Comenzamos el especial de los sucesos de mayo con una redacción de las memorias de Manuel Azaña. Intentaremos ser imparcial y colocar diferentes visiones deurante estas semanas.
Cuaderno de La Pobleta
Manuel Azaña, presidente de la República1937
20 de mayo
Han pasado tantas cosas en estos quince días que no me será fácil contarlas, por lo menos con algún orden (...).
Empiezo por lo de Barcelona, muy grave, y que ha podido ser la escena final, por lo menos, en cuanto a mí se refiere. No quiero entretenerme en los antecedentes, porque sería muy largo. Hay para escribir un libro con el espectáculo que ofrece Cataluña, en plena disolución. Ahí no queda nada: Gobierno, partidos, autoridades, servicios públicos, fuerza armada; nada existe. Es asombroso que Barcelona se despierte cada mañana para ir cada cual a sus ocupaciones. La inercia. Nadie está obligado a nada, nadie quiere ni puede exigirle a otro su obligación. Histeria revolucionaria, que pasa de las palabras a los hechos para asesinar y robar; ineptitud de los gobernantes; inmoralidad, cobardía, ladridos y pistoletazos de una sindical contra otra, engreímiento de advenedizos, insolencia de separatistas, deslealtad, disimulo, palabrería de fracasados, explotación de la guerra para enriquecerse, negativa a la organización de un ejército, parálisis de las operaciones, gobiernitos de cabecillas independientes en Puigcerdá, La Seo, Lérida, Fraga, Hospitalet, Port de la Selva, etcétera. Debajo de todo eso, la gente común, el vecindario pacífico, suspirando por un general que mande y se lleve la autonomía, el orden público, la FAI [Federación Anarquista Ibérica], en el mismo escobazo.
Todos estaban inquietos. Companys hablaba a tontas y locas de dar la batalla a los anarquistas, pero no tenía ganas ni medios. Al parecer, el más enérgico era el consejero de Seguridad, Aiguadé, asistido por un comisario o jefe de Seguridad, Rodríguez Salas, renegado de la CNT, buen conocedor de sus gentes, a las que odia y que lo odian (...) En tal situación, el lunes 3 de mayo se le ocurre a Aiguadé ocupar por la fuerza la Telefónica, para instalar en ella a un comisario del Gobierno. La Telefónica estaba en poder de la CNT y de la UGT, habiéndola repartido por pisos. Aiguadé no dio cuenta de su decisión a los demás consejeros de la Generalidad y, según me ha contado Tarradellas, a él se lo dijo cuando ya tenía dadas las órdenes. Tarradellas me asegura que le pareció aventurada la decisión de Aiguadé, porque no contaban con medios para vencer las resistencias que hubiese; pero le dejó hacer, sin duda por el hábito de que cada cual hiciese cuando se le antojara e incapacidad de mandar (...).
(...) Los guardias de asalto, enviados por Aiguadé, se presentaron ante la Telefónica. Los recibieron a tiros, ocuparon la planta baja, ignoro si alguna otra más. Desde ese momento, empezó el motín. Cuando supimos todo esto en mi residencia, telefoneamos a Aiguadé. Nos dijo que no ocurría nada grave, y que tenía preparada la fórmula para arreglarlo. Creo que la fórmula consistía en dejar las cosas como estaban antes, aunque con los guardias en la planta baja del edificio. Vinieron a decirnos que fuera de las verjas del parque circulaban grupos sospechosos. Se le comunicó a Aiguadé: Los grupos eran pocos, incontrolados, y se retirarían enseguida, gracias a la fórmula. Ordené que cerrasen las verjas y pregunté cuánta gente teníamos. ¡Casualidad! Toda la Escolta estaba de paseo y no volvería hasta las nueve, si la dejaban entrar. Teníamos doce hombres y un cabo. Ningún oficial, excepto el ayudante de servicio. En estas condiciones, se trató de buscar a Viqueira, que ya había salido del cine para su casa. Como las calles podían estar peligrosas, se pidió a Aiguadé que enviase protección a Viqueira para traérmelo; pero, suponiendo yo que no lo haría, mandé uno de los coches de nuestra policía, con cuatro agentes. Entonces se descubrió la gravedad de la situación.
