Darfur prospects 'bleak'
2007-10-15 15:28
Montreal - Prospects for an end to violence in Darfur remain bleak despite a UN plan to deploy 26 000 troops to the war-torn region, said delegates at a global conference on preventing genocide in Montreal.
Juan Mendes, who served as the United Nation's special advisor on the prevention of genocide from 2004 to 2007, said: "Now we have less humanitarian aid and more people in need, and more difficulty in getting the humanitarian aid going.
"We don't have a clear presence of troops that can really protect people and we don't have a peace process either."
Mendes was among diplomats, academics, human rights activists and survivors of genocide who attended the three-day conference sponsored by McGill University's law faculty.
The crisis of Darfur, described as "genocide in slow motion," dominated discussions at the event, which wrapped up on Saturday.
Arab militia accused of rape, murder
At least 200 000 people had died in Darfur and two million others had been displaced since the Sudanese government enlisted a militia to put down an ethnic minority revolt that broke out in 2003.
The Arab militia had been accused of widespread rape, murder and the destruction of rebel villages. The UN now planned to send thousands of peacekeepers to the region to reinforce poorly equipped forces from the African Union.
But UN officials admitted this week that the new joint force lacked crucial equipment such as aircraft and night-vision technology.
Gerard Prunier, author of "Darfur, the Ambiguous Genocide", said he doubted the peacekeeping mission could make a difference.
He said: "I do not believe that an international force deployed in Darfur is going to amount to much and do much of anything.
"Right now they don't even have any combat helicopters and even if they had them, would they have the mandate to use them? Right now the poor guys (from the African Union force) have almost no equipment."
Prunier added: "Most of them haven't been paid for months and months, because their superior officers or the AU or whoever it is, is stealing the money.
"So the EU is putting the money for their salaries and they're not paid."
Many panellists accused Sudan's government, and in particular President Omar al-Beshir, of defying the international community at every opportunity.
Beshir's appointment 'scandalous'
Mendes said Beshir had divided the AU, "held UN initiatives hostage to the decisions of the Sudanese government" and portrayed the interests of the international community as a "war between the West and the Arab world".
Irwin Cotler, former Canadian justice minister and attorney-general, said Beshir's appointment of Ahmed Haroun - a Sudanese minister wanted for war crimes - to lead an investigation into rights violations in Darfur was "scandalous".
Cotler said: "It is scandalous, scandalous that Ahmed Haroun, the minister of humanitarian affairs for Sudan, named in an indictment by the international criminal court, is subsequently named by the government of Sudan to be the person responsible for hearing and vetting human rights complaints."
"What more scandalous and indeed Orwellian inversion of law and morality and impunity can there be?" he asked. Russian and Chinese support of Khartoum, along with the United States government policy in Sudan, were also examined at the conference.
Gregory Stanton, a former US state department official who headed Genocide Watch - an organisation that worked to prevent genocide and promote awareness - said Washington showed it had "conflicting policy priorities" by meeting with Salah Gosh, Sudan's security chief.
Stanton said: "We see it now in Sudan. The US wants to get along with Mr Gosh, because he seems to be some kind of asset for our intelligence services and yet he's also one of the planners of the Darfur genocide."
US intelligence officials had consultations with Gosh in ongoing efforts to get information on al-Qaeda, according to Stanton.
- AFP