Three years of empty promises – International community fails to protect the civilian population

"Victims of most severe violations of human rights have a right to protection” (UN World Summit, September 2005)

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) charged the international community on Friday of not living up to its self-imposed responsibility for the protection of the civilian population in Darfur. "For the people in the west of Sudan a solemn declaration made three years ago has remained nothing but empty flowery language”, criticised the GfbV Africa consultant, Ulrich Delius, on Friday. In the declaration the international community bound itself to intervene in cases of expulsion, genocide and crimes against humanity and to protect the people if national governments fail in their task.

The heads of state of 191 member states of the United Nations signed the declaration after long drawn-out deliberations at a world summit in New York in September 2005. The signatory for Germany of the well received document was the then German Prime Minister, Gerhard Schröder. The Security Council endorsed the declaration in the resolution No. 1674, which was passed on 28th April 2006.

All conditions for a greater involvement of the international community have long since been fulfilled, said Delius. In the refugee camps in western Sudan the feeling of hopelessness is rising because the international community does not take its own promises seriously. This is a hard blow for the credibility of the human rights involvement of the United Nations. Not even one half of the peace-keeping force, which was agreed 14 months ago, has arrived in Darfur. The military offensives which the Sudanese army continually unleashes with violence and crimes against humanity could not be prevented in this way. In the west of Sudan the United Nations and the African Union had intended to jointly install a peace-force of 26,000 men (UNAMID).

Since the beginning of the genocide in the year 2003 about 2.7 million people have been driven from their villages in Darfur. More than 400,000 people have been killed so far in the genocide. Experts of the United Nations have accused the Sudanese authorities of being responsible for crimes against humanity.