War Crimes Charges reignite Darfur Genocide Debate | Voice of America - English
   Allegations by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir is guilty of war crimes, including genocide, continue to spark speculation around the world. One of the questions is whether or not there's enough evidence to charge him with mass murder. The United Nations says at least three hundred thousand people have died in Darfur so far and two and a half million have been displaced. According to ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Mr. al-Bashir orchestrated a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the black people of the area.
Darfurian human rights activist Omer Ismail says the deathtoll in the crisis in his homeland, which began in earnest in 2003 when rebelsrose in revolt against the Sudan government, has long been a point ofcontention. "Thegovernment always says we are exaggerating the numbers of people killed anddisplaced in order to gain international sympathy, whereas we feel the state islying about the actual numbers of people harmed by the conflict in order todivert attention from themselves," says Ismail, a policy advisor at the EnoughProject. Hesays Moreno-Ocampo's recent action has given new impetus to arguments amongactivists, Sudan government members and analysts about whether or not genocide hasactually occurred in Darfur. "Letus be clear that we are not saying what has happened is exactly the same aswhat happened in Rwanda. They are different conflicts. Different situations.But they are the same in that murder on a mass scale has happened in bothlocations," says Ismail. The question of exactly how many people have been killed and displaced inDarfur is extremely important, he emphasizes, because of the "greatimplications" it holds for the international response to the events unfoldingin the region. A spokesman for the Sudan embassy in Washington, D.C.,Seif Yasin, puts it this way: "The more people that are said to have died, themore evil the Sudan government, right? The more international opposition to theevil people in Khartoum, right?" But Ismail says, "Countries, activists, regional blocs, the United Nations,the African Union ? all base their response to the tragedy on the numbers ofpeople that have died. The death toll has consequences for everything ? whethernumbers of peacekeepers sent to the area, funds donated, or whatever." The activist says he has "no reason" to disagree with official UN estimatesthat 300,000 people have so far lost their lives, and about two and a halfmillion have been displaced, as a result of the conflict in Darfur. Dr. Eltigani Salah Fidail, Sudan's minister of international cooperation,agrees with the UN estimate on the number of people forced from their homes asa result of the violence. "Those who are in (refugee) camps are about 625,000," he states. "But thereare (also) those who are affected by the war, who are not in the camps. Thetotal of the displaced and the affected goes up to (about) two million." But El-Tahir El-Faki, a senior official of the JointEquality Movement (JEM), one of the main rebel groups fighting Khartoum'sforces in Darfur, says these figures are too low. "It's three and a halfmillion Darfurians who have been displaced. And the number of refugees in Chadis half a million. This is a catastrophe beyond imagination." When Fidail is asked how many people have died in Darfur, he comments:"There is no body count (possible) in Darfur; nobody can say exactly what isthe number?." Tothis, Dr. Gerard Prunier, an internationally respected political consultant onEast African affairs based in Addis Ababa who has done extensive research onSudan, responds, "The Sudan government doesn't want a mortality study onDarfur, for obvious reasons. It's still pretending there were only 10,000(people killed in Darfur)." Ina statement made earlier this year, President al-Bashir reiterated thatinternational estimates of people killed in Darfur were "exaggerated" and thatonly 10,000 had died. El-Faki says his movement's estimate is that the UN is"more or less correct" that 300,000 people have lost their lives as a result ofthe conflict in Darfur. But he adds, "Even if what al-Bashir has said, thatonly 10,000 have been killed, is true?. For a president of a state to come outlike that and say 10,000 people killed. My God. The West would have gone to awar if only one person has been inadvertently killed." El-Fakisays according to international law, even the killing of a "few hundred"members of a particular ethnic group can be defined as genocide, and that it'stherefore "fair" for Mr. al-Bashir to eventually appear in the dock before theICC judges in The Hague. Prunier,though, says most estimates of a death toll in Darfur are unreliable. "The last serious study that was done was in October 2004. So we can onlywork with the crude mortality rates (available) from the refugee camps?." Prunier estimates that based on this and additional information availableto him, "around half a million people died so far. I would say out of this halfmillion, probably no more than 80,000 were killed (at the direct hands ofgovernment troops, militia or rebels). The rest died (as a result ofconsequences of the violence, such as disease or hunger). But if you are madeto die, you are killed. (It may be) without a bullet or a knife, but