A U.N. special commission, which refused to declare the widespread killings in Sudan as ‘genocide,’ has been criticised for restraining its condemnation of the massacre of some 400,000 Sudanese. Reacting to the report released by the commission Monday, Claudio Cordone of Amnesty International said “the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Darfur region are no less serious than genocide.” (3-FEB-05)

This article was written by Thalif Deen for Inter Press Service, who released it on 1 February. It has been edited for republication here.

The Washington-based Africa Action, which rejected the conclusions of the U.N. commission, said the international community was “splitting hairs” — even as genocide was unfolding in Africa. “International leadership is still missing to stop genocide that has already killed 400,000 Sudanese and that still continues,” it said in a statement released Tuesday.

-Not a policy of genocide, but serious enough anyway
A U.S. Congressman, Rep. Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, also rejected the assertion that atrocities committed in the Darfur region do not constitute genocide. “I am deeply disappointed by the commission?s decision to engage in semantics and shirk in its responsibility to the people of Darfur,” Hyde said in a statement Tuesday. While the five-member U.N. commission, led by Antonio Cassese of Italy, concluded that the government of Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide, it nevertheless declared that both the government and the Janjaweed militia were responsible for “serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law amounting to crimes under international law.”

US vs UN
The commission has “strongly” recommended that the 15-member U.N. Security Council request the newly created International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to pursue charges of crimes against humanity in Sudan. This, however, will depend largely on the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Council — namely the United States, Britain, France, the People´s Republic of China and the Russian Federation — who have remained reluctant to act ever since the killings in Darfur began in February 2003. The United States, which opposed the creation of the ICC, wants a special tribunal set up in Tanzania to prosecute those charged with war crimes in Sudan. But Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the 25-member European Union want the ICC to take the initiative.

Amnesty International siding with the UN
“My own support for the ICC is well known,” Annan told reporters Tuesday. “But this is a decision for the Security Council, not for me. What is vital is that these people are indeed held accountable. Such grave crimes cannot be committed with impunity.” “The United States, the People´s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, in particular, should set aside their reservations about the Court in order to bring justice to the people of Sudan,” said Amnesty?s Cordone. Amnesty International is calling on the Security Council not only to refer the situation in Sudan to the jurisdiction of the ICC, but also to support a comprehensive, long-term strategy for bringing all those responsible for the crimes to justice, he added.

Key Security Council members with vested interests
The deadlock in the Security Council has also been triggered by key members trying to safeguard their own economic, political and military interests in Sudan. Ann-Louise Colgan, director for policy analysis and communications at Africa Action, said the reason the Security Council continues to drag its feet is two-fold. “Firstly, there seems to be a real lack of political will to take action to stop this genocide in Africa, just as we saw a decade ago in Rwanda,” she told IPS. In addition to this international apathy toward Africa, several of the permanent members of the Security Council have “vested interests” that make them very reluctant to risk antagonising the Khartoum government. “China is the largest single investor in the petroleum industry in Sudan, and the Russian Federation is a major arms supplier to Khartoum,” Colgan said. Both the People´s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, which are opposed to sanctions on Sudan, also have strong military relations with the government in Khartoum. Last year, the U.S. State Department said it would view with “grave  concern” the sale of 12 Russian MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter planes to Sudan, “if reports of such sales were confirmed.”

-Stop arming the killers
Responding to the State Department, the Russian foreign ministry said: “Yes, this is a longstanding contract. We?re just filling the conditions. It?s got nothing to do with the (current) situation” in Sudan. Cordone said that Amnesty International is also calling on the People´s Republic of China and the Russian Federation to “stop arming the killers and to allow the existing arms embargo on Darfur to be extended to include the government of Sudan”. Colgan said that both the People´s Republic of China and the Russian Federation “are very sensitive to the notion of international intervention in internal affairs, especially when it comes to human rights issues”. The United States is the only member of the Security Council, and indeed the only country, to have recognised that genocide is taking place in Darfur.

-War crimes were part of a deliberate policy, UN commission says
“But yet the United States is unwilling to expend real political capital to prompt Security Council action in response. Across the board, there is a shocking unwillingness to show leadership in the face of another ongoing genocide in Africa,” Colgan added. According to the United Nations, there are over 1.6 million internally displaced persons in Darfur and more than 200,000 refugees who have moved into neighbouring Chad. The United Nations also says that there has been large-scale destruction of villages throughout the three states of Darfur. The commission deployed a legal research team and an investigative team composed of forensic experts, military analysts and investigators specialising in gender violence to probe the charges of crimes against humanity. There is an internal armed conflict in Darfur between the governmental authorities and organised armed groups,” the commission said. “A body of reliable information indicates that war crimes may have been committed on a large-scale, at times even as part of a plan or a policy”.