The Lead-up to Sudan's Expelling NGOs - United Nations Stalemate

by Pythiian1 | March 7, 2009 at 09:44 am

775 views | 94 Recommendations | 36 comments

On Mar. 4, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the arrest of Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, President of the Republic of Sudan, for his alleged responsibility for crimes committed in Darfur, Sudan.

“He is suspected of being criminally responsible, as an indirect (co-)perpetrator, for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property,” according to a press release issued by the Court.

Mr. Al-Bashir was indicted on two counts of war crimes and five counts of crimes against humanity. However, the Hague-based International Criminal Court's (ICC) pre-trial chamber found there was insufficient evidence to charge him with genocide, but stressed that if the prosecution presents additional evidence the warrant could be amended at a later date.

Today’s warrant issued for Mr. Al-Bashir marks the third to arise from the situation in Darfur. In May 2008, the pre-trial chamber issued arrest warrants for Ahmad Harun, former Sudanese Minister of State for the Interior and now the Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs, and Ali Kushayb, a Janjaweed leader.

The Sudanese government's immediate reaction to the indictment was defiant as it revoked the licenses of 13 international aid organizations on Mar. 4, after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for atrocities committed in Darfur. The Khartoum government accused the groups of giving evidence to the court, the charge that the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) had denied.

A Beninese coalition on Friday, Mar. 6, welcomed the international arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The United Nations has warned that Mr. Al-Bashir's action will have immediate effects, and that as soon as Monday, thousands of residents of at least one camp for displaced persons could be without clean water and sanitation.

The full text of the press conference by the Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator on the revocation of licenses for NGOs in Northern Sudan is available here.

Briefing a Security Council meeting on Mar. 6, Sudan, a senior UN relief official warned of the effects of some 6,500 international aid workers being expelled from Darfur.

“I stressed that the humanitarian situation should be de-linked from any discussion and debate on the ICC decision,” Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Catherine Bragg told reporters after the consultations.

She also cautioned that if the decision to de-register major actors such as Oxfam, Care International, International Rescue Committee and Save the Children is allowed to stand, “the number of people affected will be in the millions” and humanitarian capabilities in the region will be cut by half.

The NGOs joined the United Nations by expressing their grave concerns: the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), UNICEF, the UN World Health Organization (WHO), and the African Union/United Nations Hybrid (UNAMID), which is a joint African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur authorized by the Security Council Resolution 1769, on July 31, 2007.

For UNHCR's part, at least five of the NGOs asked to leave Sudan have been UNHCR implementing partners carrying out important humanitarian programs in Darfur but also Blue Nile State and Khartoum State. So it is noteworthy that this could have an impact not only on Darfur, but on vulnerable people elsewhere in the country.
With some 4.7 million Sudanese – including 2.7 million internally displaced – already receiving assistance in Darfur, we are very concerned over the prospect of new population movements in the region should the fragile aid lifeline inside Sudan be disrupted. There are also 40,000 Chadian refugees in West Darfur.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) expressed its main concern in the areas of water, sanitation, nutrition, and health. The organization also emphasized that it would try to ensure that its programs continued, whether by using NGOs whose licenses had not been revoked or new partners.

There was deep concern among the 15 Security Council members about the expulsion of the aid organizations and the impact it could have on the humanitarian situation, but they were unable to translate that into a formal statement. The U.N. Security Council failed to act with a unified voice Friday, during a meeting about the fragile humanitarian situation in Darfur, Sudan.

Earlier on Friday, Washington's ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice blasted Sudan's decision, describing it as "reckless" and "callous."
"The United States is gravely concerned by the reckless decision of the Sudanese government to expel international aid groups working to ease the suffering of Sudan's citizens," Rice told reporters in a conference call.

Other NP Related Articles:

Amy Judd: The UN comes to no agreement on the Sudan crisis and

Darfur fears of crisis as aid agencies leave the region

Rachel Nixon: Sudan's President Defies Arrest Warrant

Rob Walker: Sudan Kicks out Major Aid Groups from Darfur

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zeet

at 09:51 on March 7th, 2009

Nice story!

It is even more interesting because the legal guide lines from this exact scenario is likely to be the platform for a future similar case against G.W. Bush!

Let's hope both will turn out successfully... although in the Sudan case the people will suffer even more it seems, at least in the short run.

Pythiian1

at 11:09 on March 7th, 2009

As you might have already gathered, the United States is not a member of the ICC which makes the US effective only on one level, the humanitarian aid crisis, in the Security Council.

