Darfur - International community response "pathetic"

Report condemns Sudan over Darfur (BBC article)

UN investigators have issued a damning report against both Sudan and the international community.

The Sudanese government has been accused of orchestrating and participating in war crimes including: murder, mass rape and kidnapping.

Jody Williams, a winner of the nobel peace prize, has described the response of the international community as "pathetic". She goes on to compare the situation to Rwanda and plainly asks why the international community does nothing, indeed she and her team of investigators have framed the language of the report to push for action.

"There are so many hollow threats towards Khartoum, that if I were Khartoum I wouldn't pay any attention either"

"It is more than a tragedy. It was after Rwanda that people said 'never again', and here we are again."

- Jody Williams, Head of Mission,
High-Level Mission on the situation of human rights in Darfur

There is criticism from both the team and the UN that Sudan actively blocked investigation by the team by refusing access to Darfur.

The Sudanese government continues to maintain its innocence and claims that western governments are exaggerating the situation. This continues to be difficult to believe given the lack of co-operation from Khartoum.

European members of the Human Right Council in Geneva are expected to call for a censure motion but it is expected that this will be resisted by African states. An impasse will be reached and there will be continued inaction.

On the 17th January 2007 14 humanitarian agencies issued a plea for help (UN Daily news 17th January) stating:

"In the face of growing insecurity and danger to communities and aid workers, the UN and its humanitarian partners have effectively been holding the line for the survival and protection of millions, that line cannot be held much longer."

The plea makes stark reading and ends with a final warning:

"The humanitarian community cannot indefinitely assure the survival of the population in Darfur if insecurity continues."

"Solid guarantees for the safety of civilians and humanitarian workers is urgently needed. At the same time, those who have committed attacks, harassment, abduction, intimidation, robbery and injury to civilians, including IDPs, humanitarian workers and other non-combatants, must be held accountable."

Jonathan Freedland has written up an editorial commentary,The legacy of Iraq is that the world stands by while Darfur burns, in the Guardian, as an intro he compares Darfur with the situation in Bosnia in the 90's and talks about what happens when the media reports such atrocities.

"I once spoke to a journalist who had covered the war in Bosnia in the early 1990s. He said that he and his colleagues kept heading into harm's way, because they believed that once the world knew of the horrors they had witnessed, the world would be stirred to act. They filed their reports and waited. Soon enough, they understood. The world knew what was going on - and yet it did nothing. For some of those reporters, this experience broke their faith in the power of journalism. For others, it broke their faith in their fellow human beings."

-Jonathan Freedland

He goes onto agree with me that by in large such pleas as the 17th January UN plea have been largely unreported and ignored by the world at large. His headline comment I think detracts from the main message, trying to compare Darfur to Iraq is irrelevant . His final comments are apt as he refers to our ability after every atrocity to say "never again", yet happily pretend that such things no longer happen.

"But the fact of it [the world having done nothing] still stains our world. At the end of this month, leaders will gather to celebrate the 50th anniversary of what became the European Union. They will make fine speeches, declaring that after the horrors of the second world war the only moral course was "never again". If those words reach all the way to Darfur, how hollow they will ring."

-Jonathan Freedland

It seems that the mainstream media still continues to ignore the situation and you have to wonder what will stop this insult to our own humanity.