En la puerta del parque, los grupos se acercaron al coche, desarmaron a sus ocupantes, estuvieron a punto de asesinar al conductor y los obligaron a volver atrás. "Las pistolas -dijeron- se las pedís a Eroles." Cuando subieron a contarme el caso, quise llamar por teléfono a Valencia para comunicar con el Gobierno. La telefonista me dijo: "En la central se niegan a dar conferencias para Valencia" (La fórmula de Aiguadé no había, pues, servido). Cuando me disponía a utilizar el telégrafo, llama por teléfono Bolívar, desde Valencia. Admitían aún las llamadas desde fuera de Barcelona, pero no a la inversa (...) Aproveché la llamada de Bolívar, le conté lo que pasaba y le encargué que inmediatamente informara de todo al jefe del Gobierno, a quien se le ocurrió llamar a Companys. Bolívar me transmitió, hora y media más tarde, la respuesta. Companys dijo que el suceso no tenía importancia, que los pequeños grupos se habían retirado y que inmediatamente el primer consejero de la Generalidad acudiría a mi residencia para presentarme sus excusas (...).
En vista de las seguridades de Aiguadé respecto de su fórmula, decidí enviar otra expedición de policías. También los desarmaron y obligaron al coche a volverse. Oída de Bolívar la respuesta del jefe del Gobierno, le encargué que le visitase de nuevo, haciéndole saber que no se podía entrar en mi residencia ni salir de ella, que estábamos asediados y que Barcelona caía en pleno motín. Que lo de darme excusas era una estupidez o una añagaza para no descubrir de verdad al Gobierno. Que yo no era en Barcelona el embajador de Inglaterra o de los Estados Unidos a cuyo cocinero han apaleado y detenido los agentes de la autoridad, al cual se apresura a dar explicaciones y a prometer el castigo de los infractores. Que yo no estaba agraviado con la Generalidad en la persona de mis policías, pues lo que ocurría era una rebelión o un motín muy grave. Que sobraban las excusas y se echaban de menos las medidas de gobierno, etcétera.
No supe más del Gobierno aquella noche, aunque me consta que Bolívar consiguió levantar de la cama al presidente del Consejo. Cenamos tarde. Terminábamos, ya cerca de las once, cuando se presentó Tarradellas. Venía tan aturdido que, en lugar de ir a mi despacho, se dirigió al comedor. Desde la Generalidad, de donde había salido después de las nueve, nos habían preguntado dos veces, con alarma, si Tarradellas estaba con nosotros. No sabíamos nada de él, y temimos por su suerte. Llegó. Había tardado hora y media desde la Generalidad hasta el Parlamento. Le obligaron a apearse del coche en todas las barricadas (por él supe que estaban haciéndolas) y a parlamentar largamente, humillándolo. Cuando quiso empezar el tema de las excusas, recalcándolo con que estaba avergonzado como catalán, le atajé, repitiéndole las observaciones ya apuntadas a Bolívar para el presidente del Consejo. "No ha lugar a excusas, sino a dominar el motín, y por lo que a mí toca, a garantizar mi seguridad y la libertad de mis movimientos." Me confesó que el Gobierno de la Generalidad no dominaba en la calle; que las fuerzas estaban en los cuarteles, pero no las sacaban, porque sacándolas, habría tiroteo. "Con tal de que no lo haya -le dije-, consienten ustedes que Barcelona esté en poder de los anarquistas."
(...) Toda la noche estuvieron los revoltosos dueños de la ciudad, levantando barricadas, ocupando edificios y puntos importantes, sin que nadie se lo estorbase. Además se reprodujeron las entradas en las casas, y los paseos. Se oían algunos tiros (...) Lo que me desazonaba y enfadaba era el escándalo que iba a darse en el mundo con esta rebelión, la utilidad que sacarían de ella los otros rebeldes, y la repercusión de todo ello en la guerra (...).
El martes, poco antes de las ocho, nos despertó el fuego. Se oía un estruendo descomunal, de ametralladoras, morteros, fusilería y bombas de mano. Toda el área del parque estaba rodeada. Frente a la salida de mi residencia, los revoltosos ocupaban la estación de Francia, con ametralladoras en una azotea, y las casas del Borne, cortando el camino hacia el paseo de Colón. Tenían también el paseo de San Juan, la estación del Norte y las vías que comunican con la de Francia (...).
