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SPEAK UP AND DEMAND PROTECTION FOR THE PEOPLE AND THE WOMEN OF DARFUR – NOW! SILENCE IN THE FACE OF THE MASS RAPE OF 200 WOMEN AND GIRLS IN NORTH DARFUR IN JUST ONE DAY IS INTOLERABLE.

The shocking incident:

Friday, October 31st, the residents of Tabit were terrorized by government soldiers from the nearby military garrison south of El Fasher in Northern Darfur.

The soldiers first arrived in town on Friday morning. The military commander falsely accused the Tabit citizens of kidnapping one of his soldiers and gave them until evening to return him. They returned at 8pm and rounded up the villagers, beating them with their rifle butts and separating the men and women by force. Then the soldiers stayed until 4:00am the following morning, raping approximately 200 women and girls. Eighty of their victims were school girls; 105 of the girls were unmarried; the remainder were married. It was a horror that the people of Tabit were not prepared for. The commander of the soldiers returned to the village the following day, admitted that his soldiers has done wrong and then apologized. It is shocking and unacceptable that this incident happened a few kilometers from the headquarters of the United Nation-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). Although the purpose of UNAMID’s presence in Darfur is to protect the people, the ONLY semblance of any rescue, as reported by the people of Tabit, was the few UNAMID personnel who arrived 5 days AFTER the rape to ask the villagers what had happened – and then they left! This is beyond devastating to me and millions of Darfuri women. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident; it is a systematic pattern of the long standing genocidal attacks against the people of Darfur since 2003.

I appeal to you to join me and the Darfur Women Action Group’s team to petition the UN Security Council in supporting the victims of Tabit and hold the perpetrators of this horrendous crime accountable.

1. Demand immediate investigation into the mass rape of 200 women in Darfur

2. Demand that the UN provide immediate medical and psychological treatment for the victims

3. Hold accountable the government soldiers (the rapists) for their brutal crimes

4. Adequate compensation to the victims must be provided.

Hear my story and the stories of suffering of the people of Darfur and please sign my petition.

The long suffering of the people of Darfur:

Eleven years ago, the Government of Sudan began a genocidal campaign in Darfur.

Over 300,000 civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed. While there are external refugee camps in neighboring countries, over three million Darfuris remain in Darfur in concentration-like camps and are not able to return to their homes. Rape has been and is still systematically used as a weapon of war and terrorization. Countless women and girls have been victimized and left to suffer in silence with no subsequent medical care, coupled with shame and fear of ostracization, to say nothing of unwanted pregnancies. Humanitarian organizations have been expelled and the efforts of the few that have been allowed to remain have been severely restricted by the Sudanese Government; this is the same government which has consistently used starvation as an instrument for repression and death. After eleven years of militia campaigns led by the Government of Sudan, the violence continues, including ongoing aerial bombardment of villages, particularly in the inaccessible Jebel Marra area. Consequently, civilians remain prone to constant attacks led by the Sudan Air Force, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), janjaweed militia, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was indicted and is wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur, still pursues his genocidal policy. This is a result of the international community and the UNSC not fulfilling their responsibility to bring him to trial.

Read my story:

Nine years ago, I was forced to leave Darfur in the middle of the night with nowhere to go, leaving behind my beloved family and friends, simply because of being outspoken and standing up for myself and my people. One of the first genocide attack against the indigenous African people started in the outskirts of Kabkabiya, my hometown in North Darfur. Fifty Darfur villages were burned to the ground in one week. Forty nine of my father’s immediate family members were killed in just one day; children were thrown alive into fire. People started fleeing their burned villages and going to the town, seeking refuge. But the government soldiers and the militias denied them entrance, banned the people from burying the bodies of their dead relatives, and chased displaced civilians from the place where they wanted to build a camp by constantly beating them. The people were forced to return to their burned villages. A group of community leaders gathered and started collecting food, medicine and money to assist the needy. The government then arrested and tortured 50 men who were among those helping out, including my brothers, my in-laws, my uncles and many more relatives and friends, most of whom were teachers. For 2 years, no one knew their whereabouts; some of them died in their jail cells. Eventually, I and a group of women took on the role of assisting the needy, particularly the rape victims. And then the government banned the reporting of incidents and the medical treatment of rape victims in its hospitals. But I continued. It was not an easy task for me; every day, I believed I would die, but standing by and watching was not an option for me. Later on, when the attacks escalated, we were harassed, threatened and targeted for death. Most of my group members had to leave the region; some were arrested. I didn’t want to leave Sudan, but many women, including my mother, supported and encouraged me to leave, so that I would be safe in order to speak for them. My mother said to me, “Niemat, you are outspoken. If you stay, we may all be killed and if you leave, you may be safe and can tell the world about what is happening in Darfur and they may do something to help end it.” With that hope of being their voice and after several attempts on my life I left my homeland. To this moment, I have been deprived of seeing my mother for 9 years. Even though I am now a US citizen, I am not able to go to Darfur. And so I created the Darfur Women Action Group – to recognize the courage and the resilience of the Darfuri women in the face of genocide and to be able to speak up for them. Today, in telling my story, it is no longer about me! It is about those who are left behind and still enduring an unimaginable suffering in silence. It is because of people like my old mother and millions of women who have lived for years trapped in a place with not enough to eat, no available medical care and under constant attack. As a survivor of the Darfur genocide living in the United States, this week, I am not only horrified by the mass rape incident and the brutality of the Sudanese government’s army, but I am deeply hurt and dismayed by the silence of the world’s community and media in the face of this shocking incident.

Your voice matters:

As a result of citizen mobilization, in 2007 the UNSC was pressured to authorize UN forces to protect civilians in Darfur under Security Council Resolution 1769, which established UNAMID. The resolution stated the need to protect Darfuri people, “support early and effective implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement, prevent the disruption of its implementation and armed attacks, and protect civilians, without prejudice to the responsibility of the Government of Sudan.” Today with this petition and your voices, we can again make the UNAMID troops effectively protect the vulnerable and hold the international community accountable for their failure. Today, UNAMID is the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world, but it is failing to protect civilians in Darfur. Further, it has largely been characterized by partiality and allegation of covering up the counts of human causalities and under-reporting the number of rape incidents committed by Sudanese Government forces or janjaweed militias; exposure of these misreports was made by a former UNAMID spokesperson (http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article52925 -Sudan Tribute, November 3rd, 2014). In addition, it has been reported that UNAMID forces in many cases actually await approval from the Government of Sudan for their actions. UNAMID has not just failed to protect the vulnerable Darfuri population but are failing to protect their own personnel. To date, there have been about 140 UNAMID forces killed in Darfur, resulting in the diminishment of world confidence in the UN’s ability to function in a crisis situation. We believe that in order to be effective, UNAMID must be empowered to protect civilians and protect its own personnel – or it would be better if it withdrew from the region. In the face of the ongoing genocide in Darfur, we can’t stand idly by – what is happening in Darfur now is a crisis of global magnitude that not only affects the people of Darfur but our world peace, regional stability and security at large. It requires global effort. We must speak up and demand action. If the world leaders are failing their responsibility, it’s imperative that we, the global citizenry, speak up and remind them that this is morally unacceptable. The world leaders need to hear our voices.

