It's time to end Khartoum's 'blatant record' of human rights abuse

In 2004, Gayle Smith, respected US analyst on Sudan, wrote in the Washington Post that the efforts of the US Administration to end Sudan’s conflict will have been wasted if the Sudanese Government were allowed to continue to commit crimes against humanity.  Not only will the interests of the international community have failed to halt another genocide, but it will have demonstrated to Khartoum that it can act with impunity against its own people.

Eleven years later, Gayle Smith has been appointed head of the US International Development Agency.  In the meantime, 2.5m people have been displaced in Darfur and 300,000 killed, 500,000 children are suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition, SAM, and will die without emergency action.  More than 2m children are acutely malnourished and may also die.

The majority of human rights abuses in Darfur were carried out by militias enjoying de facto immunity by a mixture of tacit and express consent from the authorities.

An organisation called the Rapid Support Forces – the RSF - was institutionalised by the Government of Sudan in 2013, and placed under the control of national security forces. Comprised of former members of the ‘Janjaweed’ Arab militia, they were given identity cards which granted them impunity from prosecution for human rights abuses, including the total destruction of over 100 villages in East Jebel Marra.

Elsewhere, in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile areas of Sudan, abuses are being carried out by predominantly Government forces, in the main through indiscriminate aerial bombardment.  Using Russian Antonov cargo planes, barrel bombs are rolled out by hand over villages, schools and hospitals.

As well as these potential “crimes against humanity”, there is a catalogue of cases of sexual violence, rape, gang rape and domestic violence perpetrated with impunity throughout Darfur.  Over 100 civilians have been detained in shipping containers in appalling conditions by the Sudanese Armed Forces at their Headquarters in Demazin.

A critical concern is the denial of access to humanitarian assistance to civilians.  While half a million children facing certain death and a further two million at severe risk in Darfur, Khartoum denies access to humanitarian agencies able to deliver lifesaving intervention.  Since The indictment of President al-Bashir of Sudan by the International Criminal Court, Sudan has expelled over 13 international organisations and dissolved three national organisations working on the delivery of humanitarian aid in Darfur.

In the House of Lords, the Liberal Democrats are pressing the Government to work with the newly-appointed head of the United States International Development Agency and the State Department, within the United Nations.  Together we must bring to an end to Khartoum’s blatant record of human rights abuse and denial of humanitarian aid.