Light on the Darfur darkness

March 19, 2007
Boston Globe
Original Source: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/03/19/light_on_the_darfur_darkness?mode=PF

FUTURE GENERATIONS will not easily forgive the governments and international bodies that have allowed the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan to continue uninterrupted and unpunished year after year. So a report this week prepared for the United Nations Human Rights Council by a High-Level Mission on the Situation of Human Rights in Darfur should be welcome as a beam of bright light pointed into this 21st-century heart of darkness.
Basing its recommendations on the 2005 UN affirmation of a responsibility to protect civilians not protected by their own governments, the mission's report tells some hard truths -- free of jargon or obfuscation.
It says the human rights situation is deteriorating, the areas in which humanitarian aid workers can operate are shrinking, and aid workers are often targeted by government-backed militias. Killing of civilians remains widespread, including in large-scale attacks. Rape and sexual violence are widespread and systematic. Torture continues.
In an implicit condemnation of the National Islamic Front that rules Sudan, the report notes that as violations and abuses continue unabated, a climate of impunity prevails. More explicitly, the mission finds that the regime in Khartoum has resisted and obstructed efforts by the United Nations and the African Union to put a stop to systematic human rights violations in Darfur and grave breaches of international humanitarian law.
Even more damning, the report saysthe NIF regime has itself orchestrated and participated in those crimes. And the mission report does not shrink from drawing the inescapable conclusion that, in light of Khartoum's role in perpetrating the genocide in Darfur, the solemn obligation of the international community to exercise its responsibility to protect has become evident and urgent.
Sadly, the UN Human Rights Council cannot be expected to act upon the grave truths reported by the mission, which was headed by Jody Williams, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts leading to adoption of the international treaty banning land mines. Even before the panel undertook its work, allies and clients of Sudan on the Human Rights Council objected to the very idea of investigating the Darfur genocide. And since its inception last June, the Council has passed only eight resolutions, all against Israel.
The helpful actions that the mission report recommends to the council and the Sudan regime are almost certain to fall into a void. Its recommendations to the UN Security Council to protect civilians through deployment of an effective peacekeeping force by the African Union and United Nations may be feasible. But that can happen only if enough international pressure is applied to persuade Sudan's petroleum partner, China, to stop protecting the perpetrators of genocide.