Why signing this petition matters:

As a result of the global mobilization behind Darfur in 2004-2006, UN forces were authorized and the case of Darfur was referred to the International Criminal Court. Now, we need to use our voices again to urge the UNSC to make their troops an effective protection force and support the accountability for those who have committed crimes. The UN needs to have more supervision over its own UNAMID leaders. We, therefore, need your voice to join the Darfur Women Action Group in demanding that the UN Security Council take the following measures to protect the people of Darfur, bring the perpetrators to justice and bring lasting peace to Sudan at large:

1. UNAMID must be given authority and its mandate extended to focus on protecting civilians, to create a safe environment for independent humanitarian operation, and to transparently report on human rights violations, particular rape cases.
2. The UNSC must make public an investigation report regarding UNAMID’s cover up and hold accountable the accomplices among UNAMID’s leadership, who are implicated in falsely reporting the number of casualties of the Sudanese Government attacks in Darfur.
3. The UNSC must make it clear to the Sudanese government that it must stop the use of rape as a weapon of war.
4. The UNSC must authorize unhindered humanitarian access in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan without the approval of the Sudanese Government.
5. The UNSC must support the International Criminal Court to pursue accountability for those who committed and are still committing these heinous crimes and to bring them to trial. Join me and the Darfur Women Action Group team in telling the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) MUST protect civilians in Darfur – or they must be held accountable for their failure!

https://www.change.org/p/un-security-council-protect-the-people-of-darfu…

For over a week reports from Darfuris in the Tabit area (45 kilometer southwest of el-Fasher, North Darfur) have provided detailed accounts of the mass rape of girls and women by members of Khartoum’s regular armed forces (Sudan Armed Forces, SAF) on Friday, October 31 – through Saturday November 1. The assaults were in retaliation for the unexplained disappearance of an SAF soldier, with civilians in Tabit held responsible without evidence (it is unclear whether the missing soldier has been found). The accounts have been unusually detailed, from a growing number of sources, even as the event itself is without recorded precedent in the almost twelve years of the Darfur conflict. While the Janjaweed and other militia and paramilitary forces have many times been reported to have engaged in mass rape, and individual members of the SAF have been guilty of rape, never before has an entire SAF army unit engaged in an orgy of sexual violence, directed against an entire non-Arab/African village population.

[NB: All dates and time references appear in bold throughout; all emphases in quoted material have been added—ER]

Yet despite the overwhelming number and consistency of reports from Tabit and now nearby IDP camps, UNAMID declares today that,

None of those interviewed confirmed that any incident of rape took place in Tabit on the day of that media report. The team neither found any evidence nor received any information regarding the media allegations during the period in question.

Darfuris in Tabit are reported to be understandably shocked and uncomprehending, and with good reason. The conclusion of the UNAMID “investigation” is a travesty, a transparent capitulation before the show Khartoum ordered to be prepared for investigators when they finally arrived in Tabit. We gain a much better sense of what is to be found in Tabit from the Coordination Committee of Refugees and Displaced Persons in Darfur:

A delegation of five members of the Coordination Committee of Refugees and Displaced Persons in Darfur had also visited the village: “We just returned from Tabit on Friday [November 7] with a delegation, after two days of investigation. There we met 60 women and girls, we looked into their eyes while they told us they were raped by soldiers from 8 pm [on Friday, October 31] until 5:00am [on Saturday, November 1]. (Radio Dabanga [Tabit] 11 November 2014; full text of this crucial dispatch appears here as Appendix One and at https://www.radiodabanga.org/node/83429)

Critically, what the press release does not indicate is that a UNAMID investigative team reached Tabit on Tuesday, November 4 about 5:00am [it is not yet fully clear whether it is local time being reported] and was able, for perhaps ten minutes, to interview civilians at the Tabit transportation center; the four men confirmed the essential elements of what has been reported by Radio Dabanga, Sudan Tribune, and others (see below). The interview was interrupted by Military Intelligence, which roared up to halt the interview and engaged in a half-hour discussion with the UNAMID personnel, according to the men that had just previously been speaking with UNAMID themselves.

None of this is reflected in a UNAMID press release of the following day (Wednesday, November 5), which declared only that an investigative team had been turned away before reaching Tabit—thereby freeing UNAMID from confronting or revealing the information that had in fact been gathered in the brief interview in Tabit itself. Moreover, there were two investigative teams: one dispatched from Shengil Tobaya on Tuesday, November 4 to Tabit itself, but another on Wednesday, November 5 to ZamZam displaced persons camp outside el-Fasher; that investigative team departed from el-Fasher. UNAMID has chosen to conflate these two efforts in its statements, creating a deliberate confusion. UN Spokesman Dujarric in New York only partially clarified some of this in comments made today (November 10, 2014), but not in a way that makes sense of the UNAMID claim that they were turned away from Tabit by a military checkpoint before reaching the town. As one astute and highly informed observer informed me (email received November 10):

The [UNAMID investigative] patrol was sent back [from Tabit] to Shengil Tobaya on Tuesday[November 4]. But [this] proves that [the UNAMID patrol] passed the border between South and North Darfur and the transportation centre [in Tabit] before they could have reached the military checkpoint of Tabit, just north of Tabit [town]. Shengil Tobaya is south of Tabit and the military garrison is north [of Tabit]. [The] Tabit military base coordinates [are] 13.313832 | 25.087945: 1.5km north (April 2014) or 0.5km north [currently].

The upshot here is critical: if the UNAMID investigative team did encounter an SAF military checkpoint, it would have been after the conversation reported by multiple witnesses as having occurred in Tabit town itself. None of this is reported by UNAMID.

Even more consequentially, the press release does not note or explain key elements of he investigation revealed in an extraordinary dispatch by Radio Dabanga (“Denial of Darfur Rape Cases Shocks Tabit Victims,” November 11, 2014, https://www.radiodabanga.org/node/83429):

[The UNAMID press release] did not mention that its verification team was accompanied by the government’s security officials.

Indeed, at one point the Radio Dabanga dispatch reports the observation of a UNAMID team member:

According to a UNAMID officer … national security staff, police forces, and [even] military personnel accompanied the convoy of the UN [UNAMID] delegation. “I think that every UNAMID staff member was accompanied by at least three people, from the security, police, or military. No one could speak freely to anyone. When we asked some people in Tabit, they only answered: ‘You should speak to the army commander and the authorities.’” UNAMID confirmed that it also interviewed the local Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Commander during its visit.

Given the extreme risk of witness intimidation, this was deeply thoughtless or irresponsible—or more likely both—on the part of the UNAMID investigative team, and reflects almost total incomprehension of what the people of Tabit would have felt being interviewed. The Radio Dabanga dispatch goes on to note:

Prior to the arrival of the UNAMID delegation in Tabit and surrounding settlements, the commissioner of Tawila locality, Alumda Alhadi Abdallah Abdelrahman, openly threatened the population that any person who would speak to UNAMID about the rape, “would face the consequences.” “No one even dared to speak up to UNAMID, they just had to deny everything in front of them,” several attendants explained to Radio Dabanga.

In short, the press release of today [Monday, November 10] is speaking of a UNAMID investigation that was conducted after Military Intelligence (MI)—long the regime’s security “muscle” in Darfur—had had a full week in which to sanitize the crime scene and terrify any potential witnesses with threats of unspeakably brutal retaliation if any corroborated what had been reported from Tabit in the preceding days. And then to make sure that no one dared to speak the truth, MI assigned a team of military or security personnel to every investigator.

In one sense, this is not surprising, although it is out of the ordinary. Khartoum’s usual response is simply to deny access, a denial that UNAMID characteristically accepts with a shrug. But the Friday, November 7 declaration by Zainab Hawa Bangura, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, raised the stakes for all concerned: Khartoum, UNAMID, and the people of Tabit:

Zainab Hawa Bangura, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict [said that] UNAMID should be given access by the Government of Sudan to investigate and verify whether the incidents reported in the town of Tabit have occurred and, if they have, to ensure accountability. Furthermore, she called on humanitarian actors to ensure “appropriate services” for any survivors. “It is critical that in the process of verifying the facts that the safety of survivors is of paramount concern,” she declared. (UN News Center, 7 November 2014)

Rarely has a single incident in Darfur aroused such immediate and widespread international attention in recent years, and as a result Khartoum officials certainly directed Military Intelligence to be especially thorough in its efforts to remove all evidence of any kind from the crime scene, and to terrify the witnesses into complying with the fabrication Khartoum had provided. Perversely, the very insistence by Bangura, and the concern expressed in some international quarters, ensured that the efforts by MI would have all necessary resources—and all the time required to prevent the kind of investigation Bangura declared necessary. Even more perversely, UNAMID’s disingenuous and deliberately misleading press release of today will prevent further investigation of any sort: Khartoum will insist that its account of what occurred at Tabit is supported by UNAMID and that there is no need for further investigation.

