Canada is failing in its responsibility to help stop the massive atrocities and humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan, said Senator Roméo Dallaire and Liberal MP Irwin Cotler at an all-party press conference in Ottawa last Tuesday.
"[Canada] created the whole concept of 'responsibility to protect.' Where massive abuses of human rights are in existence, we have a responsibility to go in and assist and protect," said Dallaire. "However, we have sort of disappeared from the map [in Darfur] … Literally, we have not taken that responsibility."
The "responsibility to protect" (R2P) is an international security and human rights doctrine conceived by former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy in the aftermath of the horrors of Kosovo and Rwanda.
As head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Rwanda in 1994, Dallaire pleaded unsuccessfully to the U.N. for support to stop the threat of large-scale atrocities in that country. The genocide that followed claimed 800,000 lives.
Adopted by the U.N. in September 2005, R2P maintains that the international community has a "responsibility . . . to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity" when countries cannot or will not protect their own people. This includes military intervention, if necessary, as a last resort.
Impunity amidst Atrocities
Cotler, the Liberal human rights critic, noted that more than 400,000 have died in the Darfur genocide since 2003, and due to Sudan's north-south civil war, over 4 million displaced people are on a "life-support system."
Yet when Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a major foreign policy address in New York on September 25, he did not mention Darfur, Sudan, or Africa, said Cotler.
Meanwhile, "massive atrocities continue unabated," he said, adding that "the most horrific thing" is the impunity given to Ahmad Harun, Sudan's Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs.
Harun has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC issued a warrant for his arrest in April 2007, yet he remains in his post, and in September the Sudanese government appointed him to lead an investigation into human rights abuses in Sudan.
"What could be a greater injury to the people of Darfur, the rule of law, and the peace process, than to have this kind of mocking of the 'responsibility to protect' doctrine and the law?" said Cotler.
Peace Process and Mission Need Support, Expertise
Adding to the urgency for action, said Cotler, is the fact that the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement that ended the 21-year civil war in Sudan and put in place a provisional government is in danger of unravelling.
The peace process to end the 4 ½-year conflict in Darfur is also at risk. Cotler said that at the recent Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide in Montreal, the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, Andrew S. Natsios, warned that the atmosphere surrounding the upcoming peace talks between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels is "poisonous." The talks are scheduled to begin October 27 in Libya.
On July 31, the U.N. Security Council approved a plan to send up to 26,000 peacekeepers on a joint U.N. and African Union (A.U.) mission to Darfur. The United Nations African Union Mission in Sudan (UNAMID) is expected to take over from the 7,000 A.U. troops now in the region by the end of December at the latest.
UNAMID personnel will be authorized to use force to protect civilians.
Dallaire said Canada's responsibility is not limited to the humanitarian side. It must also include diplomatic, security, and technical dimensions to protect the people, assist in negotiations and gender issues, and provide technology-based expertise.
Cotler agreed. He urged Canada to help put UNAMID in place as soon as possible. He also relayed a suggestion from Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi that what's needed from Canada is expertise in such things as logistics, command and control, equipment, and communications — expertise that the A.U. does not presently possess.
Justin Laku, a Sudanese Canadian and founder of Canadian Friends of Sudan, noted that the vast majority of A.U. nation states rely on international aid and do not have the ability to deal with a crisis such as the one in Darfur. He likened the genocide in Darfur to the genocides in Rwanda, Armenia, and Nazi Germany — all a result of "indifference, silence, and lack of humanity."
If the sovereign countries within the U.N. and A.U. fail to provide what's necessary, then ultimately "they're the ones who have the blood on their hands," said Dallaire.
Hotline to PM's Office
Jonathan Laski of STAND Canada (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) also spoke at the press conference. STANDS has just launched a 1-800-GENOCIDE toll-free hotline to help Canadians press for increased government action in Darfur.
The number 1-800-436-6243 ("GENOCIDE" without the "E") allows callers to listen to some talking points and then be directly connected to the Prime Minister's Office or one of five other Canadian government officials.
STAND's goal is 1,000 calls per month. The group recommends that callers make three requests to the Canadian government: appoint a Canadian envoy to Darfur and the entire northeast Africa to support the peace process, divest all federal holdings in companies operating in Sudan that are on STAND's "worst offenders" list, and support UNAMID by increasing funding, lending equipment, and pressing for a more robust mandate.
In an interview earlier this month, Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, who visited Darfur in September 2005 shortly after the peace agreement and provisional parliament came into being, said the region "had the preconditions put in place for a genocide by attrition."
He added that the Sudanese government has a track record of finding excuses to delay and prevent the deployment of humanitarian peacekeeping missions and troops to Darfur.
Cotler also delivered a message to Canada from Salih Mahmoud Osman, a Sudanese opposition MP and distinguished human rights activist from Darfur.
Osman's message? "Act now to save Darfur — tomorrow will be too late."