Editor's note: Despite the fact that the UN has been given a clear mandate, and has the authority to interfere in the problems of individual nation-states, we need to question why, in the instance of Sudan, the UN does nothing. Is it related the skin color of the victims? Maybe it is time to charge the UN Security Council with "crimes against humanity," for their complete inaction and indifference towards the more than one million black African minorities in Darfur who are being raped, mutilated, tortured and killed often for no more reason than their blackness. If the UN proves itself for the second time (the first instance being the genocide of millions in Rwanda) as being totally indifferent to preventing large-scale human rights abuses and genocides, then it is time to dissolve the United Nations as a world body, and begin the creation of a new world government which represents the common people, which will have as its highest mandate the fight for justice in every part of the world, which will also take the responsibility to protect the minorities in each nation-state. The United Nations Security Council in particular is to be recognized as nothing more than an extension of US corporate interests, and having no interest in the well-being of the suffering humanity. The Security Council, due to its immoral powers that do not represent the will of even the General Assembly, render the entire United Nations organization an impotent, useless body. How many more genocides will we allow in silence? It is time for moralists everywhere to begin the formation of a world government elected by the people that will serve the people.
Submitted by: Minority Rights Group
The United Nations Security Council, the body supremely charged with acting to ensure international peace and security, is failing in its responsibility to Darfur's victims of ethnic cleansing. The UN's own evidence of government complicity in attacks is now so great that further investigation must now be replaced by real and unequivocal condemnation at the highest level, states Minority Rights Group International (MRG).
Efforts to halt the killings on the part of the Security Council Members had been 'half-hearted and ineffective' stated MRG, which suggested that Sudan was acting 'in the full and certain knowledge that the international community would fail to act against it'. The message that this sends out is that states can continue to violate the rights of their own citizens without interference.
MRG's call for immediate and unequivocal condemnation by the Security Council comes as Asma Jahangir, the UN's own Special Rapporteur on executions, spoke of 'credible evidence' that Sudanese forces and government supported militias had carried out summary executions of civilians. 'Many of the militias are being integrated into the regular armed or the Popular Defence Forces. There is no ambiguity that there is a link between some of the militias and government forces', she stated. The situation has already been described by the UN and humanitarian agencies as currently 'the world's worst humanitarian crisis'.
In May a UN mission to Darfur also reported, 'a reign of terror' and 'massive human rights violations perpetrated by the government of Sudan and its proxy militia' and yet the Security Council seems unwilling to fully support or act upon the findings of its own investigative teams. On 11 June a Security Council resolution on Sudan largely ignored the issue, including only a single paragraph on Darfur in which it notably failed to criticize or condemn the government in any way.
Head of International Advocacy for Minority Rights Group International, Clive Baldwin, stated: 'Darfur is acknowledged by the UN itself to be one of the most serious situations of rights violations and humanitarian disaster in the world today. In the final analysis, the Security Council members will need to look hard at their own actions and ask if they truly did all within their power at an early stage to save lives in Darfur'.
According to MRG, the situation is a clear example of the failure of existing preventive and reactive mechanisms, which can be triggered or strengthened by Security Council resolution. Attempts to secure peace in the war-torn south of the Sudan may have implications on the willingness for decisive UN action to stop human rights violations in Darfur, suggest MRG.
However, the goals of the peace negotiations in one part of the country must not be allowed to detract from international obligations to prevent widespread and systematic violations in another. The priority of stopping attacks against minority communities is now matched by the need for the delivery of humanitarian aid. MRG stresses that the humanitarian crisis is wholly the result of attacks against communities, allowed, sponsored and supported by the government of Sudan, and points out that any delays and disruption of access to those in need by the Sudanese authorities would consitute a continuation of ethnic cleansing.
There has been no shortage of criticism of Sudan by those, including the United States who were most roundly criticized for failing to act to prevent the Rwandan genocide in 1994. However this has once again failed to translate into decisive action and demonstrates clearly that effective mechanisms to prevent or halt massive violations still do not exist, stated MRG.
MRG continues to campaign for such effective preventive measures to be put in place, most recently in a submission to Kofi Annan's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change in which it calls for innovative mechanisms and approaches to potential genocide or mass violations, notably a Special Adviser on Minorities to the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights.
The message that the Security Council must strengthen its efforts to protect civilians in armed conflict was clearly reinfoced by Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, who stated on 14 June that not enough progress had been achieved in establishing a culture of protection towards civilians.
Source: www.oneworld.net