Past failures by UNAMID to confront Khartoum’s obstruction of timely, unconstrained investigations has encouraged the regime to believe that it may continue such policies indefinitely. This is so despite the explicit language of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that governs UNAMID’s presence in Darfur. The SOFA is too often forgotten when particular incidents are reported or the need for rapid movement is dictated—only to be halted by Khartoum’s military and security officials. But this is not because the SOFA (February 9, 2008) is at all ambiguous:

Travel and transport:

[12] UNAMID, its members and contractors, together with their property, equipment, provisions, supplies, materials and other goods, including spare parts, as well as vehicles and aircraft, including the vehicles, vessels and aircraft of contractors used exclusively in the performance of their services for UNAMID, shall enjoy full and unrestricted freedom of movement without delay throughout Darfur and other areas of Sudan where UNAMID is operating in accordance with its mandate by the most direct route possible, without the need for travel permits or prior authorization or notification….

One of the least considered casualties of the Darfur conflict is how the SOFAs of future peacekeeping missions will be undermined by the obduracy, obstructionism, and bad faith of Khartoum in abusing, and at times threatening, UNAMID—and its repeated, indeed incessant obstruction of UNAMID throughout Darfur. Tabit is only the most recent example:

[SAF spokesman colonel Al-Sawarmy Khaled] Saad also disclosed that the UNAMID has been authorised to probe the sexual assault charges, adding that they had been previously denied access because they did not seek to obtain a permission from the competent authorities before heading to Tabit. (Radio Dabanga, 10 November 2014)

So much for the “Status of Forces Agreement.”

A brief time-line, clarifying events and the significance of UNAMID delays

These are the events of the past ten days as they can be constructed from Darfuris in Tabit and journalists who were able to speak with them:

Late October: A soldier from the SAF garrison near Tabit goes missing, as reported by the Sudan Tribune:

Sources say a soldier from the military garrison in the area was missed in Tabit after he went to the village to meet his girl friend. The denial of his whereabouts by the villagers triggered a search to recover the missing soldiers. His angry colleagues allegedly committed the punitive mass rape during this night operation. (Sudan Tribune [Khartoum] 9 November 2014)

Friday, October 31: Our best journalistic account of how the violence began remains the dispatch of Ruth Maclean for The Times (London), 6 November 2014:

Sudanese soldiers raped more than 200 women and girls in Darfur last week, according to villagers. An elder from the village of Tabit said a military commander at a nearby garrison accused the villagers last Friday [October 31] of harbouring a missing soldier and gave them until sunset to return him. The villagers had no knowledge of the soldier, but when night fell, soldiers surrounded Tabit, beat the men and chased them away, before raping the women and girls, including eight primary school pupils.

Ahmed Hussein Adam, a Darfuri academic at Cornell University, told Sudan Tribune that he had communicated with

… the victims of the rape and he heard “horrific accounts” about the incident committed by the Sudanese government soldiers in the area. “I spoke with many victims in Tabit, they told me their horrific stories and experiences: More than 650 solider in about 25 vehicles attacked the Tabit village from all directions at Friday 31 October 8pm (Sudan-time).” (Sudan Tribune, 7 November 2014)

Saturday, November 1: Rapes and beatings continued into the early morning before SAF forces finally returned to their garrison headquarters. There is a glaring disparity between the reports coming to Ahmed Adam (“650 soldiers in about 25 vehicles”) and Khartoum’s account of the force stationed in the Tabit garrison, offered by the shamelessly mendacious SAF spokesman, Colonel Al-Sawarmi Khaled Saad: “Tabit is a small village and the number of troops in the military post does not exceed one hundred soldiers” (Sudan Tribune [Khartoum] November 9, 2014)

November 3: Evidently realizing the seriousness of the crimes he and his soldiers have committed,

…the commander, armed with a machine-gun and accompanied by some of his forces, returned to the village and apologised on Monday [November 3], explaining that the missing soldier had been found. He asked for the names of the women and girls and offered to take them to a military hospital in north Darfur. In the immediate aftermath of the attack his soldiers had prevented the women from leaving the village to seek medical treatment. “We refused his apology,” the elder said. “[We] demand the formation of an independent investigation into the crime, and to bring the perpetrators to justice.” Families have fled Tabit for nearby refugee camps. (Ruth Maclean for The Times [London] 6 November 2014)

This account is supported by many other accounts received from the people in Tabit (mainly to Darfuris in the diaspora) as well by reporting from Radio Dabanga. The accounts are consistent and unambiguous.

Tuesday, November 4: UNAMID sends from Shengil Tobaya an investigative patrol that arrives in Tabit at 5:00am; this is when the brief but revealing conversation with several residents of Tabit occurs before being interrupted by several cars of Military Intelligence personnel. If the UNAMID patrol encountered a Sudanese military checkpoint, it would have been north of Tabit, as the patrol was coming from the south, and thus would already have passed through Tabit. None of this figures in either of the press releases issued by UNAMID.

Wednesday, November 5: UNAMID issues a press release claiming that it had immediately sent an investigative patrol to Tabit, but had been turned away at a military checkpoint:

In a press statement today, the Mission cited reports of the alleged mass rape in the town of Tabit, located 45 kilometres southwest of El Fasher, in North Darfur. A UNAMID verification patrol was immediately dispatched to conduct an investigation but upon reaching the outskirts of the town was denied access by Sudanese military at a checkpoint. “The Mission leadership is calling on authorities of the Government of Sudan to grant UNAMID’s unhindered access to all Darfur, especially to areas where alleged incidents affecting civilians have been reported,” the statement read, adding that UNAMID remained “determined to obtain crucial information and leads.” (UN News Center, 5 November 2014)

We might wonder about the “immediacy” of the UNAMID response if this press release comes five days after the brutal assaults had begun in Tabit. Many have asked why UNAMID has such a poor communications network, making delays of this sort commonplace.

But more significant is the lie at the center of this press statement: “a UNAMID verification patrol was immediately dispatched to conduct an investigation but upon reaching the outskirts of the town was denied access by Sudanese military at a checkpoint.” This is simply not true according to eyewitnesses from Tabit. Again, they report that in fact UNAMID did enter Tabit, specifically on Tuesday November 4 at 5:00am. Once in Tabit, UNAMID investigators spoke for at least ten minutes with four villagers at the transportation center in the town. There the UNAMID investigators received full confirmation of the sexual violence that raged from Friday, October 31 to Saturday morning, November 1.

It is a deeply disturbing and all too revealing fact that instead of admitting what investigators had discovered speaking with eyewitnesses, UNAMID claimed the team had been stopped at the checkpoint outside Tabit on November 4. As the conversation between UNAMID investigators and the four villagers continued, four cars containing Military Intelligence personnel roared onto the scene; those Darfuris present quickly walked away. They report that having walked some distance, they watched as Military Intelligence—which has long had the primary security role in Darfur—spoke with UNAMID investigators for half an hour. The UNAMID investigators then returned back to Shengil Tobaya.

Also on Wednesday, November 5, UNAMID is reliably reported to have attempted to investigate the Tabit reports by searching for recently displaced persons from the town at ZamZam displaced persons camp, just outside el-Fasher. No distinction between the two UNAMID missions is evident in the press release.

Thursday, November 6: Military officials impose a 5pm curfew in Tabit, according to a Darfuri reporting source.

Friday, November 7: A European Commission team visiting Kalma camp in South Darfur is apprised of what has occurred in Tabit by the well-established network of camp leaders. Several of the victims in Tabit have made it to ZamZam camp, just outside el-Fasher, and could easily have been interviewed at length by the EC team if it had been provided proper intelligence and weren’t completely under the control of Military Intelligence.

