned to death, the UN took the rest of the month of September and all of October to complete the plans for its inquiry and then took all of November and part of December 2004 and January 2005 to carry it out. In late January, the UN issued a detailed and scathing report in which it declared that the GoS and its militia, the Janjaweed<\/em>, had carried out crimes against humanity against the people of Darfur. The UN then referred the matter to the International Criminal Court (the ICC). The then ICC carried out its multi-year investigation into the mass destruction and death in Darfur at the hands of the GoS and Janjaweed.<\/p>\n

An African Union peacekeeping mission was established in Darfur in 2004, followed by a hybrid AU\/UN Mission in July 2007, when the AU found that it did not have the wherewithal to handle the crisis on its own. In light of the large number of civilians either forced from their homes between 2004 and today and\/or killed, it is patently obvious that neither mission was effective as some had hoped they would be. And actually, if one could muster the will to place him\/herself in the Darfuris\u2019 shoes then one is likely to agree with them that both missions were complete and utter failures. That must change, and it must change now! The time for talk, talk and more talk is not when innocents are crying and dying. The time for handling President Omar al Bashir and his regime with kid gloves should have been over long ago. The time for dithering (or, like Nero, playing the fiddle), while parts of Darfur (like Rome) are being poisoned to death must end\u00a0\u00a0 — and now.<\/p>\n

All of the eloquent words and promises of \u201cNever Again\u201d ring hollow in the face of what the black Africans of Darfur have been subjected to by both the GoS, theJanjaweed<\/em>, and, yes, the international community (with the exception of those who have provided humanitarian aid) over the past thirteen plus years (2003-2016). Indeed, all of the promises have yielded nothing but more pain for the Darfuris, more gain for the GoS, and more pathetic examples of hypocrisy by the collective members of the international community. Shame on all bystanders. Shame on all of us!<\/p>\n

It is not enough for one official or another, let alone the UN Security Council, to simply, solely, and lamely decry and denounce the latest atrocities perpetrated by the Government of Sudan. Words only go so far. Words have a tendency to evaporate into thin air. What is needed now is action: concrete action that is efficient, effective and sustained.<\/p>\n

One has to ask: Where is the impact of the Responsibility to Protect? Why didn\u2019t the UN Special Advisors on Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity to the Secretary General, speak up about the critical need for concrete and effective action to stanch the use of chemical weapons back in January? And when none was coming, why did the Special Advisors continue to not only allow, but to take part in, bureaucratic games? Are they truly serious about stanching crimes against humanity and genocide? People are dying, people! Nice sounding speeches and policy papers don\u2019t do them one bit of good if they are not followed by solid action.<\/p>\n

Where has President Obama’s Atrocity Prevention Board been while all of these atrocities have been unfolding? And now that it is surely aware of the chemical attacks against the Darfurians, what is it doing? Or is the APB, to use colloquial phrase, more show than go? That is, is it more cosmetic than anything else?<\/p>\n

Where has the UN Security Council been in upholding the UN Charter in this regard? Silence in the face of cases such as this constitutes, in its own and inimitable (and inimical) way, complicity. If organizations, agencies and individuals are not actively involved in attempting to stanch such horrors, then they are bystanders watching it unfold before their very eyes, as if they have nary a worry in the world.<\/p>\n

This is not the time for excuses by the international community, individual nations, and politicians\u00a0\u00a0 — excuses such as we are over stretched, we are already dealing with a nightmare in Syria, we are dealing with hundreds of thousands of refugees on the front doorstep of Europe, we are dealing with ISIS, etc.! We know all of that! We also know that for all of the promises that have been made to the civilians of Darfur and all of the inept actions that have been carried out at the costs of hundreds of millions of dollars, the people of Dafur are no safer today than they were at the height of the killing back in 2004 and 2005.<\/p>\n

The following is what we urge the UN Security Council and individual nation states, including the United States, Australia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Kenya, Tanzania, and New Zealand, etc., to do immediately, and without fail:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Pass a resolution at the UN Security Council, which thoroughly condemns — and in no uncertain words — the latest round of atrocities perpetrated by the Government of Sudan;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    1. Significantly ratchet up the UN sanctions against Sudan, which Sudan has largely ignored and been breaching on a regular basis;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        \n
      1. Significantly ratchet up targeted sanctions against individuals and other entities in Sudan contributing to the conflict in the Darfur region — to the point just before the sanctions begin to cripple the aforementioned groups; and,<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
          \n
        1. Significantly increase the number of AU\/UN military forces on the ground, and implement a rigorous evaluation policy to determine whether the individual forces are actually carrying out their duties efficiently, effectively, and consistently.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
            \n
          1. Provide the latest and best health care for those Darfurians who have been burned and sickened as a result of the chemicals dumped on them by the Government of Sudan.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
              \n
            1. Once and for all, establish a no-fly zone over Darfur. It need not consist of a constant presence in the sky but rather a presence that makes itself known to the Government of Sudan.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              Further, we support the following recommendations\/call for actions issued this past week by the Darfur Women Action Group:<\/p>\n