Thank you, Zeet, for your recommendation.

Blue Crush

at 10:07 on March 7th, 2009

Yes, it's too bad the people will have to suffer more. (Good report, Pythiian)

Pythiian1

at 11:12 on March 7th, 2009

Thank you, Blue Crush, for your recommendation. You're right about the increasing number of refugees who will have to go without the vast NGOs network of services. My piece has included several links to external resources to various NGOs, especially, the UNHCR.

Amy Judd

at 10:13 on March 7th, 2009

It should be deemed a war crime to cut off humanitarian aid in this region, however even by the time any paperwork goes through for this, it would already be too late.

Pythiian1

at 11:17 on March 7th, 2009

Thank you, Amy, for your recommendation, pieces on this subject, and observations. The ICC has reserved the rights to re-visit the topic of "crimes against humanity" as discussed in their statement.

Nearby Chad will turn into a crisis because the refugees have gone there as well. The Southern Sudanese officials have offered safe haven for the NGOs as of early this morning's report.

JeffHuang

at 10:40 on March 7th, 2009

Thanks for the story Pythiian. Great post

Pythiian1

at 11:18 on March 7th, 2009

Thank you, JeffHuang, for your recommendation and video contributions.

Roy C

at 10:47 on March 7th, 2009

I am against international courts. The basis for this in so-called "international law" is a collection of treaties that no regular citizen would ever let his government sign if he got the chance to really know what was in that treaty.

So, then what to do?

You send in a force of, this time, Europeans (let them get off their duffs, unlike Yugoslavia) and you have to subdue the country.

I would bet that what the prime minister had been doing was illegal under the existing laws of Sudan. Let the Sudanese prosecute him and let them use the death penalty of this pezzo di merde.

You then get all of the parties to the conflict that had some real interest in real peace and you write a new constitution or, if the old, pre-Sharia constitution is good, then actually live by it.

I remind all of you that as of this late date the ex-leader of Serbia, a man co-responsible with his army for the deaths of hundreds of thousand of innocent people, has not yet been found guilty of his crimes.

That is the second reason I don't believe AT ALL in these idiot international courts.

What constitution laid their groundwork? Who appointed the judges? How are they accountable to the people they represent? How do we remove them if they don't do their jobs well?

International courts are a mammoth power grab by an elite that answers to no one.

Pythiian1

at 13:34 on March 7th, 2009

Thank you, Roy C, for the recommendation.

I'd like to point out that this piece is not about a debate on the merits of the International Criminal Court. Your angry comments could easily be (mis)interpreted that you are a strong supporter of Mr. Al-Bashir, as he too, seems to ask the same questions about the merits of the ICC.

Perhaps you might like to post a piece about your dislikes of the ICC.

My piece is about a humanitarian crisis as a consequence of the Mr. Al-Bashir's retaliatory action to the ICC findings.

Amy Judd

at 11:01 on March 7th, 2009

I created a channel about the Sudan here - it should give some more information on the subject.

Pythiian1

at 11:03 on March 7th, 2009

Thank you, Amy, for the announcement.

Roy C

at 11:40 on March 7th, 2009

You posted this piece to highlight one of the defects of the world. You have no cure, Pythian. What you have is a system whereby the ex-leader of Serbia's trial still goes on.

The piece is about the weakness and folly of a toothless West, all ideals and "good intentions", that allows people in Sudan to be massacred.

How could it not be expected that people comfortably esconced in New York, eating at the best and most expensive restaurants in Manhattan, full of themselves and their moral superiority, could actually be co-responsible for the tragedy at Darfur?

Well, they are with their international courts, and their complete incapacity to actually act when real force is called for.

Haven't we had tragedy after tragedy in the world in the last fifteen years where the UN has done nothing?

And, yes, if you bring up a problem, we have to debate its solution. Why are we here? To wring our hands?

Amy Judd

at 11:57 on March 7th, 2009

I am very uncomfortable with what you are implying with this sentence here:

"How could it not be expected that people comfortably esconced in New York, eating at the best and most expensive restaurants in Manhattan, full of themselves and their moral superiority, could actually be co-responsible for the tragedy at Darfur?"

Do not make assumptions that you know about any other member here - what their intentions may be, or how they live their lives.

Debate the issue, not the person, and this is all that should be said along these lines. Period.