In a press release, Zainab Hawa Bangura, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, declares that,

UNAMID should be given access by the Government of Sudan to investigate and verify whether the incidents reported in the town of Tabit have occurred and, if they have, to ensure accountability. (UN News Center)

This statement comes six days after the frenzy of sexual violence had wound down in Tabit.

Sunday, November 9: The notorious liar and spokesman for the SAF, Colonel Al-Sawarmy Khaled Saad, tells reporters:

“[M]ass rape ‘cannot be committed by any Sudanese institutions, military or otherwise.’ ‘Mass rape is something completely new to us as Sudanese,’ he told a news conference. ‘Tabit is a small village and our operation there is very small, and numbers around 100 soldiers,’ Saad said. (Agence France-Presse [Khartoum] 9 November 2014)

This is not evidence or reasoning but bald assertion, and a misrepresentation of the SAF military presence in Tabit. Certainly we know from reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights, and Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières that “mass rape” is anything but new in Darfur. Such data as we have, coupled with the continuous individual reports coming from Radio Dabanga, strongly suggest that tens of thousands of Darfuri women and girls have been sexually assault over the past twelve years.

Moreover, Saad’s account comports poorly with what has been reported by The Times (London) and Radio Dabanga on the basis of first-hand conversations with the elders of Tabit:

“Commander admits to mass rape by soldiers in North Darfur,” (Radio Dabanga [Tabit] 3 November 2014) – The commander of the soldiers who collectively raped women and girls in Tabit, near El Fasher, on Friday [October 31], admitted that his men committed the mass rape. He also acknowledged that they beat and humiliated the men in Tabit. The villagers have rejected his apology.

There is no indication that UNAMID on Sunday, September 9 pursued this potential line of inquiry—or even knew of it. Moreover, Saad’s explanation of why the UNAMID investigators were initially denied access shows how completely irrelevant the SOFA has become:

The UN-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) said it sent a patrol from state capital El Fasher to Tabit on Tuesday and Sudanese soldiers barred it entry. “We welcomed them, but we asked them about the official permissions which they have to have with them, and they returned to El Fasher,” Saad said. (Agence France-Presse [Khartoum] 9 November 2014)

Saad is echoed by officials in Khartoum, suggesting the regime understands just how serious this particular episode of sexual violence has become:

The special prosecutor for crimes in Darfur on Saturday [November 8] denied the allegations [of rape in Tabit], saying the minister of justice immediately after his return from Qatar ordered to probe the mass rape. The official said they inspected the situation on the ground where “they verified the inaccuracy of what has been circulating in social media, and some of the local radio stations.” He further indicated he contacted the state officials, adding, “all confirmed that the area is free of complaints in this regard.” (Sudan Tribune [Khartoum] 9 November 2014)

Khartoum has never hesitated to lie—brazenly, baldly, or even untenably. It should be noted that the “special prosecutor for crimes in Darfur” has done nothing to bring to justice to any of those responsible for the tens of thousands of rapes that have occurred over the past twelve years, or indeed to do anything to halt the avalanche of violent crimes that have now created a climate of total impunity, no doubt encouraging the behavior of the SAF soldiers from the Tabit garrison. There is no security anywhere in Darfur, and the victims at Tabit are far from alone in facing the continuing genocidal ambitions of a regime that believes assaults on camps and remote villages is a way to “change the demography of Darfur,” to “empty it of African tribes,” as Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal notoriously recommended in August 2004.

Saad announced that as of 3pm, November 9, “UNAMID is now heading to Tabit.”

At the same time, I received from a Darfuri academic in the diaspora, who is in contact with the elders of Tabit, this urgent message:

The commander of the army is angry because the elders refused to accept his bogus apology. The victims are in a desperate need for medical treatment (they are very traumatized) shelter, food and security. The elders whom I spoke with told me that the SAF’s intelligence elements have been threatening them not to speak to any one about the incident. The victims know that they are vulnerable and SAF could continue beating and harassing them. People are willing to speak out but they are very sacred…. The number of the victims is far higher than 200; many family elders refused to reveal or report their victims, [as] they are trying to avoid the stigma and the burden of such situation.

Monday, November 10: UNAMID issues a wholly implausible account, one contradicted by every shred of evidence that has come from the people of Tabit to interlocutors outside Darfur:

The team spent several hours touring the village and interviewing a variety of Tabit’s residents; including community leaders, ordinary men and women, teachers and students to ascertain the veracity of the media reports. Village community leaders reiterated to UNAMID that they coexist peacefully with local military authorities in the area. The team also interviewed the local Sudanese Armed Forces Commander.

None of those interviewed confirmed that any incident of rape took place in Tabit on the day of that media report. The team neither found any evidence nor received any information regarding the media allegations during the period in question.

No mention is made of the fact that this press release is being issued nine days after the worst of the brutality had ended (again, SAF forces responsible for the rapes and beatings left Tabit as of Saturday, November 1). This is evidently in hopes that observers will not draw the obvious conclusion: that during this extended period of time Military Intelligence was able to sanitize the crimes scene, removing any victims who might serve as evidence—and silence all potential witnesses with threats to kill, indeed to kill the entire family of people who spoke the truth about what occurred. As UNAMID has consistently and persuasively demonstrated, it is not about to protect civilians under assault, or to investigate the aftermath of such assaults, no matter what assurances are given by the Status of Forces Agreement:

UNAMID, shall enjoy full and unrestricted freedom of movement without delay throughout Darfur and other areas of Sudan where UNAMID is operating in accordance with its mandate by the most direct route possible, without the need for travel permits or prior authorization or notification….

The SOFA is a preposterous non-document that is utterly irrelevant to the performance of UNAMID and does nothing to guide or constrain Khartoum’s behavior. And because this is so, there will be more Tabits in the future, as there have been too many in the past. This recent event is of further and particular significance because regular SAF soldiers were involved in massive sexual violence; previously this has been largely the work of the Janjaweed and other militia or paramilitary forces (see Appendix Two).

I began an essay in The New Republic (1 February 2008) by recalling a particularly brutal incident from February 2004 involving Janjaweed leader Hilal:

On February 27, 2004, in the Tawilla area of North Darfur, 30 villages were burned to the ground, over 200 were people killed, over 200 girls and women raped (some by up to 14 assailants at a time, in front of their soon-to-be-murdered husbands and fathers), and 150 women and 200 children were abducted. The man who directed this atrocity–and many others of similar barbarity–was Musa Hilal, the most notorious of the Janjaweed militia leaders who have done the genocidal bidding of Khartoum’s National Islamic Front regime for the past five years. The U.S. State Department has publicly identified Hilal as one of six figures most responsible for the Darfur genocide; Human Rights Watch has labeled him the central Janjaweed leader in atrocity crimes.

The brutal attack in Tawilla—which is very close to Tabit—was part of a systematic campaign by the Janjaweed militias, including those led by Hilal, to “change the demography of Darfur and empty it of African tribes,” as Hilal explained in a memo sent to his commanders and to Khartoum’s intelligence services.

And yet again and again we hear in some quarters that now is a different time in Darfur, that the conflict is less violent, that there are mere “remnants” of genocide. These are dangerous half-truths: the “demography” has indeed already been changed, but it continues to change rapidly as internal displacement increases at a staggering rate—more than 2 million people newly displaced since UNAMID took up its mandate in 2008—and more and more non-Arab or African tribal groups have seen their farmlands appropriated as pasturage by Arab militias or opportunistic pastoralists and nomads. The process of “emptying Darfur of Africa tribes” continues unabated, if by different means. In the leaked minutes of an August 31, 2014 meeting of the most senior security and military officials in the regime [ http://wp.me/p45rOG-1wk ], First Vice President Bakri Hassan Saleh offers as part of his concluding recommendations this terse imperative for dealing with Khartoum’s “Darfur problem”:

“Support the mechanism intended to disperse or empty the IDP camps.” [Arabic original at: http://sudanreeves.org/2014/09/29/arabic-original-hand-written-english-translation-of-31-august-2014-meeting/]

The “mechanism” is unspecified. But like the increasingly violent assaults on the IDP camps, incidents such as the massive sexual violence at Tabit give us a sense of just how destructive this “mechanism” is certain to be. Those “dispersed” from the camps will lose access to humanitarian assistance, such as continues to be available, and will have been cast adrift in a land without law and order, where rape, murder, robbery, and other forms of violence are the norm.

