Evidence Mounts of War Crimes Unfolding in South Sudan
By Inaki Borda
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18, 2011 (IPS) – Witnesses reported that attacks continue on civilian populations in South Sudan, even as the United Nations calls for a thorough investigation into violations of international law carried out in South Kordofan state in June.
"I would like to appeal to the United Nations Security Council to provide immediate protection to the civilians in South Kordofan and the Nuba Mountains. People are now being displaced every day to the mountains by government air strikes," a survivor of a Sudanese Air Force (SAF) air strike told Radio Dabanga on Wednesday after the bombing of some villages in South Kordofan, part of the nascent state of South Sudan.
Those violations, if substantiated, are said to amount to crimes against humanity or war crimes, according to a preliminary report issued Monday by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the former U.N. Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).
The report describes a wide range of alleged violations of international law in the town of Kadugli, as well as in the surrounding Nuba Mountains, after fighting broke out in Kadugli on Jun. 5 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army North (SPLA-N).
Alleged violations comprise "extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and illegal detention, enforced disappearances, attacks against civilians, looting of civilian homes, destruction of property as well as massive displacement."
The preliminary report only covers the month of June, but there is evidence that civilian lives are still at risk. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) had earlier this month confirmed repeated shelling carried out by the SAF in South Kordofan.
Sudan’s government in Khartoum dismissed the U.N. report, calling it "malicious" and "unfounded", the day after its release. Justice Minister Mohamed Bushara Dosa said a special committee would be created to assess human rights in the conflict-ridden area.
According to Matt Chancey, director of the Persecution Project Foundation, a Christian aid group, the U.N. should declare a humanitarian crisis and resume aid flights.
He said there is no doubt that the ongoing attacks against South Sudan fall under the category of war crimes. "There is already enough evidence provided by many credible, seasoned reporters and humanitarian workers of war crimes being committed in the Nuba Mountains. Pictures, video, and personal testimony is readily available," Chancey told IPS.
He urged the international community to institute a "no-fly" zone and said humanitarian flights should resume to assist refugees and internally displaced. "The longer it takes for this to happen, the greater the humanitarian crisis will be in the future as fields lie uncultivated due to the threat of aerial bombardment," he added.
More than 400,000 civilians have been displaced. Official figures from the U.N. are lower, but they do not account for the many thousands of people driven from their homes to the shelter of nearby rocky hills, fleeing from aerial bombings, the Persecution Project Foundation reported.
One result is that farmers will be unable to cultivate their fields during the upcoming crucial rainy season. And because Khartoum is denying access to all relief organisations, observers expect the situation will continue to deteriorate.
"This means a humanitarian disaster looms in the coming months when thousands of families face food shortages," Chancey said.
On Wednesday, the Satellite Sentinel Project, led by a U.S.-based group, released images of what appear to be two piles of corpses wrapped in body bags on a mountainside in Kadugli, South Kordofan state’s capital, Voice of America reported.
Experts say that a ceasefire must be declared soon. Both the SPLA-N and the SPLM-N agreed to seek a cessation of hostilities in a document also signed by Sudan’s government in late June.
However, on Jul. 1, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir dismissed the agreement and declared that the "cleansing" – literally translated from the Arabic – of the Nuba Mountains would continue.
"The only way in which genocide in South Kordofan can be halted is if there is a concerted, robust international pressure exerted upon the Khartoum regime," Eric Reeves, a Sudan expert, analyst and author of several publications on the subject, told IPS.
However, he said that there is no indication that the international community is prepared to exert this kind of pressure.
"The fighting will continue as long as Khartoum thinks it may achieve its goals militarily," Reeves added. "I believe that Khartoum wishes to annihilate the African Nuba people."
As Chancey told IPS, the primary reason the war started was because the National Congress Party (NCP) Governor-elect in Southern Kordofan – and indicted war criminal – Ahmed Haroun ordered all SPLM/A forces out of Southern Kordofan by Jun. 1, in direct violation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which allows the SPLM/A to operate in Southern Kordofan until 90 days after the expiration of the CPA on Jul. 9 this year.
When the SPLM/A refused to leave, Haroun’s forces tried to disarm them by force, triggering the current conflict.
"The NCP wants this war. This is the same regime that killed more than two million South Sudanese during the last war. This is the same regime that killed 500,000 Nuba people in the 1990s. This is the same regime that has so far killed 400,000 Darfur citizens," Chancey said.
(END) http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=92547
Groups Hail Obama’s Order for Mass Atrocities Board
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON, Aug 4, 2011 (IPS) – Human rights groups here have welcomed Thursday’s directive by President Barack Obama to create a new, high-level inter- agency mechanism designed to help prevent mass atrocities overseas before they occur.
