"The time for action is now"

Today the Security Council of the United Nation is meeting to discuss the pitiful situation in Darfur. The same body had given the Government of Sudan an ultimatum of one month (which ended Tuesday 31 August) to disarm its killer allies, the Janjaweed Militias, that have been running rampage with impunity in the Western region of the country.

Many independent observers, humanitarian NGOs and concerned people doubted then that the Sudan government would meet this deadline or even had any intention of doing so. The suspicion was that the government would use that time, albeit a short one, to gain more time and pretend it was doing something in order to ease the mounting diplomatic pressures on it.

The UN resolution was not just about the Government of Sudan - it also called upon the armed rebels to observe a ceasefire and cease any violence against innocent civilians. Further the resolution called for active resumption of peace talks under the auspices of the African Union and broad support for the AU's peace monitors.

One month later has there been any positive development to assuage the doubters? The sad answer is a definitive “No”. The humanitarian crisis continues to worsen for the people of Darfur and all kinds of humanitarian agencies are feeding fat on their misery through endless appeals, a huge chunk of which may not reach Darfur. On the political front, there have been more talks about talks than a real political breakthrough in addressing the political issues behind the conflict.

The Abuja talks hosted by General Obasanjo as Chair of the AU and also Chair of the AU peace and Security Council is more or less in impasse. There were lots of motions without movement. However in order to keep the efforts on track a lot of diplomatic speak is being employed to dress up the situation and talk up little gains.

The small gains include, one, the rebels attended the Abuja talks at senior level thereby abandoning their initial misguided belligerency in boycotting a previous AU talk in Addis in July. Two, the Sudan government by sitting at the table with the rebels, has diplomatically and politically acknowledged that it was recognising rebel political groups even if it does not recognise their aims. Three, the meeting also offered opportunity for the AU and others interested in the Sudan conflict to learn more about the complexity of the many conflicts in the Sudan.

Many had (wrongly for years) seen Sudan only in terms of its Arab/African fault lines or the religious prism of Islam/ Christianity. In Darfur these assumptions take different permutations. Also many naively assume that peace will break out once the SPLA and Khartoum long-negotiated peace deal takes full effect. While the North/South conflict may have the most prominence internationally Sudan has been fighting all kinds of bitter wars on many fronts with all kinds of marginalized and disaffected sections of its huge country, the largest on the African continent. That simplistic understanding of Sudan has led many well-meaning peace initiatives by different African states and other members of the international community to collapse.

However the Arab/African dynamics of the conflict is threatening the effectiveness of AU action and seriously endangering its consensus. It is playing into the hands of militants in the conflict especially in Khartoum. So what would the UN Security Council be deciding today on Darfur? China and Russia and Arab allies of Sudan including some African states, ignobly blocked a more censorious resolution that would have made sanctions mandatory if Khartoum failed to deliver. Now there will be further negotiations on what to do.

Allies of Khartoum will continue to insist that it is doing enough and willing to do more but that the time was short. Its opponents will retort that it has no intention of doing anything but merely buying more time to defeat or considerably weaken the rebels militarily and also intimidate the civilians into submission. The evidence for the past one-month does not augur well for the government.

The case for a more effective pressure to be brought to bear on the government is clear. While the UN's support for the AU effort is most desirable it is also important that the AU's engagement be more robust. It should move beyond peace monitoring to peace -making and enforcement. It has given too much room for Khartoum to bog it down in procedural and administrative issues. The constitutive Act of the Union unlearnt the dubious notion of 'territorial integrity and sovereignty ' of the old OAU which became the Dictators' charter. Thus there are now clear grounds under which the Union can intervene in the 'internal affairs' of its member states. The Darfur situation is a clear test of Africa's commitment to new ways of governance and solidarity.

Even if for political reasons the AU may not want to see the situation in Darfur as 'genocide', by any definition, it is a gross violation and systematic abuse of rights of Darfur Africans on a mass scale.

The AU cannot just be negotiating small numbers of troops with Khartoum but must be more aggressive in enforcing its mandate. This will mean more troops, which a number of states have indicated they are willing and able to contribute. A number of human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch have called for Chapter VII of the UN charter to be invoked so that the AU troops on the ground can be increased and its mandate expanded to include protection of civilians.

The silenced voices of those killed and being killed right now and the agony of those fleeing death stalking their villages and towns, not to talk of the agony of the innocent women being raped and children being traumatised in Darfur demands no more words or yet another plan but direct enforceable action against the Janjaweed militias. Asking or relying on the Government of Sudan to do this will be like asking turkeys to vote for an early Christmas. The time for action is now: no more excuses from Khartoum.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa ([email protected] or [email][email protected])

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