APPENDIX ONE: Radio Dabanga dispatch on response of civilians in Tabit to UNAMID finding

Denial of rape case by UNAMID shocks victims Tabit

Radio Dabanga [Tabit] 11 November 2011 – The villagers of Tabit are shocked after UNAMID concluded that it had not found “any evidence or information” about the reported mass rape on Monday. The UN-AU peacekeeping mission visited the village, accompanied by government officials, six days after a verification patrol was denied access to investigate the mass rape of many women and girls in Tabit.

A delegation of five members of the Coordination Committee of Refugees and Displaced Persons in Darfur had also visited the village: “We just returned from Tabit on Friday with a delegation, after two days of investigation. There we met 60 women and girls, we looked into their eyes while they told us they were raped by soldiers from 8 pm [on Friday, October 31] until 5:00am [on Saturday, November 1].

“Then we read the UNAMID statement. It was deeply shocking {audio quote 1} … How can they conclude the rape did not take place? We talked to those women and young girls. We spoke to seven minors, who were raped. We have very strong evidence,” the leader of the committee told Radio Dabanga {audio quote 2}. The committee will hand in a more detailed report on the mass rape in the next coming days, urging the international community not to believe UNAMID and to start independent inquiries.

UNAMID reports not finding evidence

Despite the mounting evidence that the mass rape took place, UNAMID published a statement on Monday 10 November that it “neither found any evidence, nor received any information regarding the allegations in the media during the period in question.” It did not mention that its verification team was accompanied by the government’s security officials.

Prior to the arrival of the UNAMID delegation in Tabit and surrounding settlements, the commissioner of Tawila locality, Alumda Alhadi Abdallah Abdelrahman, openly threatened the population that any person who would speak to UNAMID about the rape, “would face the consequences.” “No one even dared to speak up to UNAMID, they just had to deny everything in front of them,” several attendants explained to Radio Dabanga.

Witnesses’ reports

Radio Dabanga last week recorded testimonies of several victims and two local leaders. They confirmed that government forces raped around 200 women and girls on Friday 31 October, when the soldiers were looking for a comrade that had gone missing in the area. They suspected the local population for being responsible for his disappearance.

One of the witnesses speaking to Radio Dabanga described the arrival of the UNAMID in Tabit on Sunday 9 November: “They only passed by on the main road, but they did not come to us.” According to a UNAMID officer, even national security staff, police forces, and military personnel accompanied the convoy of the UN delegation. “I think that every UNAMID staff member was accompanied by at least three people, from the security, police, or military. No one could speak freely to anyone. When we asked some people in Tabit, they only answered: ‘You should speak to the army commander and the authorities.’” UNAMID confirmed that it also interviewed the local Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Commander during its visit.

Khalid Ewais, a reporter for al-Arabiya TV, tweeted on Monday that a source in Tabit confirmed to him that the army commander and several soldiers ordered the villagers on 8 November not to talk with the UNAMID. “It was very clear for the team that the villagers felt fear, and were not able to talk,” his source said. He added that Sudanese soldiers were taping interviews with their phones and taking photos.

“50 women treated”

A woman who works in a group that helps the victims of the rape, said that UNAMID did not come into the area where they live, and where they had faced the soldiers’ attacks. “We treated at least 50 women. We did it ourselves, but there is nothing to treat them with. We can only throw warm water on them. I am very disappointed with the situation. Many girls still suffer. We can’t send them anywhere; we treat them with only water, like I said.”

In addition, the women group said it had not seen any person from UNAMID: “No, none came here in our area.” UNAMID said that during their 3-hour-visit, it interviewed “a variety of Tabit’s residents; including community leaders, ordinary men and women, teachers and students.” The women speaking to Radio Dabanga cried in disbelief when they heard about he conclusion of UNAMID: “Where is that? How come [they say] nothing happened? And what about all those girls? Here they are suffering…” Two witnesses said that they are ready to testify if they can be protected: “We are ready and I have enough evidence to show, there are many abused girls and they should be medically examined.”

Another witness, who gave the account of his sister being raped, said that he found it painful that they “cannot bring the victims to a hospital, because we need a permit to go there and they will never give it to us.” UNAMID concluded its press statement with its intention to conduct further follow-up actions on the matter, including possible further investigations and patrols “in coordination with relevant host authorities and in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement between the Government of Sudan and UNAMID.”

APPENDIX TWO: Radio Dabanga has reported on a number of other rapes over the past month (for a much fuller account of rape as a weapon of war in Darfur, see:

[1] “Rape as a Continuing Weapon of War in Darfur: Reports, bibliography of studies, a compendium of incidents,” 12 March 2012 | http://sudanreeves.org/2012/03/04/rape-as-a-continuing-weapon-of-war-in-darfur-reports-bibliography-of-studies-a-compendium-of-incidents/

[2] “Rape as a Weapon of War in Darfur,” 11 November 2011 | http://sudanreeves.org/2011/11/20/rape-as-a-weapon-of-war-in-darfur/

[3] “Genocidal Rape and Assault in Darfur” (Dirksen Senate Office Building & Rayburn House Office Building, July 21, 2005 (Sponsored by members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus & the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues) | http://sudanreeves.org/2005/08/12/congressional-briefing-genocidal-rape-and-assault-in-darfur-july-21-2005/

[4] “In Darfur, rape is systematically used as a weapon of warfare,” Jan Egeland, UN Under-secretary for Humanitarian Affairs, June 21, 2005 | http://sudanreeves.org/2005/08/02/rape-as-a-strategic-weapon-of-war-in-darfur-june-21-2005/

From Radio Dabanga:

• Young woman abducted, raped in West Darfur
  SIRBA (9 November 2014) – A 17-year-old displaced woman was kidnapped and raped east of Sirba town, West Darfur, on Saturday. The spokesman for the Sirba camps reported the incident to Radio Dabanga. He said that two members of a pro-government militia attacked the girl in the afternoon as she was working on one of the farms near the camps. They abducted her to Arafa area, where they and other militiamen raped her.

 

• Young women gang-raped in Central Darfur
  NIERTETI (4 November 2014) – Two young women from Neirteti in Central Darfur were repeatedly raped by four militiamen on Monday night. A witness told Radio Dabanga that the two women (25 and 18) were returning from tending their farms on Monday evening. They were seized by a group of for militiamen who raped them repeatedly for 12 hours. Their ordeal lasted intoTuesday morning. The two victims have been taken to hospital in poor mental and physical condition. The source said that while the incident was reported, nothing has been done owing to lack of police in the area.

 

• Soldiers rape two women in East Jebel Marra, Darfur

EAST JEBEL MARRA (29 October 2014) – Three members of the Sudan Armed Forces [the identity of the rapists is of considerable significance—ER] raped two young women in the area of Khazan Tunjur in East Jebel Marra on Tuesday. A relative of one of the women told Radio Dabanga that army troops stationed in the area of Khazan Tunjur assaulted the two young women, while they were tending their farmlands today (Wednesday). “The farmlands are located within 5 km from the military garrison,” the source explained. “They raped the women alternately, after which they left them in very bad physical and mental state.”

• Girl raped by three gunmen in Central Darfur
  NIERTETI LOCALITY (27 October 2014) – A 15-year-old girl was gang-raped in Nierteti locality, Central Darfur, on Sunday. “Three militiamen attacked the girl while she was tending her farmland in the area of Boruru, east of Nierteti town, on Sunday,” a relative of the victim reported to Radio Dabanga. “They raped her alternately,” he said. “Passers-by found her lying on the ground in a bad physical and mental state, and transferred her to Nierteti hospital for treatment.”

