Human Rights Watch (Washington, DC)
12 June 2007
press release
Your Excellency:
In advance of the mission by members of the Security Council to Africa from June 14-21, we are writing to urge you to confront some key issues. This letter addresses important concerns regarding Sudan/Darfur, Côte d'Ivoire, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, in connection with your visits to Khartoum, Abidjan, and Kinshasa respectively. It also addresses important issues in Chad, Somalia, and northern Uganda, especially in connection with your African Union meetings in Addis Ababa and Accra.
Sudan/Darfur:
Protection of civilians
Ensuring civilian protection in Darfur should be a top priority for the Security Council. In the past year, the human rights and humanitarian situation in Darfur has sharply deteriorated, with continuing attacks of the Sudanese army and its militias. Thousands of civilians are victims of attacks including rape and sexual violence, killings, forced displacement, and looting of civilian property from various armed elements. In April 2007, seven African Union (AU) peacekeepers were killed by unidentified armed men.
Reports of the African Union Mission in Darfur (AMIS), the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) and the March 2007 UN Human Rights Council High-Level Mission confirm the Sudanese government's continuing responsibility for armed attacks on civilians whether through indiscriminate aerial bombardment or targeted ground attacks. The High-Level Mission concluded that the Sudanese government has manifestly failed to protect the population of Darfur from large-scale international crimes and has orchestrated and participated in these crimes.
Despite its utter failure to protect civilians in Darfur, the Sudanese government continues to resist international attempts to improve protection of civilians. After months of delay and protracted negotiations, the Sudanese government on April 17 appeared to agree to the second phase of a proposed three-stage African Union-United Nations protection force for Darfur. Given the recent agreement of the AU and UN on the command structure for the hybrid force, the second and third phases of the force, which would bring the total number of troops to more than 20,000, must be expedited.
It is likely that Sudan will continue to resist these efforts, and Security Council members must be prepared to increase the pressure on Sudan to secure its consent to the urgent deployment of the full international force, which could significantly help to protect civilians in Darfur.
Accountability
Khartoum's continuing failure to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes in Darfur in Sudanese national courts underscores why Sudan should fulfill its obligation to hand over indicted suspects to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Sudanese government has not made any serious effort to end the impunity of perpetrators of international crimes in Darfur. No senior or mid-level officials or military commanders have been prosecuted for serious crimes in Darfur on the basis of command responsibility. The Special Courts on the Events in Darfur established by Sudan in 2005 to handle prosecutions domestically have only dealt with a handful of ordinary crimes, such as sheep stealing, and not the large scale attacks on civilians characterizing the conflict. In addition, the Sudanese government adds to the culture of impunity by using legislation and presidential decrees to confer amnesties upon the perpetrators and, in sexual violence cases, by actively discouraging those who would seek judicial remedies. Ethnic cleansing cannot be reversed in Darfur until widespread impunity for serious crimes ends.
Following the prosecutor's application for summonses, on May 2 the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC issued international warrants of arrest for two individuals: Janjaweed leader Ali Kosheib and Ahmed Haroun, the state minister for humanitarian affairs. To date the Sudanese government has refused to hand over the two suspects to the ICC. It is imperative that Security Council members insist that the Sudanese government immediately comply with the arrest warrants, and hand over Kosheib and Haroun to the ICC authorities.
The Security Council should:
Insist that the Government of Sudan accept the full deployment of phases two and three of the proposed African Union-United Nations protection force in Darfur through the application of targeted sanctions and other economic measures, and ensure that the force has the capacity and resources to robustly protect civilians.
Put in place effectively enforced sanctions against Sudanese leaders identified by the UN Panel of Experts and the UN Commission of Inquiry as responsible for serious human rights violations in Darfur, and for other economic measures. Such sanctions and measures could include: travel bans and asset freezes; targeting foreign investment in, and the supply of goods and services to, the petroleum and associated sectors; and identifying and targeting offshore assets of businesses affiliated with the National Congress Party (government majority party), a main conduit for financing abusive government-backed militias.
Consider specifically targeting revenue flows from the petroleum sector, with the possible establishment of an international compensation and recovery fund for victims from oil revenue that would be administered by an independent UN-designated financial institution and would exclude the portion committed to the Government of South Sudan under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement; Human Rights Watch laid out this proposal in its letter to the Council of May 31.
Support extending the UN arms embargo as authorized under Security Council resolution 1591 to all of Sudan and contribute to improved monitoring and enforcement.
Effectively enforce the 2005 demand in UN Security Council resolution 1591 that the Sudanese government cease "offensive military flights" over Darfur.
Urge the Government of Sudan to cooperate fully with all ICC requests for assistance with its investigations including by providing access to all documents requested and interviews with all persons as requested. The Government of Sudan should also be urged to comply promptly with the warrants of arrest that have been issued by the court.
Côte d'Ivoire:
The March 2007 signing of the Ouagadougou Agreement, the latest of several peace accords intended to resolved Côte d'Ivoire's protracted political-military stalemate and lead to presidential elections, has resulted in a much-needed thawing of tensions between the Ivorian government and the New Forces rebels.
While both sides have taken encouraging steps towards implementation of the Agreement, many of the issues which have in the past caused the breakdown of the peace process and served to sustain the conflict, such as identification of Ivorian citizens, disarmament of rebel forces and pro-government militias, and impunity for human rights abuses by all sides, have yet to be resolved. The most difficult work lies ahead, and the United Nations has a critical role to play, especially in ensuring civilian protection and ending impunity for human rights abuses.
The importance of civilian protection and the crucial role international peacekeepers can play in ensuring it, has been evident in the surge in criminal violence and attacks on civilians in the volatile western region following the April dismantling of the Zone of Confidence.
In May 2007, a pro-government student group, FESCI, attacked and ransacked the headquarters of two human rights organizations. This group and others similar to it, such as the Young Patriots militia, have in the past been responsible for violent attacks, including on the United Nations, and disruption of the citizen identification hearings that are critical to the peace process, all without any kind of official government investigation or sanction. Given Côte d'Ivoire's recent history of ethnic violence and rights abuses-and the fact that these abuses have very often escalated during periods of heightened political tension-it is critical that the United Nations peacekeeping mission maintain a significant presence throughout Côte d'Ivoire for the immediate future.
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