En toda la ciudad había fuego. Funcionaba el teléfono dentro de la población y pudimos preguntar a algunos sitios. En todas partes, lo mismo. No pudiendo hablar por teléfono con Valencia y estando sin noticias del Gobierno, me serví del telégrafo. Por suerte, no se habían apoderado del centro telegráfico. Me pusieron en comunicación con la presidencia del Consejo. El presidente no había llegado. Se puso al habla el subsecretario de Guerra. Le recordé el aviso verbal dado la noche antes por Bolívar, le conté lo que estaba sucediendo y le ordené que se lo comunicase al presidente y me diese cuenta de las medidas que adoptase. Prometió hacerlo. Pero no volví a saber nada del presidente del Consejo, ni me llamó, ni me envió recado alguno. ¡No sé qué habrá de ocurrir en España para que al presidente del Consejo se le ocurra hablar con el de la República!
Desde que Tarradellas se fue de mi residencia, el lunes por la noche, hasta el viernes por la mañana, en que salí de Barcelona, nadie de la Generalidad ha preguntado por mí, ni ha tratado de hablarme, ni se ha interesado por nuestra situación. Era más que una grosería escandalosa, era un acto de hostilidad sorda, pues ninguno de aquellos hombres desconocía mis juicios sobre la política que seguían y muchos habían oído mis advertencias. Añadiré que en toda Barcelona solamente dos personas llamaron preguntando por mí: Guimet y Trabal. Nadie más. ¡Temían comprometerse!
El martes, muy temprano, Aiguadé envió unos guardias para proteger la verja del parque. Galarza me ha dicho después que Aiguadé le aseguró haber enviado quinientos hombres. A nosotros nos dijo Aiguadé que enviaba ciento cincuenta. En realidad, fueron ochenta. Se parapetaron en la verja, para responder al fuego que hacían desde la estación y el Borne. El comandante fue herido en seguida, y le tuvimos en una cama de nuestra casa hasta que se lo llevaron al hospital. Cayó muerto el alférez (...)
lunes, 23 de abril de 2007
domingo, 22 de abril de 2007
Responsibility to Protect in 2007: Five Thoughts for Policy Makers
Presentation by Gareth Evans, President of the International Crisis Group, to Panel Discussion on The Responsibility to Protect: Ensuring Effective Protection of Populations under Threat of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, Program to Commemorate 1994 Rwandan Genocide, United Nations, New York, 13 April 2007
The anniversary each year of the Rwandan genocide is an occasion not only to remember, as we must, the almost indescribable horrors that men and women are capable of inflicting on each other when restraint, and principle and governance and international commitment all break down – and Rwanda remains the most terrible benchmark of modern times of such personal and institutional failure – but also to take stock of how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go, in ensuring that another Rwanda really will never again happen.To focus the ongoing discussion, I want to make, as succinctly as I can, five main points:
the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle remains the best starting point we have, or are ever likely to have in preventing and responding to genocides and mass atrocities;
we need to recognise, nonetheless, that the R2P principle is still at risk, and have to work hard to hold the line against backsliding;
even with the R2P principle itself firmly consolidated, there is still unfinished conceptual business to attend to;
there is much unfinished practical, capacity-building business to attend to; and there is unfinished political business to attend to.