 

• Three women raped by seven men in North Darfur

TAWILA LOCALITY (16 October 2014) – Militiamen gang-raped three women of Rwanda camp for the displaced in Tawila locality, North Darfur, today. “Seven Janjaweed on camels and wearing military uniforms assaulted three women of Rwanda camp while they were tending their farmland in the area of Bir Timsah, 3 km west of Tawila town,” a relative of one of the victims reported to Radio Dabanga. “They raped the women, 21, 25, and 27 years-old, alternately.” The source called on the authorities and UNAMID to “protect the displaced women, and put an end to abuses of the government-backed militiamen.”

• Two women raped for six hours in South Darfur
  KASS LOCALITY (8 October 2014) – Gunmen gang-raped two young women in South Darfur on Tuesday. “The women (22 and 17) were assaulted while they were tending their farmland in the area of Erli, Kass locality, on Tuesday afternoon,” an activist told Radio Dabanga from Kass town. “Janjaweed on camels and horses beat the women before they raped both alternately for six hours. The victims were transferred in a bad physical and mental condition to a hospital in Kass for treatment,” the source added.
• Two women gang-raped in Darfur’s East Jebel Marra
  EAST JEBEL MARRA (6 October 2014) – On Monday morning, two women were gang-raped in the area of Dubo in East Jebel Marra. “The women were on their way from Faluja village, located 5 km south of Dubo, to a nearby village to visit relatives on the occasion of Eid El Adha, when three Janjaweed on camels assaulted them,” a relative of the victims reported to Radio Dabanga. “The Janjaweed, who wore military uniforms, raped the two women (27 and 21) alternately at gunpoint. The gunmen then left the victims, taking their money, sweets and dates with them.” The relative said that the victims were transferred to Dubo El Madrasa, where they received traditional treatment, as there are no health services in the area.

Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA01063
413-585-3326
ereeves@smith.edu

Skype: ReevesSudan

Website: www.sudanreeves.org

Eric Reeves’ book-length study of greater Sudan (Compromising With Evil: An archival history of greater Sudan, 2007 – 2012; www.CompromisingWithEvil.org; review commentary at: http://wp.me/p45rOG-15S)

More Lies from UNAMID: False Representation of an Investigation of Mass Rapes at Tabit, North Darfur

Eric Reeves, 6 November 2014

In the immediate wake of the UN’s whitewashing of UNAMID’s past failures to report, and prevent, atrocity crimes in Darfur (see below), the Mission has now deliberately and consequentially lied about an investigation of the rape of some 200 girls and women in the Tabit area of North Darfur. Tabit (13.313°N | 25.087°E) is some 30 miles southwest of el-Fasher, capital of North Darfur and the location of UNAMID headquarters. From el-Fasher UNAMID, were it willing, is capable of projecting all necessary military protection needed for the investigation of serious crimes committed at such a short distance. UNAMID has declared to various news agencies, including Reuters and Agence-France Presse, that their team sent to investigate this ghastly episode in unconstrained sexual violence was prevented from entering Tabit by Khartoum’s security forces. This not only bespeaks a crippled mission but is also deeply false.

Darfuri eyewitnesses from Tabit have reported to multiple sources, including this writer, that UNAMID did in fact enter Tabit, specifically on Tuesday at 5:00am. Once in Tabit, UNAMID investigators spoke for at least ten minutes with four villagers at the transportation center in the town. There the UNAMID investigators received full confirmation of the sexual violence that raged from Friday, October 31 to Sunday afternoon, November 2. It is a deeply disturbing and all too revealing fact that instead of admitting what investigators had discovered speaking with eyewitnesses, UNAMID claimed the team had been stopped at the checkpoint outside Tabit. As the conversation between UNAMID investigators and the four villagers continued, four cars containing Military Intelligence personnel roared onto the scene; those present quickly walked away. They report that having walked some distance, they watched as Military Intelligence—which has long had the primary security role in Darfur—spoke with UNAMID investigators for half an hour. The UNAMID investigators then returned back to El Fasher.

But this is what has been reported, on the basis of UNAMID statements, by news agencies (here the UN News Center, 5 November 2014):

The African Union-United Nations hybrid mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has expressed its “deep concern” about allegations circulating in local media over the mass rape of 200 women and girls in a town in the region’s North, declaring that it is conducting a thorough investigation into the veracity of the claims.

In a press statement today, the Mission cited reports of the alleged mass rape in the town of Tabit, located 45 kilometres southwest of El Fasher, in North Darfur. A UNAMID verification patrol was immediately dispatched to conduct an investigation but upon reaching the outskirts of the town was denied access by Sudanese military at a checkpoint. “The Mission leadership is calling on authorities of the Government of Sudan to grant UNAMID’s unhindered access to all Darfur, especially to areas where alleged incidents affecting civilians have been reported,” the statement read, adding that UNAMID remained “determined to obtain crucial information and leads.”

But all these claims are belied by the fact that UNAMID investigators, even in the course of a ten-minute conversation with Tabit villagers, were able to confirm the basic facts about the horrific events: that some 200 girls and women were in fact raped (and here Military Intelligence did nothing to intervene) from October 31 to November 2 in the Tabit area. UNAMID was not “denied access by Sudanese military at a checkpoint”: they allowed themselves to be expelled from the scene of what they themselves had already confirmed was a massive atrocity crime. There is no reconciling these two accounts of the investigative failure of the UNAMID mission; clearly the fabrication of how events unfolded was meant to spare, yet again, UNAMID leadership from the task of reporting such crimes and thereby angering Khartoum.

[It is worth recalling that Tabit has been the target of previous violence: On 17 August 2012, following evening prayers, the town was attacked by Khartoum’s paramilitary Central Reserve Police. The assault had hallmarks of a deliberate massacre, and was part of the violence that escalated dramatically in summer 2012.]

[An account of what precipitated this extraordinary violence has been compelling presented by The Times (London), 6 November 2014; see Appendix 1]

Defending UNAMID at the cost of the truth

The recent UN report on UNAMID’s performance—coming in the waking of authoritative accusations of malfeasance, negligence, and mendacity by Aicha Elbasri, former UNAMID spokeswoman—has not been released publicly, but Colum Lynch of Foreign Policy has posted the text in connection with his current analysis of the findings; Lynch broke the original story in Foreign Policy in which Ms. Elbasri’s account of UNAMID’s deliberate under-reporting and non-reporting of serious crimes was presented in very considerable and persuasive detail.

What we have been told in the report is woefully inadequate, and doesn’t begin to address countless events in which UNAMID has failed to protect or report atrocity crimes since assuming its mandate to do both in January 2008 (the time-frame for events investigated is less than a year, Ms. Elbashri’s tenure as UNAMID spokeswoman). Despite withholding information, despite changing the names of perpetrators when forces of the Khartoum regime are involved, despite remaining silent about Khartoum’s threat to attack UNAMID, and despite failing to report what are clearly war crimes, the world is evidently expected to take Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s dismay as adequate in speaking to the contents of this report:

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he is “deeply troubled” by the findings of a review conducted into recent allegations that the UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan’s Darfur region intentionally sought to cover up crimes against civilians and peacekeepers.

In a statement released today by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban said he will take “all necessary steps to ensure full and accurate reporting by [the joint mission],” so that sensitive information is systematically brought to the attention of UN Headquarters and the Security Council in a timely manner. (UN News Center, 29 October 2014)

But the “statement” by Ban referred to here declares, outrageously:

A review, initiated by the Secretary-General, was conducted into recent allegations that the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) intentionally sought to cover up crimes against civilians and peacekeepers. The Review Team examined all the material related to 16 incidents, which were the basis of these allegations. It also interviewed former and current staff in UNAMID and at UN Headquarters. The Review Team did not find any evidence to support these allegations.

