Approach to Sudan must change

After the Second World War, the community of nations declared that the Holocaust would "never again" be allowed to happen. And yet today, innocent civilians are being slaughtered in Sudan by a brutal Islamist regime.

The Sudanese regime has waged bloody campaigns in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile states. Civilians have been targeted and massacred. The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigated some of the atrocities committed in Sudan and has issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir.

Has the Bashir regime committed genocide in all three states? "I'm quite reluctant to use the G-word," replied Simon Adams, executive director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). "That is a matter of international law for the ICC or some other court to decide."

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in December 1948, and it came into force in January 1951. Under Article 1 of the convention, genocide, "whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they [the members of the community of nations] undertake to prevent and to punish."

The convention defined genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."

Genocidal acts include: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

"What is absolutely clear is that the Sudanese government has perpetrated mass atrocity crimes in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile," Adams stated in an email interview. "That has involved everything from indiscriminately bombing and killing civilians, to scorched-earth policies aimed at depriving civilians the means to survive on the land. It is absolutely clear that President Bashir belongs in handcuffs, and that his many victims in Darfur and elsewhere deserve justice."

South Kordofan and Blue Nile

According to mass atrocities prevention expert Kyle Matthews, the regime has also committed mass atrocities and crimes against humanity in both South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. Ariel bombardment has forced communities to seek shelter in caves. Other attacks have forced entire groups to flee for their lives and endure starvation.

"I can't say for sure what the government's intent is," said Matthews, who is the senior deputy director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University, and a Fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. "But without a doubt, there are massive human rights violations, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and in some cases genocide, as we have seen in Darfur."

What are mass atrocities? "Under international law and the Responsibility to Protect [doctrine], mass atrocities are four specific crimes: genocide; crimes against humanity; ethnic cleansing; and war crimes, [including] deadly violence deployed and targeting civilians," Matthews explained.

According to Matthews, genocide is harder to prove than mass atrocities. However, he said that the Bashir's genocidal intent in Darfur is "clear."

Mass atrocities and justice

What needs to be done to prevent mass atrocities and ensure the perpetrators of mass civilian death in Sudan face justice? "I think the reality is that no one has shown any willingness or serious appetite to intervene militarily," replied Matthews. And he said that the explosion of other humanitarian crises "makes it difficult to see any political will of African and western states to engage militarily in Sudan."

"However, I still think travel bans and trying to go after Bashir through the International Criminal Court are still key," asserted Matthews. Travel bans decrease the Sudanese strongman's legitimacy. And he contends that parties to the Statute of Rome, the treaty that established the ICC, should arrest Bashir should he travel to any of their countries.

Other former world leaders have been arrested and prosecuted for their crimes. For example, Matthews cites the case of Charles Taylor of Liberia.

"I do think that sends a message, if you see heads of state prosecuted and arrested long after they left power," contends Matthews. "It sends a message to many that the arm of international law won't let you go.

"It's sad to see all these African leaders welcome Bashir," even though he faces an international arrest warrant for genocide, he said. For example, Bashir visited South Africa in 2015 and was not arrested by South African authorities. Embarrassed by international condemnation, South Africa announced that it will pull out of the ICC in 2017.

In a shocking development at the Feb. 1, 2017, African Union (AU) summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the AU voted in favour of a non-binding resolution to withdraw from the ICC.

Taking to Twitter to express opposition to the African Union's tentative move, Simon Adams asked: "The ICC is not perfect, but how will AU withdrawal advance justice for African victims of atrocities?"

There is still hope for the ICC in Africa, because the resolution also called for the court to be reformed. In addition, African powerhouses Nigeria and Senegal opposed the resolution.

"What we really need is for Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir to appear the ICC," Human Rights Watch's Elise Keppler stated in a telephone interview in the weeks before the AU vote. She said that the Sudanese leader deserves due process of law, including the presumption of innocence.

"It's up to any state that is committed to justice for victims of atrocities to play their part in helping to see he is arrested and surrendered," Keppler. stated

In addition, Keppler urges the United Nations Security Council to do more to push for the arrest of Bashir. "The ICC has done its part in investigating and bringing about charges," she said, "but without him in the dock, they are really stymied on how much further they can go at this point."

Clearly, the status quo is not working. "The UN Security Council has passed 62 resolutions on Sudan over the last decade, but few have been fully implemented," Adams noted.

"The UN Security Council, working closely with the African Union and others, need to change their whole approach to Sudan," Adams continued. "A state that commits atrocities against its own people can never be a trusted partner in the war against terrorism, or as a processing centre for unwanted asylum seekers, or anything else."

Follow Geoffrey P. Johnston on Twitter @GeoffyPJohnston.

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