1. R2P as the Starting PointIt has taken the world an insanely long time to come to terms conceptually with the idea that state sovereignty is not a license to kill – that there is something fundamentally and intolerably wrong about states murdering or forcibly displacing large numbers of their own citizens, or standing by when others do so. We didn’t get it right in any of the decades, or even centuries, before World War II, where – with only a handful of exceptions – there was almost complete indifference to what states did internally, or in their own spheres of imperial or other interest.We began to get it right, after the awful experience of the Holocaust, with the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention, but still gave too much primacy to Article 2.7 of the UN Charter with its stricture that ‘Nothing should authorise intervention in matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state’.With the unfolding series of horrors in the 1990s, there were serious attempts made again to get it right. There was the coining of the idea of ‘droit d’ingerence’ – the ‘right to intervene’ or, more fully, the ‘right of humanitarian intervention’ – but this enraged as many as it inspired, and reinforced rather than bridged a perception-gulf between the global North and the global South. And there was Kofi Annan’s valiant attempt to say that what was needed here was a balanced reconciliation of two different kinds of sovereignty, that of the state and that of the individual – but at the end of the day this restated the problem rather than solving it. It was only with the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001 – for which we can thank our Canadian co-hosts here today – that a broadly acceptable conceptual solution at last appeared, with the emergence of the principle of ‘the responsibility to protect’. There were at least two great advantages of this formulation over any previous attempt to solve the dilemma. The first was that it made clear that sovereign states remained the primary actors – it was their primary responsibility to protect, with the help of others as appropriate, their own peoples, and it was only if they were unable or unwilling to exercise that responsibility that any responsibility shifted to the wider international community. The second was that it made absolutely clear – in the way that proponents of ‘humanitarian intervention’ did not – that non-consensual military intervention was absolutely a last resort, and that R2P was about much more than that: it was about the responsibility to prevent, the responsibility to react (by a whole variety of strategies, diplomatic, political, economic, legal and, only in really extreme cases, military) and about the responsibility to rebuild shattered societies after catastrophic breakdowns had occurred.This basic formulation did win remarkably widespread acceptance in a remarkably short time – through the transmission belt of endorsement by the High Level Panel in 2004, the Secretary-General’s own In Larger Freedom report in 2005, and ultimately the UN General Assembly World Summit in September 2005, with the Security Council then embracing the general principle in April 2006 and applying it specifically to Darfur in August last year.What is just as intriguing, and heartening, as these formal developments is the evidence that is now emerging that people around the world seem to think that we have it right in formulating the principle that there are limits to state sovereignty when it comes to the protection of people from genocide and similarly severe human rights violations. A major new opinion poll was released earlier this month by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org which found that, in each of the eleven countries surveyed, many more people favoured than were opposed to the proposition that ‘the UN Security Council has the responsibility to authorise the use of military force to protect people from severe human rights violations such as genocide, even against the will of their own government’. An extraordinary 76 per cent of Chinese approved, as did 74 per cent of Americans, and for example 69 per cent of Palestinians, 64 per cent of Israelis, 54 per cent of French and Poles, and 51 per cent of Indians. So when it comes to the starting point for ensuring that never again do we have another Rwanda, I think the reality is clear that we are not going to any better, for the indefinitely foreseeable future, than the R2P principle. It touches the right bases, and the right chords, and has shown that it is capable of winning very broad international acceptance indeed. But for all that has been achieved we still have a long way to go in bedding down acceptance of the R2P principle and giving it practical effect as new cases arise.2. R2P Still at RiskMy second point is that, for all the acceptance that R2P has won, those gains are still at some risk of drifting away, on the one hand in the face of continued hostility by enemies of the concept, and on the other hand as a result of misguided support for it by some of those who call themselves its friends. The assault from the enemies is familiar enough. It comes for a start from those countries who continue have something to hide or be ashamed about in terms of their own internal behaviour and are deeply reluctant to acknowledge, as a result any limitations on their sovereignty: while they felt unable to hold out against the final consensus at the World Summit they will remain alert to any opportunity to puncture or undermine the concept. And opposition comes also from a variety of countries, notably in Asia, who retain a strong ideological aversion to imperialism in any shape or form, and who remain instinctively unwilling to concede in principle that external intervention – and in particular military intervention – could ever wholly avoid having that character. This is a recurring theme in a lot of academic literature which continues to have some influence – for example recent article by Alex de Waal and Mahmood Mamdani – although what I find interesting about such pieces is that they continue to hammer away at ‘humanitarian intervention’ as the target, and only incidentally mention R2P, flailing away at the old straw man without acknowledging that the debate has moved on and the extent to which their concerns have already been conceptually accommodated.Trouble from those who say they are friends of R2P comes in two other