Global Policy Forum

By Marty Logan

One week after world leaders warned of another 'Rwanda' in the making, pro-government forces reportedly continue attacks on indigenous groups in Sudan's Darfur region and the African nation's government is refusing access to human rights investigators. Speeches warning of "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide" of the Fur, Zaghawas and Massalit groups by Sudanese forces and pro-government militia made headlines as the world marked the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the massacres that killed more than 800,000 people in Rwanda. But little has changed on the ground in Darfur, according to observers.

Government forces and ethnic Arab militias, known as "janjawid", have murdered thousands of black villagers in the country's west, forcing close to one million others to flee to other parts of Sudan or across the border to neighbouring Chad. Last week the government signed a ceasefire with two area rebel groups that had risen up against government fighters.

"We should recall that there have already been too many unctuous condemnations, too many words without commensurate actions or commitments," wrote Sudan activist Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, in an Internet article Tuesday. "For its part (Sudan's government) has learned to respond all too well to international self-righteousness, and censure that comes without credible threat of action. Khartoum will believe that there are reasons to respond only when the international community makes fully explicitly clear what those reasons are," he added. Sudanese government officials deny their forces have violated the ceasefire.

On Apr. 7, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested he would push for armed intervention by international forces if humanitarian workers and human rights observers were not "given full access to the region, and to the victims, without further delay." "If that is denied, the international community must be prepared to take swift and appropriate action," he said, adding that would involve "a continuum of steps which may include military action." U.S. President George W. Bush released a statement the same day demanding the Sudanese government "immediately stop local militias from committing atrocities against the local population... and provide unrestricted access to humanitarian aid agencies."

Reeves told IPS he is pessimistic the world community will follow up those warnings. Any sort of international action would require leadership from Washington, either in the form of troops or the money to finance a military operation, he argued. Both he and Human Rights Watch (HRW) researcher Jenera Rone pointed out that Darfur's displaced people are unable to plant their crops as usual this year. "That means a food crisis is coming up", Rone told IPS from New York.

Earlier this month a U.N. official compared the Darfur campaign to the Rwandan genocide. "The only difference between Rwanda and Darfur now is the numbers involved," said U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan Mukesh Kapila. Reeves said that confidential documents from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) show that from October to December 2003, deaths in Darfur rose to 20 people per 10,000 people. The group Doctors Without Borders labels three deaths per 10,000 people, "catastrophic", he added. Next week, Jan Egeland, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, will lead a mission to Darfur. On Monday, U.N. agencies quintupled their estimates of the aid needed in the region -- from 23 million dollars to 115 million dollars -- to supply food, health care, farm aid and other urgently needed relief supplies. "I think the U.N. is acting; it wants to avoid (another Rwanda)," said Rone. "They have taken more action at this stage in Darfur (than in Rwanda) but that's not to say that will do the trick." "What we're going to have to look forward to is a Security Council resolution" authorising access to the region, she added.

On Wednesday, HRW also called for "immediate and rigorous international monitoring" of the ceasefire, which calls for "fast and unrestricted humanitarian access to the needy populations of Darfur." "Sudan's army forces and militias have burned villages and killed, raped, and abducted hundreds of civilians and forced hundreds of thousands more from their homes, a pattern of abuses amounting to crimes against humanity." "Despite these widespread and systematic violations, the ceasefire agreement lacks a clear international mechanism to monitor continuing attacks on civilians and the access of agencies providing humanitarian assistance; in fact it does not mention human rights monitoring at all," said the HRW statement.

"We're very concerned about how to reverse what the U.N. calls ethnic cleansing", by returning people to their homes, Rone said. "They want to go back (but) they're going to have to have some kind of guarantee of their security. I think that will be the test" of the international community. The world is much better equipped to act quickly and forcefully to prevent another Rwanda, wrote the International Crisis Group in a report released to coincide with the genocide's anniversary. "The critical question remains, nonetheless, whether there will be sufficient political commitment to act." "Secretary General Kofi Annan has worked hard to reform the way the U.N. does peacekeeping, adding headquarters capacity, setting up standby arrangement to speed deployment, and working to ensure adequate troops are deployed. Yet, member states are not doing their part," said the independent organisation.

"A lot of countries have Rwanda on their consciences. The way to erase the stain is not through memorial services, but effective action," the ICG said. According to U.N. and media reports, a U.N. human rights team has been waiting in Chad for one week for Khartoum's permission to visit Darfur. "What I worry is that Kofi Annan has said the right thing", including the possibility that the United Nations will send a humanitarian intervention force into Darfur, "but I don't think it's going to happen," said Reeves. "I just don't see yet the evidence that the world's attention may (not) drift away."