Save Darfur: end the genocide – overcome indifference!

"Sudan is today the world centre for human pain and human suffering. The so-called civilised world has known this for a long time and preferred to look the other way.” (Elie Wiesel)

In view of the "Global Day for Darfur” (16. – 18. 9. 2006) and on the day of the opening of the second session of the Human Rights Council of the United nations in Geneva the Society for Threatened Peoples International (GfbV) has appealed together with representatives of four parliamentary parties to the German government to do all in its might to make sure that a peace-keeping force with a "robust mandate” is sent to this West Sudanese region.

Kerstin Müller, member of parliament for the party Bündnis 90/The Greens, former minister in the government, warned: "The international community must not in the light of the Lebanon crisis forget Darfur and must press for the stopping of the Sudanese military offensive and for agreement of the UN peace-keeping force decided by the UN Security Council. It is only with a robust peace-keeping force that the creeping genocide can be stopped.”

Hartwig Fischer, member of parliament for the CDU, said: "If action is not taken immediately then I am afraid that the international community will fail once again and that we shall see another genocide after Ruanda.”

Gabriele Groneberg, member of parliament for the SPD, emphasised: "We must put more pressure on the Sudanese government. We cannot continue to accept the fact that promises made years ago, for example concerning the disarmament of the Janaweed militia, are not being kept.”

Marina Schuster, member of parliament for the FDP, demanded: "In addition to the immediate and urgently needed security for the civilian population, which has the highest priority, we need a long-term political solution, which can only be achieved with a Darfur dialogue binding all the conflict parties and the civilian population.”

"If necessary a peace-keeping force with a robust mandate must be sent even against the will of the Sudanese government. It is only in this way that the genocide against the black African Muslim population of West Sudan can be quickly ended” said Tilman Zülch, President of the GfbV-International emphasising the statements of the politicians. According to the estimates of the GfbV-International and the International Movement "Save Darfur”, which is also linked with the GfbV, 400,000 people have already been killed in this genocide.

The Society for Threatened Peoples presented at the press conference a 160-page human rights report on the genocide in Darfur, which in table form with a large number of detailed cases clearly documents the violation of the following articles of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide of 9.12.1948:

Article II a, Killing of members of a group through bombing, single killings and massacres.

Article II b, Causing severe physical and mental damage through torture and rape.

Article II c, Imposing living conditions serving to destroy a group either completely or partially by destroying the existential means (villages, fields, poisoning wells), expulsion and abduction, refusal of famine relief, inadequate security in refugee camps, deaths of those fleeing, attacks on employees of relief organisations.

The report is available on the GfbV homepage.  |>

Time is pressing as Sudan’s President, General Omar Hassan Al Bashir, has said that he would be sending a force of 10,500 men to Darfur on 1st October, as the troops of the African Union (AMIS) have to leave the country on 30th September. The Society for Threatened Peoples fears that there will then be a new wave of the mass murder of the civilian population in West Sudan. Over two million people have to vegetate there in refugee camps far away from their homes and they are threatened with starvation and cholera. In recent weeks the Sudanese air force has recommenced the bombing of the civilian population with Russian Antonov planes. The African observation force has in spite of the good will of many of its soldiers not been able to prevent many new war crimes.

"We recall the failure of the United Nations, of the international community, of the European Union and of the previous German government, when hundreds of thousands were killed in the genocides of Bosnia and Ruanda”, warned Zülch. "Then everyone said, like after the Holocaust, "Never again”. So we beg the media and the general public to overcome indifference and to speak out more forcefully in support of the people in Darfur. We call for the war criminals responsible to be brought promptly before the International Court of Justice at The Hague (ICC), the immediate withdrawal of the Sudanese army and the disarmament of the Arab militia and the unconditional opening of Darfur for relief organisations, journalists and human rights experts. We draw to attention the fact that the regime of General Al Bashir has been responsible for the deaths of half a million people in the Nuba region and that two million Africans has been victims of his arbitrary rule.”