CANADA URGED TO TAKE ACTION ON DARFUR GENOCIDE
By Cindy Chan
Epoch Times, NY
Oct 25 2007
‘Responsibility to protect,’ has fallen by the wayside, says Dallaire
Canada is failing in its responsibility to help stop the massive
atrocities and humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of western
Sudan, said Senator Romeo Dallaire and Liberal MP Irwin Cotler at an
all-party press conference in Ottawa last Tuesday.
"[Canada] created the whole concept of ‘responsibility to protect.’
Where massive abuses of human rights are in existence, we have a
responsibility to go in and assist and protect," said Dallaire.
"However, we have sort of disappeared from the map [in Darfur] …
Literally, we have not taken that responsibility."
The "responsibility to protect" (R2P) is an international security and
human rights doctrine conceived by former Canadian foreign minister
Lloyd Axworthy in the aftermath of the horrors of Kosovo and Rwanda.
As head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Rwanda in 1994, Dallaire
pleaded unsuccessfully to the U.N. for support to stop the threat of
large-scale atrocities in that country. The genocide that followed
claimed 800,000 lives.
Adopted by the U.N. in September 2005, R2P maintains that the
international community has a "responsibility . . . to help protect
populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes
against humanity" when countries cannot or will not protect their
own people. This includes military intervention, if necessary, as a
last resort.
Impunity amidst Atrocities Cotler, the Liberal human rights critic,
noted that more than 400,000 have died in the Darfur genocide since
2003, and due to Sudan’s north-south civil war, over 4 million
displaced people are on a "life-support system."
Yet when Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a major foreign policy
address in New York on September 25, he did not mention Darfur, Sudan,
or Africa, said Cotler.
Meanwhile, "massive atrocities continue unabated," he said, adding
that "the most horrific thing" is the impunity given to Ahmad Harun,
Sudan’s Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs.
Harun has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for
war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC issued a warrant for
his arrest in April 2007, yet he remains in his post, and in September
the Sudanese government appointed him to lead an investigation into
human rights abuses in Sudan.
"What could be a greater injury to the people of Darfur, the rule of
law, and the peace process, than to have this kind of mocking of the
‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine and the law?" said Cotler.
Peace Process and Mission Need Support, Expertise Adding to the urgency
for action, said Cotler, is the fact that the 2005 comprehensive peace
agreement that ended the 21-year civil war in Sudan and put in place
a provisional government is in danger of unravelling.
The peace process to end the 4 ½-year conflict in Darfur is also
at risk. Cotler said that at the recent Global Conference on the
Prevention of Genocide in Montreal, the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan,
Andrew S. Natsios, warned that the atmosphere surrounding the upcoming
peace talks between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels is
"poisonous." The talks are scheduled to begin October 27 in Libya.
On July 31, the U.N. Security Council approved a plan to send up to
26,000 peacekeepers on a joint U.N. and African Union (A.U.) mission
to Darfur. The United Nations African Union Mission in Sudan (UNAMID)
is expected to take over from the 7,000 A.U. troops now in the region
by the end of December at the latest.
UNAMID personnel will be authorized to use force to protect civilians.
Dallaire said Canada’s responsibility is not limited to the
humanitarian side. It must also include diplomatic, security, and
technical dimensions to protect the people, assist in negotiations
and gender issues, and provide technology-based expertise.
Cotler agreed. He urged Canada to help put UNAMID in place as soon as
possible. He also relayed a suggestion from Ethiopian Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi that what’s needed from Canada is expertise in such things
as logistics, command and control, equipment, and communications –
expertise that the A.U. does not presently possess.
Justin Laku, a Sudanese Canadian and founder of Canadian Friends of
Sudan, noted that the vast majority of A.U. nation states rely on
international aid and do not have the ability to deal with a crisis
such as the one in Darfur. He likened the genocide in Darfur to the
genocides in Rwanda, Armenia, and Nazi Germany – all a result of
"indifference, silence, and lack of humanity."
If the sovereign countries within the U.N. and A.U. fail to provide
what’s necessary, then ultimately "they’re the ones who have the
blood on their hands," said Dallaire.
Hotline to PM’s Office Jonathan Laski of STAND Canada (Students Taking
Action Now: Darfur) also spoke at the press conference. STANDS has
just launched a 1-800-GENOCIDE toll-free hotline to help Canadians
press for increased government action in Darfur.
The number 1-800-436-6243 ("GENOCIDE" without the "E") allows callers
to listen to some talking points and then be directly connected to
the Prime Minister’s Office or one of five other Canadian government
officials.
STAND’s goal is 1,000 calls per month. The group recommends that
callers make three requests to the Canadian government: appoint a
Canadian envoy to Darfur and the entire northeast Africa to support the
peace process, divest all federal holdings in companies operating in
Sudan that are on STAND’s "worst offenders" list, and support UNAMID
by increasing funding, lending equipment, and pressing for a more
robust mandate.
In an interview earlier this month, Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj,
who visited Darfur in September 2005 shortly after the peace agreement
and provisional parliament came into being, said the region "had the
preconditions put in place for a genocide by attrition."
He added that the Sudanese government has a track record of
finding excuses to delay and prevent the deployment of humanitarian
peacekeeping missions and troops to Darfur.
Cotler also delivered a message to Canada from Salih Mahmoud Osman,
a Sudanese opposition MP and distinguished human rights activist
from Darfur.
Osman’s message? "Act now to save Darfur – tomorrow will be too late."
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