ways. First, from those who play into the hands of the ideological critics I have just mentioned by being far too ready to think of R2P situations only in military terms. This has been a recurring problem with much of the campaigning over Darfur, where the debate has tended to polarise into a choice between, as Lee Feinstein puts it in his recent Council on Foreign Relations paper, ‘the stark options of Doing Nothing and Sending in the Marines’, without acknowledging the many way stations in between. The International Crisis Group, by contrast, has argued that in the present circumstances a non-consensual military intervention would almost certainly be disastrously counterproductive, in terms of its impact on current humanitarian relief operations and the very fragile north-south peace process; the situation is still, we have said, very much an R2P one, where there has been an abdication of its responsibility by the Khartoum government, but here R2P objectives are better pursued in other ways, including economic and legal pressures. If the concept of R2P is not to be eroded it is important that its friends apply it in an appropriately nuanced way.The more troubling friends of R2P are those false friends who have misapplied it to justify military intervention in circumstances where this was plainly wrong. Nothing has done R2P more harm than its invocation by some of the defenders of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, notably the UK government, to paint it as justified by R2P principles, as other defences in terms of possession of weapons of mass destruction or support for international terrorism crumbled away. This has not been in the slightest bit analytically persuasive for a whole variety of reasons, including on the threshold question of whether Saddam Hussein’s current behaviour – as distinct from a decade earlier – could be characterised as either large scale killing or ethnic cleansing. But all the talk about overthrowing tyranny, and responding to Saddam’s human rights abuses, succeeded admirably in reinforcing the arguments of R2P opponents that any concession as to the limits of state sovereignty would create an excuse that would be exploited all too willingly by neo-colonialists and neo-imperialists keen to return to their bad old interventionist habits of decades past. This almost sank R2P at the World Summit, and has the capacity to continually undermine it in the future if not met with robust counter arguments about what R2P is really about.3. Unfinished Conceptual BusinessAn important piece of unfinished business in this respect, and this is my third point, is the need to spell out with absolute precision what are the circumstances in which non-consensual military force can, and cannot, be used in a way that is consistent with R2P principles. The ICISS Commission, while of course making the point over and again that R2P was about much more than military intervention – and in fact more than anything else about the responsibility to prevent these situations arising in the first place – recognised that to the extent this was acknowledged as an option, albeit only in the most extreme cases, in reaction to major harm actually occurring or about to occur, then one simply had to spell out in detail when it was actually right to fight, and when it was not. We accordingly identified a set of prudential criteria in this respect which we argued should be adopted by the Security Council. These were the seriousness of the harm being threatened (which would need to involve large scale loss of life or ethnic cleansing to prima facie justify something as extreme as military action); the motivation or primary purpose of the proposed military action (whether it was primarily to halt or avert the threat in question, or had some other main objective); whether there were reasonably available peaceful alternatives; the proportionality of the response; and, not least, the balance of consequences – whether overall more good than harm would be done by a military invasion. These recommendations were subsequently embraced both by the High Level Panel and the Secretary-General in his own report – but not adopted by the World Summit, and they remain in limbo. Of course no criteria of the kind the Commission argued for, even if agreed as guidelines by the Security Council, will ever end argument on how they should be applied in particular instances, for example Darfur right now. But it is hard to believe these criteria would not be more helpful than the present totally ad hoc system in focusing attention on the relevant issues, revealing weaknesses in argument, and generally encouraging consensus.4. Unfinished Practical BusinessIf R2P is not to remain more theoretical than real, we must somehow solve the problem of capacity, ensuring that the right civilian and, as necessary, military resources are always there in the right amounts and with the appropriate capability. And that means having readily available a set of responses that are somewhere between Doing Nothing and Sending in the Marines.We need stronger early warning coordination and response machinery at the centre – with the UN Secretary General having a Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and other Mass Atrocities reporting to him – a person, like the retiring incumbent Juan Mendez, of real international stature, but working full time, with a staff of appropriate size and quality, and supported by a standing Advisory Committee able to make waves as occasion demands and ensure that we never again have early warnings fall into the black hole of indifference that confronted General Dallaire in 1994. We need effective diplomatic capacity ready and available to negotiate and mediate those situations which are capable of being stopped by effective early intervention of this kind.We need a repertoire of carefully thought–through sanctions measures, with an effective, professionally resourced, mechanism ready to be put in place immediately to monitor the application and effectiveness of those sanctions.We need a full range of civilian capabilities, especially effective policing, on permanent standby, with the capacity to be immediately deployedAnd we do also need effective preparedness to mount military operations for civilian protection purposes – with the consent if at all possible of the government in question (as was the case in East Timor, for example, and has been the case with the limited forces