Roy C

at 12:08 on March 7th, 2009

Amy, that is about the people working at the UN, not any of the posters here.

zeet

at 12:01 on March 7th, 2009

Before we can consider a humanitarian solution, we have to attend to the Rule of Law, and that is the most difficult aspect in Africa. Military solution is out of the question, we tried that before, without any success whatsoever. The sooner we help establishing a local Government that works for the people instead of against it, the sooner we can provide qualified humanitarian help! That's not hand wringing - that's logic - and guess what? That's exactly what we're trying to do in Iraq to get most of our soldiers the heck outta there...mission still not accomplished.

Roy C

at 20:18 on March 7th, 2009

We can get out of Iraq with success because of General Patreus and his plan and the fact that Al Qada hadn't yet killed of the tribal leadership, as they have done with in Afghanistan.

So, muscle guided by intelligence won the day, allowed voting, allowed a new constitution to be written, allowed a new army and police to be trained.

The use of force is necessary. Your example proves my contention, not the other way around.

Pythiian1

at 12:08 on March 7th, 2009

Once again, Roy C, please post your own pieces about any subject, but frothing at the mouth about me and my works is not at all helpful to a civil conversation.

Roy C

at 12:09 on March 7th, 2009

We have a lot of pieces here at NowPublic that are civil only to those who agree.

Roy C

at 20:20 on March 7th, 2009

My comments are civil, and I will post to your stories when and where I want to. I have made no personal attacks. I think you ought to think about the heat and the kitchen, a famous remark made by a Democrat president.

Roy C

at 12:11 on March 7th, 2009

The Rule of Law is not an agreement between gentlemen. Courts have muscle behind them: jails, sheriffs and marshals.

Some interventions work and others, poorly planned, do not.

The Christians being killed in Sudan need protection from criminal elements, not just humanitarian aid. And, now you can't get aid to them because the evil powers in charge have decided to put an end to humanitarian aid.

So, without muscle, without arms, you are just whistling in the wind and you are complicit in the tragedy of the Sudan as Clinton and the Europeans were in Ruanda.

zeet

at 13:10 on March 7th, 2009

Let's talk about muscle:

WWII: WON! (because we worked together with our allies in a common, noble goal)

Korea: LOST! (remember MacArthur's insane march to the Chinese border?)

Vietnam: LOST! (despite the slaughter of millions, the US left in shame, abandoning desperate associates clinging to helicopter undercarriages)

Cuba: LOST! (Fidel Castro outlived two generations of American presidents hundreds of assassination plots - and guess what: They're still Communists!)

Somalia: LOST! (Black Hawk down)

Lebanon: LOST! (Reagan's poorly-considered landing of Marines in Lebanon. A base blown up by resisting guerrilla forces, the Marines left with a battleship hurling sixteen-inch shells into the hills, killing who knows how many innocent civilians and having achieved nothing)

Iraq I: LOST! (We left Saddam in power while we had the change to knock him out under Bush I, and instead had to firefight hundreds of burning oil wells!)

Iraq II: LOST! (Still no peace, still no Government nor Iraq Army to take over and control Al-Quaida, hundreds of thousands dead and wounded, billions of dollars spend we do not have - and no Bin Laden.

Yeah - give me the hard-core sheriff talk. For Republicans this might be a Hollywood movie, but for normal people all over the World the reality is a huge bully swinging around his arms like a drunken elephant in a china store. We might fear him - but we have absolutely bo respect for him, and we know we're gonna hand him a dollar one day when he's begging for food on the street.

Leave foreign policy to the Democrats. It's more peaceful, and the results are so much more achieveable and sound.

Roy C

at 13:54 on March 7th, 2009

Leave it to the democrats?

The democrats just sent 50,000 men into the hellhole called Afghanistan, and Obama had promised to do it before he was elected, and, further, in an act of true folly, he promised to invade an ally, Pakistan, to find and kill bin Laden, even if Pakistan objected.

And, he has already given the authorization to kill three times using drones in Pakistan.

That is your "pacific" demonocrat policy.

Who do you think started the war in Vietnam? Kennedy. And who "escalated" it, a relatively new word at the time? Lyndon Baines Johnson, democrat, with his Secretary of Defense, Robert MacNamara.

Yeah, that was democrat foreign policy.

The rule of law requires enforcement.

Serbia and Croatia and Kosovo are at relative peace because people armed better than the miscreants are in charge.

You cannot help the people of Dafur without armed intervention, if it just means sending men to train them to protect themselves and supplying the food, clothing and shelter while you do that.

zeet

at 14:15 on March 7th, 2009

Oh, Democrats are not at all pacifist, don't ever mistake that. In my many years in the Army I met equally men and women from both ideologies, and when it comes to politics the only difference is that war to us is the last solution - to the Republicans it's the first. It's kinda the Conservative mantra, like selling holy snake water against just about any pain in the butt:

Economic problems? Tax cuts!
Political problems? War!