that's howit happens." The analyst explains, "Most of the people who've died in Darfur were notkilled. They died. That is a typical thing of all African wars?. If you look atthe (Democratic Republic of the) Congo ? the most devastating conflict in thewhole world since World War Two ? you probably had four and a half millionpeople who died in the Congo, between 1998 and 2003. Out of these, less than250,000 were killed. The proportion in Darfur is probably in the same(category)." But Fidail scoffs at Prunier's estimation that 500,000 people have diedthus far in Darfur. He insists, "No one is in a position to put an exact numberon it. We cannot say 2,000, 11,000 or 15,000 ? nobody can say what exactly isthe number. On what basis can they give that number?" Dr. Bakri Osman Saeed, a senior member of Sudan's rulingNational Congress Party, reiterates that activists and certain governments,such as that of the United States, have exaggerated the scale of the disasterin Darfur to serve their own interests. "Thereare little things happening here and there (in Darfur and Sudan) and they arealways overblown because whatever is related to Darfur now has a tendency forbeing amplified," he says. Saeed says rather than targeting black Sudanese for ethnic cleansing, theauthorities in Khartoum are actually dedicated towards their "full integration"into Sudanese society. He points out that his compatriots of all ethnic originsand religions are present in all areas of the country. But, while Prunieragrees that black Sudanese reside across the country, he says it is "nonsense"that this offers proof that they're accepted by and integrated into Sudanesesociety. "ThoseDarfurians that you find in Khartoum?. are exactly like the (black) people ofthe east you find in Port Sudan, or the Nuba (black ethnic group). There's sucha large Nuba group in Port Sudan. Do you think they are there by choice,because they like it or because they're happy? No. They are there because theyare dirt poor at home?. So I wouldn't call that integration at all." Pruniersays black Sudanese gravitate towards cities such as Khartoum and Port Sudannot because the urban areas offer any social acceptance, but simply becausethey're "economic magnets," where the poor "stand at least a small chance ofputting food on the table," in contrast to the impoverished deserts of Sudan. Dr.Mudawi El-Turabi, the chairman of Sudan's Parliamentary Defense and SecuritySubcommittee, points out that the only government in the world to have labeledwhat's happened in Darfur "genocide" is the administration of President GeorgeW. Bush. Accordingto El-Turabi, a number of factors need to be taken into account whenconsidering "how Darfur came to the attention of the world" and the reasonsbehind the war crimes charges against Mr. al-Bashir. Hesays the start of "heavy conflict" in Darfur in 2005 "coincided with the(10-year commemoration) of the genocide in Rwanda." This important event,El-Turabi maintains, "primed" the world to focus on Darfur, and aninternational campaign began against the "so-called genocidal" authorities inKhartoum. TheSudanese official also attaches significance to the fact that "three of the topleaders in the world" at the time that the spotlight began to be trainedbrightly on Darfur were "of African origin," namely then-UN secretary generalKofi Annan, then-US secretary of state Colin Powell, and then-US presidentialsecurity advisor and current secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. Theseindividuals, he says, were "under a very heavy and deep pressure from the blackcaucuses" in the US to take firm action on Darfur. This, El-Turabi says,resulted in Washington branding the situation "genocide" and is partlyresponsible for the war crimes charges against President al-Bashir. Yet,he maintains, there's no evidence that mass, state-sponsored murder has indeedoccurred in the region. "TheUnited Nations have sent, twice, fact-finding missions to the country and notone of them at all managed to determine that what is going on in Sudan is anethnic cleansing or a genocide." El-Turabi adds that despite the presence of thousands ofrefugees, peacekeepers and aid workers on the ground in Darfur, "not a singlemass grave (has) been found in the country to determine this is a genocide, oran ethnic cleansing. It is a conflict; there's people dying; yes of course. Andthe government of Sudan is doing its best to negotiate and we will continuenegotiating with any armed groups." Alex De Waal, an academic at Harvard University and ahighly respected authority on Sudan who's written extensively on the situationthere, is a former member of the African Union's mediation team for Darfur. Hesays, "The findings of an International Commission of Inquiry?. (used) thesewords (when referring to the atrocities in the area): 'crimes no less heinousthan genocide'. And I don't think that any government should seek to hidebehind that as exoneration. I don't think that really stands up." Similarly,the activist Omer Ismail says the "international conversation" about thecharges against the Sudanese leader and the humanitarian tragedy in Darfur"should not be about semantics or body counts." Thefact is, he emphasizes, that "many, many people" have died. "And preciouslittle has been done to stop the killings. If we want to debate, that is whatwe should be debating."