so far sent to Darfur), but in really extreme cases, if there is no other way of protecting the people in question from slaughter and ethnic cleansing, without that consent. The experience of the current AU mission in Darfur is a classic demonstration of the problem of military capacity in a consensual intervention situation – too few troops, too poorly equipped, and too immobile to perform effectively even the limited civilian protection task required by their present mandate. The UN is currently feeling desperately overstretched, with over 80,000 military and 15,000 civilian personnel deployed worldwide, but with the world’s armed services currently absorbing some 20 million men and women in uniform (with another 50 million reservists, and 11 million paramilitaries), it hardly seems beyond the wit of man to work out a way of making some of that capacity available when and where it’s needed to prevent and react to man-made catastrophe. Another crucial practical operational issue is to address the question, up until now almost completely neglected by the world’s militaries, of developing detailed concepts of these R2P/ civilian protection operations, which involve neither traditional war-fighting (where the object is not to stop violence as such, but to defeat an enemy) and peacekeeping operations (which although these days usually involving much more than the traditional passive monitoring, have still not come to grips with the kind of responses needed to cope with the threat or reality of atrocity crimes). It’s not just a matter of force configuration, but of developing new doctrine, and new kinds of rules of engagement, and new kinds of training. Victoria Holt has shown us the way on all these topics in her excellent recent book for the Stimson Center, and it’s more than time for the relevant militaries and their governments around the world to respond. 5. Unfinished Political BusinessAs always, generating the political will to act – both in putting in place the necessary capacity-building measure, and then in responding with all that machinery to particular new crisis situations as they arise – is the biggest and hardest piece of unfinished business. But we have to recognise that finding the necessary political will to do anything hard, or expensive, or politically sensitive, or seen for better or worse as not directly relevant to national interests, is just a given in public affairs, domestically or internationally: its absence should not be a matter for lamentation, but mobilization. Political will is not hiding in a cupboard or under a stone somewhere waiting to be discovered: it has to be painstakingly built.All of us have a role in this respect. It is a matter of not just top-down effort – with key officials in key governments, and those who can influence them directly (as hopefully we in Crisis Group can) making the effort to persuade and mobilise their peers in the international community to take the necessary action in the UN Security Council and elsewhere. It’s also a matter of bottom-up mobilisation: making the voices of ordinary concerned citizens heard in the corridors of power. My own view, which I know is shared by many government and NGO representatives here today, is that it is time to build a new institutional structure to advance politically the R2P agenda. What is needed is a structure – perhaps we could call it the ‘Global Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect’ (GCR2P for short) – is a structure which draws together civil society organizations to liaise with like-minded governments and international organizations to recommend strategy, coordinate efforts, identify gaps, build political will, and serve as an information clearing house on R2P. Ideally it would have a group of distinguished international patrons – maybe one from each continent – and an effective working secretariat based here in New York, not trying to tightly control campaign and related activity, both top-down and bottom-up, but helping to guide and coordinate it. Discussions along these lines have commenced between a number of organisations, and I believe it’s in all our interests that something of this kind comes together over the next few months. I have often argued that there is a political case for R2P on hard-headed, practical, national interest grounds: states that can’t or won’t stop internal atrocity crimes are the kind of rogue states, or failed or failing states, that can’t or won’t stop terrorism, weapons proliferation, drug and people trafficking, the spread of health pandemics and other global risks. But at the end of the day I think all of here know and accept that the case for R2P rests simply on our common humanity: the impossibility of ignoring the cries of pain and distress of our fellow human beings. For any of us in and around the international community – from individuals to NGOs to national governments to international organizations – to yet again ignore that distress and agony, to once again be guilty of the tragic neglect with which we reacted to Rwanda thirteen years ago, and to once again make ‘never again’ a cry that rings totally emptily, is to diminish that common humanity to the point of despair. We should be united in our determination to not let that
The anniversary each year of the Rwandan genocide is an occasion not only to remember, as we must, the almost indescribable horrors that men and women are capable of inflicting on each other when restraint, and principle and governance and international commitment all break down – and Rwanda remains the most terrible benchmark of modern times of such personal and institutional failure – but also to take stock of how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go, in ensuring that another Rwanda really will never again happen.To focus the ongoing discussion, I want to make, as succinctly as I can, five main points:
the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle remains the best starting point we have, or are ever likely to have in preventing and responding to genocides and mass atrocities;
we need to recognise, nonetheless, that the R2P principle is still at risk, and have to work hard to hold the line against backsliding;
even with the R2P principle itself firmly consolidated, there is still unfinished conceptual business to attend to;
there is much unfinished practical, capacity-building business to attend to; and there is unfinished political business to attend to.