Incredibly, Ban is speaking here of a report that contains only five examples, but each of them extraordinarily revealing (all but one from North Darfur alone):

• Tawilla (North Darfur): UNAMID failed to share with DPKO a copy of the verification report on the attacks, rapes and looting at four villages in Tawilla by pro-Government forces. As a consequence and while the initial incident was brought to the attention of the Security Council, the verified findings were neither brought to the attention of Council members nor included in the Secretary-General’s report to the Security Council.
• Kushina (North Darfur): In reporting an aggressive overflight by two Government attack helicopters, UNAMID did not report to UNHQ the verbal threat by the Government to bomb/attack the convoy from the air or mention that it was carrying an arms expert from the Panel of Experts on the Sudan. Full disclosure of the incident only came to the knowledge of the Security Council through an incident report from the Panel of Experts.
• Hashaba (North Darfur): There was reasonable evidence, including as reported internally within UNAMID, that members of the Border Guards were involved in this attack and went on to commit crimes and human rights abuses. This was not reported by UNAMID to UNHQ nor was there ever a public statement issued condemning the criminal action.

 

• Sigili (North Darfur): UNAMID chose not to report to UNHQ the threat by PDF members to identify and kill Zaghawas travelling in a UNAMID convoy carrying two Zaghawa villagers. The patrol returned to base only after the PDF searched the UN vehicles and began aggressive questioning of Sudanese national staff of UNAMID. The Mission reported the patrol as being aborted due to time lost at a check point, making it unable to fulfill its mission.
• Muhajeria Team Sit (South Darfur): There was considerable evidence and reason to believe that the fatal attack on this Team Site was carried out by pro-Government forces. A military investigation, the report of an integrated mission and the report by the Panel of Experts on the Sudan all confirm this. Although there were two attacks that night, only the second and fatal attack was ever reported publicly. DPKO described the attackers as “unidentified assailants” due to lack of certainty in the identity and affiliation of the assailants. The Government agreed to investigate, but after more than a year justice has still not been done.
  [The exceedingly brief and weirdly incomplete UNAMID statement on the occasion of the attack on Muhajeria may be found here.]

What is the difference between “not reporting” and “covering up”? It is a question that has been asked by, among others, former members of the UN Panel of Experts for Darfur. This is UN double-speak at its very worst.

Moreover, as the events at Tabit make perfectly clear, UNAMID is committed to defending itself in the face of massive failure by any means possible, and “full and accurate reporting” is not among them. Ban Ki-moon, for his part, even when presented with evidence of UNAMID’s failures to report serious crimes and violations of international law, cannot do more than urge what amounts to some corrective action in reporting protocols.

UNAMID is not a mission that can be fixed, or re-tooled, or made into an effective reporting or protective force; it is a mission that has failed and this failure has been consistently obscured by both African Union senior officials and UN officials, including Hervé Ladsous, head of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. So desperate has Ladsous been in defending the largest and most expensive UN peacekeeping operation in the world, even as he knows full well that it is failing, that he has in the past attempted to begin a draw-down of UNAMID forces, claiming that the security situation was improving and that the size of UNAMID should be dictated by the “reality on the ground”:

UN Peacekeeping Chief Hervé Ladsous is recommending that the organization drawdown its UN-African Union peacekeeping force in the Darfur region of Sudan by more than 4,000 troops and police in the coming months. Ladsous said Thursday that improvements on the ground justify the move. (Voice of America, 25 April 2012)

In fact, the surge in violence and insecurity in Darfur that continues to the present was well underway at the time Ladsous made these hideously expedient remarks. Ladsous remains head of UN peacekeeping, even as his response to Darfur is only one of a number of failings.

Serious action is long overdue in holding the UN Secretariat accountable for enabling the lies and failures of UNAMID. The people of Darfur are owed at least a truthful account of their suffering and losses. This most recent internal report on serious allegations, which are essentially dismissed, should galvanize at least the U.S. and European missions to the UN to speak out and demand that Darfur’s truths be spoken publicly. Given past performance, however, this is unlikely. The task of speaking the truth about UNAMID and the spineless performance of Ban Ki-moon over the past six years is evidently too daunting. This is especially true when it comes to the African Union Peace and Security Council, now deeply invested in making of UNAMID a success story. Indeed, the AUPSC has already declared that UNAMID offers a model worth “emulating” in future African Union peacekeeping missions. Such unchallenged mendacity is not the least disgraceful part of the international response to genocide in Darfur.

Appendix 1:

“Soldiers raped 200 women and girls in Darfur,” The Times (London), 6 November 2014; Ruth Maclean, Johannesburg

Sudanese soldiers raped more than 200 women and girls in Darfur last week, according to villagers. An elder from the village of Tabit said a military commander at a nearby garrison accused the villagers last Friday of harbouring a missing soldier and gave them until sunset to return him. The villagers had no knowledge of the soldier, but when night fell, soldiers surrounded Tabit, beat the men and chased them away, before raping the women and girls, including eight primary school pupils. The commander, armed with a machinegun and accompanied by some of his forces, returned to the village and apologised on Monday, explaining that the missing soldier had been found.

He asked for the names of the women and girls and offered to take them to a military hospital in north Darfur. In the immediate aftermath of the attack his soldiers had prevented the women from leaving the village to seek medical treatment. “We refused his apology,” the elder said. “[We] demand the formation of an independent investigation into the crime, and to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

Families have fled Tabit for nearby refugee camps.

“In Darfur: The Rape of Halima,” Huffington Post

Eric Reeves, 3 December 2014

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-reeves/in-darfur-the-rape-of-hal_b_6258514.html

The twelve-year-old girl from Hamidiya camp in West Darfur would have been only a year old as genocidal violence swept across all of Darfur in early 2003. As the violence accelerated through 2004 and beyond, it became increasingly clear that twelve-year-old girls, indeed all girls and women, were being targeted by the Arab militia forces of the Khartoum regime–the Janjaweed–as a deliberate tactic in a genocidal counter-insurgency campaign. Rape was a weapon of war; and the targets were the non-Arab or African girls and women from a civilian population perceived by Khartoum’s National Congress Party/National Islamic Front regime as supporting the rebellion that had exploded out of years of neglect, marginalization, lack of a functioning judiciary and effective police force, and Khartoum’s asymmetric arming of Arab groups (continuous since the late 1980s).

On Sunday, November 30, 2014, this twelve-year-old girl from Hamidiya camp was, as reported by the remarkable news organization Radio Dabanga, raped by “two militiamen”:

The girl was collecting straw at Wadi Azum, at about one and a half km from the camp, when she was intercepted by two gunmen on horses. “These Janjaweed raped her alternately,” a relative of the victim told Radio Dabanga. (December 1, 2014)

The girl was found sometime later in bad condition and in need of immediate medical attention. But while her relatives “brought her immediately to a hospital, they refused to treat her without a copy of a filed complaint and Form 8.” Form 8* is an intrusive, gratuitous burden, and designed to do nothing more than deter rape victims from seeking medical assistance without the knowledge of police or security officials. Given the extraordinary stigma attaching to rape in Darfur’s conservative Muslim culture, few victims seek this critical document. And when they do, it may be denied–and in the worst case, the rape victim charged with adultery. In this case Form 8 was secured–after a long delay–and medical treatment began…24 hours after the sexual assault on a young girl with potentially life-threatening injuries.

For rapes are in Darfur particularly brutal; they are meant to send a clear, vicious signal of terror. And yet for girls and women, the task of gathering straw, firewood, and water remains critical: men or boys attempting the same tasks will be killed. Leaving the camps for displaced persons has become an immensely dangerous undertaking, and yet life in the camps demands these trips. Humanitarian provisions are not nearly adequate in many locations–either of food, water, or primary medical care.

There is, and has been for more than ten years, an avalanche of sexual violence in Darfur. Even before the recent rape of some 200 girls and women in Tabit town by Khartoum’s regular forces, the numbers were staggering. During more than a decade of conflict in Darfur, the evidence at hand–anecdotal and systematic–makes clear that tens of thousands of women and girls have been raped.