They also praised a second White House order barring the entry into the United States of persons "who organize or participate in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and serious violations of human rights".
"These actions are critical steps toward institutionalising prevention mechanisms in a more permanent way, rather than relying on the personal commitment and passion of current officials in key posts," said Elisa Massimino, the executive director of Human Rights First.
"If ‘never again’ and ‘not on our watch’ are to be more than feel- good slogans, the United States must untie the bureaucratic knots that have at times undermined its ability to prevent and effectively confront mass atrocities," she added. "Today’s announcement charts a promising way forward to achieving this vital national interest."
"Streamlining the system won’t resolve the difficult question of whether and how the U.S. should respond when a Rwanda-type genocide happens," said Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch (HRW).
"But these directives should help to overcome the bureaucratic resistance and indifference that often delays steps that might prevent such catastrophes in the first place," he noted.
While the visa ban on perpetrators of atrocities and serious rights abuses takes effect immediately, the "Mass Atrocities Prevention Board" – which will include the departments of State, Homeland Security, Treasury, and Justice, the Pentagon, the major intelligence agencies, as well as the National Security Council – will be launched in 120 days.
Obama’s national security advisor, Tom Donilon, has been charged with putting it together and establishing its protocols and structure.
"Preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility," Obama declared, noting as well that, "Sixty-six years since the Holocaust and 17 years after Rwanda, the U.S. still lacks a comprehensive policy framework and a corresponding inter-agency mechanism for preventing and responding to mass atrocities and genocide."
"Governmental engagement on atrocities and genocide too often arrives too late, when opportunities for prevention or low-cost, low-risk action have been missed. By the time these issues have commanded the attention of senior policy makers, the menu of options has shrunk considerably and the costs of actions have risen," he noted.
Obama added that the proposed board would be designed to provide an "early warning" of potential mass violence and marshal the relevant agencies – and foreign allies – to prevent it.
In a "Fact Sheet" that accompanied the directives, the White House noted that the administration has "prioritised the protection of civilians and the prevention of mass atrocity and serious human rights violations" in Kyrgyzstan, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya, Sudan, among other countries.
The idea for a high-level inter-agency board to prevent mass violence has been circulating here since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, during which Washington not only remained silent but also opposed action by the United Nations.
It gained traction with the publication of a report by a bipartisan task force of former top national security policy makers in December 2008, shortly after Obama’s election.
The task force, which was co-chaired by former President Bill Clinton’s Pentagon chief, William Cohen, and secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, called for, among other things, the creation of an inter-agency panel overseen by the National Security Council, incorporating guidance on preventing and responding to mass atrocities into U.S military doctrine, and building the capacity of international institutions to more effectively address these threats.
The report, "Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers", was co-sponsored by the U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP), the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the American Academy of Diplomacy.
Both Albright and Cohen welcomed Obama’s directives Thursday.
"The president’s directive represents an unprecedented commitment on America’s part to implement the internationally-agreed upon (sic) ‘responsibility to protect’ civilian populations threatened by massive violence and to ensure that genocide prevention and response become integral components of America’s national strategy," the two co-chairs said in a joint statement.
The Genocide Intervention Network/Save Darfur Coalition, a coalition of human rights, humanitarian and religious groups, also welcomed the initiative, citing both ongoing attacks by Sudan’s government on Nuban communities in South Kordofan state and the repression of protestors in Syria as evidence that "strong action to stop mass atrocities is needed now more than ever".
The same examples, as well as Cote d’Ivoire, were also cited by HRF’s Massimino.
"Too often, such impending human rights disasters are orphans in the bureaucratic process – everyone cares, but nobody drives action until it’s too late," she said. "Today’s announcement promises a new approach: Presidential priority, senior-level responsibility, and a direct line to the top for urgent action."
She also urged, however, that the administration include in the new structure a strategy for going beyond the direct perpetrators of mass atrocities to include "third-party enablers" – individuals, commercial entities and foreign governments that provide the means and resources on which the perpetrators rely to carry out their acts – as targets for pressure and other measures to prevent mass violence.
Both she and HRW’s Malinowski also praised the directive barring all serious human rights violators from entering the U.S., noting that current U.S. law targets only those responsible for torture and extrajudicial executions.
The new directive significantly expands the list of those who are to be denied visas to include violators of international humanitarian law, and international criminal law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Moreover, it would also target government officials who exercised "command responsibility" over subordinates who committed serious human rights abuses. In other words, according to HRW, "senior political or military leaders who knew or should have known that such abuses were occurring and did not stop them or punish those responsible".
Visas could be granted to such individuals, however, if the secretary of state deemed it in the national interest or if the ban would violate U.S. treaty obligations, according to the White House.
*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.
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