In Afghanistan we just do now, what you guys should have done in the first place if your had had a competent president supported by a clever Cabinet: fight Al-Quaida and bring Bin Laden to Justice.

The rule of law requires enforcement.
The Rule of Law requires acceptance. Because then the people will help promote and enforce it. That's what's going wrong in for example Iraq.

You cannot help the people of Dafur without armed intervention
We cannot help them using force in an armed intervention. We can only help them by supporting weapons and training so they can defend themselves, food and medical supplies so they can survive, and educate them in a establishing a political system so they can choose their own future.

It's funny about force: we always think we can do that to other people, but get highly offended if they try the same with us. You can't force people - you can only help them to make the best possible decision.

Roy C

at 14:37 on March 7th, 2009

Zeet, get it through your head that the world is not divided into demofarts and repubicons, but has a third element which is there specifically to create the background and conditions for yin and yang to harmonize: the independents.

Yes, you see yin and yang harmonize in that famous icon of Eastern religions, but the third element, the neutron of the situation, is the stabilizer and conflict resolver. Without the neutralizing element, the third force, Nature would crash in on itself.

The independents are the manifestation of the third force.

See, the truth is a baby that democrats and republicans argue about just as that woman in the Old Testament did. So, Solomon threatened to cut the babe in two, and the real mother yielded.

Same with the truth. Sometimes it is the democrats' turn to be right and sometimes it is the republicans' turn to be correct.

The decent ones in the mix violate orthodoxy to keep the babe of the truth alive, yielding to the reality that they have gotten something important wrong, while the poseurs of the truth, the orthodoxy followers, all decked out in their Crusader Outfits, never yield to the truth.

As long as the republican and democrat parties are run by their more radical element, then the truth will always be the first thing to be sacrificed.

The truth is that it is almost impossible for the ideologues to always be wrong, just as they cannot always be right. That perception of the complete and utter fallibility of the other side is a sign of possession by inflation. The self-exaltation of the one making the judgment that his "side" is always right or never wrong in any meaningful way is the hubris, the tragic pride that precedes the fall..

zeet

at 14:50 on March 7th, 2009

Although my instinct is to agree with you - I was an independent for 10 years - I see the World a bit differently today.

Being an Independent can be fine on election day, because you might be able to tip the weight one way or the other. But you have no influence whatsoever until then.

I like to think that in the Democratic Party - and in the Republican Party too (well before Bush, anyways) - the roof is high enough to contain many opinions from the extreme party left, to the extreme party right. I belong very much to the right in that forum - although not extreme - and I haven't had a problem being able to voice my opinion thus far.

What really annoyed me when I was an Independent, apart from having no influence in the primaries, was that my opinion often was considered the "flavor of the day". Because in reality who really cares what Independents, Libertarians, Green Party members, Constitution Party members, etc. etc. think about the different political issues at hand? They are as powerless as the people who choose not to get involved and vote.

What counts is the influence you have on your party and the direction it's going on a day to day, month to month, year to year basis - and that you have the real power of a solid party base with millions of members to back you up.

Independents might be yelling from the sidelines - but we are the ones playing in the game.

Roy C

at 14:57 on March 7th, 2009

That is fine, Zeet. I am highly complimented that you would even consider agreeing with me.
That is, in spirit, all I ask.

I didn't vote in the last election because it reminded me of Reagan vs Mondale. I simply could not vote for either of them. McCain was just more Bush, and Obama is just anti-Bush, not in his expressed positions, but what I correctly foresaw as his real take as an extreme modern lib (not old school JFK lib).

So now we have a stimulus package written by Pelosi, not the brightest mind on the block. For alib woman with brains, give me Feinstein, but she is in the senate. Obama is not hands-on as an administrator. His specialty is rhetoric. He is the voice. So, now we have 9,000 earmarks on a bill when he had promised that there would be none. Where is Obama's will, his spine, his stand?

There is no there there?

Obama's going into Afghanistan will be very tough. First of all, he has to go with a Patreus plan, the kind he never has had the humility to acknowledge as a success.

That kind of hubris will take Obama down.

Roy C

at 12:16 on March 7th, 2009

I didn't realize that Pythian was in New York and I want to make it clear that I was talking about the United Nations, not Pythian, when I was talking about people safely esconced in New York not taking action.

My mistake.