But all this information begins to blur the reality experienced by one terrified twelve-year-old girl as she was serially raped by Arab militiamen near what may well have been her home for the entire life she can remember. She may also have been genitally circumcised by this point in her life, and sexual penetration of her vagina, by two men with no interest in anything but hurting and humiliating her–was almost certainly excruciating, at least for the time that she was conscious. Even at twelve this girl will know that the fact of her rape will become common knowledge and have serious consequences for her marital prospects, her self-respect, and her attitude toward life.Many Darfuri women who have been raped confess to suicidal thoughts.

Perhaps all that can be said of this girl is that her family was spared the agony of being forced to witness the brutalizing of their daughter, their sister, their niece, their cousin, their friend. Such unintended mercy is not always the case; on the contrary, it is more typical that rapes (certainly earlier in the conflict) occurred in the presence of witnesses, to make the effect of sexual assault more conspicuous–more “memorable.” Here is a terse but representative account of sexual violence at its most extreme; it occurred near the Tawilla area of North Darfur, and was overseen by Musa Hilal, the most notorious of the Janjaweed commanders:

In an attack on 27 February [2004] in the Tawilah area of northern Darfur, 30 villages were burned to the ground, over 200 people killed and over 200 girls and women raped–some by up to 14 assailants and in front of their fathers who were later killed. A further 150 women and 200 children were abducted. (UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, 22 March 2004)

I am the father of two daughters and simply cannot imagine a more soul-destroying sight than one’s own child raped, and raped in the most brutal, physically and psychically destructive fashion possible. That the fate of so many fathers was to endure this agony and then be slaughtered is beyond moral comprehension, and in this is all too emblematic of Darfur. Also morally incomprehensible is the world’s willingness to allow such savagery to continue. Ignorance, disingenuousness, mendacity, cowardice, expediency–all are part of the explanation for international acquiescence, somehow supposed to be have been made slightly more acceptable by virtue of the presence of a badly failing UN/African Union “hybrid” force. The force was by virtue of its design and Khartoum’s unrelenting hostility a disaster from the beginning; the regime has made nonsense of the mission’s mandate of civilian protection and supposed “freedom of movement” by all force personnel.

We are likely never to know the name of this twelve-year-old girl raped near Hamidiya camp in what was formerly West Darfur. But that anonymity should not matter, even as it is in itself part of an appalling reality: so many hundreds of thousands of victims killed, raped, wounded, and dying from the effects of violence–so many victims never given the dignity of even being registered in this ghastly chronicle by name or fate. So I will call this young victim “Halima,” and declare that the rape of Halima is an intolerable outrage, and that a world that pretends otherwise, by any of the various means continually on display, has lost any claim on moral authority. And I will insist that she be named: Halima, Halima, Halima….

The risks of sexual assault faced by women and girls is intolerable

***************

Form 8 as described by Radio Dabanga:

In Sudan, medical evidence of an assault is admitted solely via the so-called Form 8. It can be issued only by police stations, or approved hospitals and clinics. Critics state that Form 8 is “glaringly inadequate,” as sufficient medical evidence is often very difficult to obtain.

It might also be said that sometimes the medical evidence is too embarrassing to officials claims that there is no problem with rape in Darfur, claims implicitly validated by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who typically gives short shrift to sexual violence in his reports on Darfur and UNAMID—ER

On Friday, October 31st the residents of Tabit were terrorized by government soldiers from the nearby military garrison south of El Fasher in Northern Darfur.

The solders first arrived in town on Friday morning. The commander falsely accused the citizens of kidnapping one of his soldiers and gave the town until evening to return him. The men and women of Tabit were not prepared for the night of horror which was to come.

The government soldiers returned at 8pm that night. They beat the civilians with the butts of their rifles and chased all of the men out of the village. The soldiers stayed until 4 am the next morning, raping approximately 200 women and girls. 80 of their victims were school girls, 105 of them were girls who were unmarried, while the rest were women who were married.

The men were only allowed back into the village after the soldiers had left, leaving behind dozens of wounded in desperate need of medical attention. The residents, however, have not yet been able to transfer their wounded to other towns or to medical centers. Therefore they are unable to leave Tabit, trapped without medical attention and surrounded by the worst night of their lives.

Darfur Womens Action Group condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the terrible criminal action of these soldiers and the government of Sudan who allows them to continue to rampage without regard for basic international human rights. We demand accountability for the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes.

We call upon the international community, the UN but also individual governments around the world. They must help the victims of Darfur, who have been suffering for the past 10 years, living in constant fear. The international community must also hold the Sudanese government, and the soldiers, accountable for their actions. The world can no longer look the other way while innocent lives are ruined forever.

This inhumane act against women demonstrates the fact that because of the impunity for previous crimes as well as the silence and inaction of the international community, these horrific crimes have continued. This is inhumane and intolerable. If world leaders are failing their responsibility to protect, then we the citizens must not remain silent.

We must unite our voices to denounce this cruel act of brutality and demand protection and justice for the women of Darfur.

The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

The Overlooked Plight of the People of Darfur

The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women was marked on November 25th. During the launch of this day, the United Nations held a conference during which UNESCO’s Goodwill Ambassador Forest Whitaker made a speech calling for the protection of women around the world and for stakeholders to end the violence against women.

( http://www.cctv-america.com/2014/11/15/actor-forest-whitaker-an-ambassador-of-peace )

Mr. Whitaker also spoke to the Youth Peace Network members, he urged them to seize the moment and speak out against the continuing violence against women. He paraphrased the UN by saying that violence against women and girls is the most widespread violation of human rights.

We at Darfur Women Action Group appreciate the UN and Mr. Whitaker’s statements concerning the world wide atrocities of violence against women. However we regret that in marking this important day the UN and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador has largely ignored the horrendous acts in Tabit, where 200 girls and young women were raped in a single night, not to mention the situation for women in Darfur. This is very disappointing to us and to Darfuri and Sudanese women on the ground in Sudan. The UN cannot ignore such inhuman acts, it’s imperative that an event such as Tabit is remembered, brought to the world’s attention, and acknowledged on the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women to recognize the suffering of those who have been victimized by their own government.

On this occasion we stood in solidarity with the women in Darfur and the entirety of Sudan, by doing this we renewed our commitment to fight for the right of those who have been oppressed. We further renewed our call to our supporters to continue to promote our petitions until a concert action is taken by the UNto provide adequateprotect forwomen, men and children in Darfur. Our petition to the UN Security Council addresses not only the short term issues that arouse due to Tabit, but also long term issues. We have asked for an open investigation by UNAMID into what happened in Tabit and that the perpetrators of this horrendous crime be brought to justice. For the long term solutions we ask the UN to allow that humanitarian aid be allowed into every part of Sudan, and that UNAMID offer more protection to civilians.

We are pleased that the UN has recently issued a statement asking for a transparent investigation by UNAMID as well as full access to Tabit, unrestricted by government soldiers and the perpetrators brought to trial. This is precisely what our petition asked for concerning short term solutions. The UN however has yet to address the issue of long term solutions such as protection of the people of Darfur. (link to the UN statement concerning Tabit http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49385#.VG0bgCjUaC1 ) Words must be matched with deeds and the deed that we want to see is that, investigation and accountability must be achieved. Unhindered humanitarian access and protection of the vulnerable must be prioritized by the UNSC and the UN peace keeping in Darfur.

We therefore ask the UN Security Council to effectively respond to our demands for long term solutions and continue to address the issue of Tabit and violence against women in Darfur at large. This heinous crime committed in Darfur is not one that can be forgotten, we cannot let the long suffering of women of Darfur, including the recent 200 girls and young women, go without justice. We urge our readers to join us in speaking up for women’s rights in Darfur and Sudan. Please sign our petition in order to make your voice heard, and to make a lasting change in Darfur and Sudan at large.

(petition https://www.change.org/p/un-security-council-protect-the-people-of-darfur?recruiter=25940690&utm_campaign=mailto_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition )