2013-05-25T15:45:11-04:00 Olivia Warham http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=olivia-warham Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Olivia Warham Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3265381 2013-05-13T08:27:35-04:00 2013-05-14T08:54:02-04:00

Olivia Warham http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-warham/
Current media focus on conflicts such as Syria means people can be forgiven for assuming "Darfur is over". It's not. Just last week 18,000 civilians had to seek refuge after clashes between the Sudanese Army and rebels. Even UNAMID peacekeepers, who are meant to protect civilians, are not safe from the violence, with one recently killed during fighting, and another seriously injured.

Since the conflict began hundreds of thousands have been killed - but we may never know the true figure. Millions more lost their homes, with thousands of children knowing no other life than the displacement camps they were born into. Living in unhygienic conditions without access to an education, their future is far from certain.

The disaster has continued for ten years too long already, and although this anniversary is a chance to remember those who have already suffered, our primary focus must now be to prevent another lost decade for Darfur. But how?

Bashir and his regime have tried to refocus attention away from the war it is waging by highlighting reconstruction and business opportunities. The recent Doha conference, to raise funds to rebuild Darfur, is a prime example, with the government using this as 'proof' the situation is improving. This is completely disingenuous - insecurity in the region continues because of the regime's ongoing ethnic cleansing. Before the international community diverts its attention to aid and development, we need to remember that the government continues its attacks in the region, and remember those who are suffering under Bashir's brutally racist-Islamist police state. Government and businesses alike should place the Darfur people before profit, and refuse to do business with a regime that insists on killing its own citizens with impunity while talking about peace and reconstruction.

The time for lengthy diplomatic negotiations to solve this crisis is long past. Darfur does not need any more UN resolutions - it simply needs to implement those passed as long ago as 2004. Why do the regime's bank accounts remain unfrozen? And why do we not enforce travel bans for high ranking officials? Action on these questions alone would make the government of Sudan sit up and listen. But as long as government Antonovs keep bombing civilians, we need to go further - implementing a no fly zone over Darfur to provide security for innocent civilians. Ultimately, if the international community wants peace in Sudan, we must ensure that President Bashir is brought before the International Criminal Court to stand trial for his crimes against humanity.

This week Darfur 10 - a campaign led by a coalition of NGO's including Waging Peace - petitioned the British government to help stop the violence. It is a clear reminder that although we should remember the hundreds of thousands who have already lost their lives, the international community must be reminded of those still suffering the consequences of this decade long conflict.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2908458 2013-03-19T12:43:33-04:00 2013-05-19T05:12:01-04:00

Olivia Warham http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-warham/
Given the dearth of media attention given to Darfur these days, observers could be forgiven for thinking the bombing, looting and raping is over. Yet, the aerial bombardment continues, as does the systematic rape of girls and women, and the destruction of villages seen by the regime as non-Arab. All this has occurred despite the presence of an ineffectual UN multinational peacekeeping force that costs $ 1billion a year.

The Khartoum regime has expelled journalists and human rights groups, as well as any humanitarian agencies who objected to its tactics. Hence wide scale atrocities continue in a media vacuum. Aid groups remaining there are continually harassed and threatened by security forces, ensuring their silence about who bears responsibility for the vast majority of the suffering.

The fractious Darfur rebel groups, originally motivated by the region's economic and political marginalised status, have split into factions, some of whom have been bought off by the regime or are feuding amongst themselves. The millions who have lost their homes eke out an existence in refugee camps where no one consults them about their future. The last UN fatality figures -300,000 dead - were produced eight years ago and are thought to seriously underestimate the true situation.

While the misery has dragged on for a decade in Darfur there have been interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Mali. The UK is even considering helping to arm the rebels in Syria. Yet the UN Security Council has shied away from enforcing its own resolutions on Sudan, . It is as if the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, guaranteeing Sudan the sovereignty to do whatever it wishes to its own people, still supersedes any subsequent international human rights conventions, including Sudan's own domestic laws.

Running parallel to Darfur's extended nightmare has been a massive diplomatic effort to win independence for the long-persecuted non-Arab population of south Sudan, now a separate nation. The international community made the mistake of focusing all its attention on the South's secession, allowing Khartoum to continue its killing in Darfur with diplomatic eyes averted. .

Even now that the independent Republic of South Sudan exists, regional and international players offer only stale and formulaic words of condemnation for continuing atrocities perpetrated by Khartoum. Why? Some suggest the world's powers are having second thoughts about the wind of change sweeping the region. They prefer the monsters in power they know, rather than a new set of rulers who may not take their phone calls and whose actions may threaten the safety of Western nations.

There are also theories that Sudan has convinced Western intelligence agencies that, despite its close relationship with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, it is "on our side" in the war on terror. According to the Open Society Justice Initiative, terrorist suspects were rendered to Khartoum for interrogation, but there is no evidence the Sudanese produced any actionable intelligence for use by the CIA or MI6.

The regime has been skillful at keeping regional groups on side, suggesting that any criticism of its behaviour comes from Zionists and imperialists, and that the USA is looking for an excuse to invade Sudan as it did Iraq. Time and again the Africa Union and the Arab League have refrained from criticising Khartoum's ethnic cleansing of its citizens.

Perhaps the people of Darfur, facing their tenth year in refugee camps, are simply victims of no importance. Strategically, their war does not endanger the West as there is no perceived threat from Islamic militants. Ditto the collective shrug of bewilderment that greets the continuing horrors in the DRC. Or the silence accompanying news emerging from the Nuba Mountains in Sudan, where an estimated million non-Arab people face 300 Sudan Armed Forces bombing raids a month, and thus starvation because they cannot get to their fields.

Khartoum is emboldened by our continuing lack of resolve to stop these atrocities. Several UN resolutions calling for a no-fly zone and smart sanctions targeted on the architects of the slaughter remain unenforced. Sudan is never held to fulfil its promises given in numerous treaties and peace deals. Intervention is not necessary, desirable or feasible while so many points of financial leverage have yet to be tried. The regime is in a desperate economic situation, yet we lack the political will or interest to hold it to its word. How many more years must the Sudanese suffer?]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1900541 2012-09-20T19:16:20-04:00 2012-11-20T05:12:01-05:00

Olivia Warham http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-warham/
Last Friday crowds protesting about the controversial anti-Muslim video broke into the German embassy in Khartoum, and then besieged the American and British diplomatic compounds. The White House declared it would send 50 Marines to guard their embassy. However, the Sudanese regime refused to allow them in, claiming Sudan's own security services could protect American staff.

This promise is disingenuous because it seems likely the regime itself incited the rioting. Last week the Al-Intibaha newspaper called on good Muslims to protest. The paper is owned by the uncle of Sudanese president Omar Bashir. In addition, a prominent sheik, Mohammed Jizouly, used a radio broadcast on Friday to instruct his followers to march first to the German embassy and then the American one.

In a country where there is no free speech it is inconceivable that either the article or the broadcast could happen without official sanction. Sudan stops unofficial protests with unhesitating brutality, as happened two months ago when pro-democracy students attempted to start an Arab Spring in Khartoum. The fact that they let the rioters, who were conveniently bussed to the German mission, get as far as they did indicates whose side the security services were on.

The local human rights group, Sudan Change Now, claims the riot was the result of the regime's "purposeful misinformation and propaganda and hate speech."

This should prompt the international community to reconsider how far it trusts the indicted war criminal Field Marshall Bashir. He has given us many opportunities to do so. Indeed we should have grasped the true fundamentalist, Islamist nature of his regime in the 1990s, when Bashir gave sanctuary to Osama bin Laden for five years. As recently as August, at the non-aligned summit in Tehran, Bashir reaffirmed his ideological brotherhood with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran

Yet, there seems to be no learning curve when dealing with Sudan's deceitful National Islamic Front (rebranded as the more prosaic National Congress Party). Since assuming power in a 1989 coup they have tried to cleanse the nation of those who do not embrace their inflexible vision of a religiously and ethnically pure Sudan. Among those paying the price have been the ten million people living in what is now independent South Sudan, and the six million citizens in Darfur.

Whenever the world has objected to Khartoum's brutality, Bashir and his cronies have willingly agreed to seemingly endless peace talks. On each occasion they spin out negotiations while they continue the slaughter. They sign deals which they then disregard as soon as the international community's backs are turned; they habitually accede to nine out of ten points, and then, after months of discussion and posturing, they insist the final unresolved issue nullifies all else. They are always first to blame the other side for being awkward, skilfully winning each public relations battle, particularly in the African and Arab media; the indulged child who is expert at pacifying its angry parent whilst continuing to kick his sibling under the table.

Given Sudan's track record, a more sceptical approach is long overdue; one that involves ensuring every agreement we oversee contains specific consequences when key elements are violated. Instead, there is never sufficient political will on behalf of the international community to hold its ground, demanding enforcement of the deals Khartoum signs and then ignores. So long as we refuse to use the soft power and the economic levers within our grasp, we embolden the regime's negotiators who conclude they can continue to deceive us. Until we ensure there are repercussions for breaking peace deals, the internal repression and massive human rights abuses will continue.

Right now hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians are sheltering in caves in the Nuba Mountains on the southern edge of Sudan, forced to survive on a diet of insects and leaves. Khartoum and its local proxies are hunting them like animals, driving them from their farmland and letting starvation complete what their indiscriminate bombing fails to achieve.

Under international pressure the regime is attending talks in Ethiopia. It has agreed to allow humanitarian access to the besieged Nuba people, but, true to form, it continues to put new obstacles in the path of the desperately needed aid mission. It insists that only the regime can deliver food, suspecting that supplies will reach rebels instead. Only the truly delusional would believe Khartoum will hand over food to the ethnic group it has been trying to exterminate since the 1990s. Yet, the international community tolerates Sudan's delaying tactics, hoping Khartoum will suddenly embrace reform.

If the international community fails to hold Bashir's regime responsible for its actions, we should at the very least recognise it for what it is: manipulative, racist and repressive, rather than an honest partner in the search for peace. It incites a riot one day and promises peace the next, all the while disregarding international law.

Yesterday a regime spokesman insisted America did not need to move its mission to Kenya because Sudan is the safest country in the region. Though not if you are a Nuban, hiding in a mountain cave, contemplating your next meal of insects and leaves.

Waging Peace
is a human rights organisation which campaigns against genocide and systematic human rights violations in Sudan.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1477017 2012-05-04T08:32:57-04:00 2012-07-04T05:12:04-04:00

Olivia Warham http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-warham/
But although the resolution passed by the council yesterday will be welcomed by many, it is fundamentally unfair to threaten both countries with the same sanctions. For forty years Sudan has been the aggressor against the South. Their list of crimes is long compared to the South's ill-thought, rash but ultimately short-lived invasion of the Heglig oil field last month. But among the Sudanese regime's talents is the ability to 'spin' events like these. The world rushed to condemn the South Sudanese leadership for its aggression, disregarding the grievances that had provoked their attack: months of violent and bloody incursions onto South Sudanese territory by Khartoum's forces.

The UN, the Africa Union, the EU, and the Arab League were right to condemn South Sudan for violating the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that finally brought peace to the region after decades of war. Yet, the first CPA violation occurred a year ago, when Khartoum occupied the contested border area of Abyei, destroying homes and ethnically cleansing local people, most of whom remain in South Sudan. At the time, the international community expressed its disapproval. However, crucially there was no move by the UN to sanction Khartoum for breaking the terms of the CPA. No one wanted to rock the secession boat, and international actors feared that holding Sudan to its word might cause it to disrupt or stop the referendum.

Khartoum was emboldened by the lack of action following the atrocities it committed in Abyei. It began a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing in the border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, Once again, although complaints were made about the indiscriminate bombing of civilians and the targeting of an ethnic group considered racially inferior by Khartoum, even satellite images of freshly dug mass graves failed to generate any meaningful actions against President Bashir's government. So desperate was Washington not to offend Khartoum that it cast doubt on the pictures of mass graves and numerous independent accounts of the Sudanese Armed Forces hunting the Nuba people as if they were animals.

Incursions by Khartoum's forces into South Sudan became bolder, with aerial bombardments well within the new nation's borders. For instance, in November 2011 Sudan bombed the refugee camp at Yida. Yet again, this violation of the international sovereignty established since the seventeenth century Treaty of Westphalia merited words of condemnation. However, there was no suggestion Khartoum should face penalties for breaking its own promises.

Tellingly, the international order reacted with barely disguised panic when South Sudan, at its wit's end, stopped pumping oil in protest in January this year. Then South Sudan's armed forces crossed the border for the first time, occupying Heglig, where Sudan refines its oil. Thankfully, Sudan's retaliatory bombing of Bentiu and Rubkona, well inside South Sudanese territory, has provoked a sharper reaction from the international community, with the African Union demanding both sides reach an agreement within 90 days.

But what form should negotiations take, in the light of the failure of past peace deals? It is clear that verbal chastisement has little impact on Khartoum; not while UN Security Council resolutions on Sudan remain unenforced after years on the UN's books. Nor will the architects of the genocide in Darfur, indicted by the International Criminal Court, have cause for concern while they can travel freely, without fear that they will be handed over to the ICC. Nor will senior Sudanese officials be impressed by sentiments expressed by the international order while they can still travel the world on shopping trips, for medical treatment and to attend conferences.

The current violence was the inevitable consequence of failing to tie up the CPA's loose ends in 2010, before the secession referendum. Events since then have underlined the need for a negotiated settlement on the outstanding issues: the location of the border, how to allocate oil revenues, and who qualifies as a citizen of each country.

It is vital that the UK supports and strengthens the African Union's capacity to bring about a final resolution of contested issues. The UK can offer constructive help by contributing the skills of our arbitration and mediation specialists, including veterans of the Northern Ireland peace process. We can also offer financial support. For this reason, Waging Peace has sponsored an open letter to the UK government, urging David Cameron and William Hague to do all in their power to support the African Union's efforts in these practical ways.

But whatever deal results, it must be accompanied by a mechanism that attaches specific sanctions to whichever party fails to fulfil its promises. Otherwise, negotiations are meaningless. There must also be recognition by the international community that the current violence is a direct result of the failure to attach penalties to violating the CPA. Khartoum began bombing the contested border area a year ago confident that it would face no serious challenge, beyond words of condemnation.

Postponing the really hard part of the divorce of the north from the south can no longer be acceptable. In the absence of a genuine settlement, the violence will continue and escalate, and civilians will pay the price.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1362677 2012-03-19T19:00:00-04:00 2012-05-19T05:12:01-04:00

Olivia Warham http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-warham/
Mrs Roosevelt believed in the Big Society decades before David Cameron graduated from Bovril to Bollinger. But her vision was much grander: of a world community that acted on its best internationalist instincts, putting aside the greedy, narrow nationalism that had led to the 20th century's wasteful wars.

Instead, we now have a UN Security Council where the permanent members (the USA, UK, Russia, China and France), vote to protect their client states, irrespective of the devastating impact on countries or entire regions.

Today it is Russia and China pretending to stand up for the right of the Syrian regime to murder its own people, otherwise known as state sovereignty or the doctrine of non-interference.

But not so long ago, during the Cold War, it was the UK, France and the USA using their veto to protect oppressive kleptomaniacs across the globe who happened to be 'on our side' in the struggle to defeat the Soviet bloc.

Since the end of the Cold War, a more mercenary motivation has determined how UN Security Council votes go: permanent members protect nations that buy their weapons or who sell them oil and other resources. How else to explain why UN resolutions on the long-running ethnic cleansing in Sudan remain unenforced? Hundreds of thousands continue to die in Sudan because Russia and China sell the Sudanese weapons, and China buys their oil. The remaining three permanent members have other priorities, lacking the political will to turn words of concern into effective economic sanctions.

The UN Security Council's impotence in the face of the mass slaughter of unarmed civilians is not new to those who recall the Rwandan genocide and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Linda Melvern's superb books on the sordid behaviour of the UN representatives of UK, USA and France in the run up to and during Rwanda are enough to dispel any lingering faith in the UN system one might have.

In the case of Bosnia, it was our own Douglas Hurd who adopted a high moral tone when it was suggested that the international community might allow the Bosnians to defend themselves against the well-armed Serbs. Like a pampered cat that hates getting its paws wet, he deplored "creating a level killing field," the same reason we are now told we should not allow arms to reach the Syrian rebels.

As Einstein reminds us: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome."

So, how do we end the paralysis of the UN Security Council? Here are some suggestions:

1) Remove the veto of the permanent members.

2) Widen the Security Council to include permanent members from important regional players like India, Brazil, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Turkey, Indonesia and Nigeria.

3) Form a coalition of those nations willing to enforce the UN's own 'Responsibility to Protect' doctrine, allowing states to intervene with soft and hard power when civilians are being slaughtered by their own governments.

4) Allowing the coalition of the willing to use targeted smart sanctions that make life personally financially uncomfortable for murderous dictators.

If steps are not taken to reform the UN Security Council it is hard to see what role it has, apart from hosting elaborate conferences for well-padded diplomats.

Which leaves us with the second Eleanor: Eleanor Rigby. The final verse of the eponymous Beatles song concludes, "No one was saved." As we watch the massacre of brave Syrians, feeling helpless and ashamed, we should apply that test to the UN Security Council's proceedings: was anyone saved? ]]>