1. R2P as the Starting PointIt has taken the world an insanely long time to come to terms conceptually with the idea that state sovereignty is not a license to kill – that there is something fundamentally and intolerably wrong about states murdering or forcibly displacing large numbers of their own citizens, or standing by when others do so. We didn’t get it right in any of the decades, or even centuries, before World War II, where – with only a handful of exceptions – there was almost complete indifference to what states did internally, or in their own spheres of imperial or other interest.We began to get it right, after the awful experience of the Holocaust, with the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention, but still gave too much primacy to Article 2.7 of the UN Charter with its stricture that ‘Nothing should authorise intervention in matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state’.With the unfolding series of horrors in the 1990s, there were serious attempts made again to get it right. There was the coining of the idea of ‘droit d’ingerence’ – the ‘right to intervene’ or, more fully, the ‘right of humanitarian intervention’ – but this enraged as many as it inspired, and reinforced rather than bridged a perception-gulf between the global North and the global South. And there was Kofi Annan’s valiant attempt to say that what was needed here was a balanced reconciliation of two different kinds of sovereignty, that of the state and that of the individual – but at the end of the day this restated the problem rather than solving it. It was only with the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001 – for which we can thank our Canadian co-hosts here today – that a broadly acceptable conceptual solution at last appeared, with the emergence of the principle of ‘the responsibility to protect’. There were at least two great advantages of this formulation over any previous attempt to solve the dilemma. The first was that it made clear that sovereign states remained the primary actors – it was their primary responsibility to protect, with the help of others as appropriate, their own peoples, and it was only if they were unable or unwilling to exercise that responsibility that any responsibility shifted to the wider international community. The second was that it made absolutely clear – in the way that proponents of ‘humanitarian intervention’ did not – that non-consensual military intervention was absolutely a last resort, and that R2P was about much more than that: it was about the responsibility to prevent, the responsibility to react (by a whole variety of strategies, diplomatic, political, economic, legal and, only in really extreme cases, military) and about the responsibility to rebuild shattered societies after catastrophic breakdowns had occurred.This basic formulation did win remarkably widespread acceptance in a remarkably short time – through the transmission belt of endorsement by the High Level Panel in 2004, the Secretary-General’s own In Larger Freedom report in 2005, and ultimately the UN General Assembly World Summit in September 2005, with the Security Council then embracing the general principle in April 2006 and applying it specifically to Darfur in August last year.What is just as intriguing, and heartening, as these formal developments is the evidence that is now emerging that people around the world seem to think that we have it right in formulating the principle that there are limits to state sovereignty when it comes to the protection of people from genocide and similarly severe human rights violations. A major new opinion poll was released earlier this month by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org which found that, in each of the eleven countries surveyed, many more people favoured than were opposed to the proposition that ‘the UN Security Council has the responsibility to authorise the use of military force to protect people from severe human rights violations such as genocide, even against the will of their own government’. An extraordinary 76 per cent of Chinese approved, as did 74 per cent of Americans, and for example 69 per cent of Palestinians, 64 per cent of Israelis, 54 per cent of French and Poles, and 51 per cent of Indians. So when it comes to the starting point for ensuring that never again do we have another Rwanda, I think the reality is clear that we are not going to any better, for the indefinitely foreseeable future, than the R2P principle. It touches the right bases, and the right chords, and has shown that it is capable of winning very broad international acceptance indeed. But for all that has been achieved we still have a long way to go in bedding down acceptance of the R2P principle and giving it practical effect as new cases arise.2. R2P Still at RiskMy second point is that, for all the acceptance that R2P has won, those gains are still at some risk of drifting away, on the one hand in the face of continued hostility by enemies of the concept, and on the other hand as a result of misguided support for it by some of those who call themselves its friends. The assault from the enemies is familiar enough. It comes for a start from those countries who continue have something to hide or be ashamed about in terms of their own internal behaviour and are deeply reluctant to acknowledge, as a result any limitations on their sovereignty: while they felt unable to hold out against the final consensus at the World Summit they will remain alert to any opportunity to puncture or undermine the concept. And opposition comes also from a variety of countries, notably in Asia, who retain a strong ideological aversion to imperialism in any shape or form, and who remain instinctively unwilling to concede in principle that external intervention – and in particular military intervention – could ever wholly avoid having that character. This is a recurring theme in a lot of academic literature which continues to have some influence – for example recent article by Alex de Waal and Mahmood Mamdani – although what I find interesting about such pieces is that they continue to hammer away at ‘humanitarian intervention’ as the target, and only incidentally mention R2P, flailing away at the old straw man without acknowledging that the debate has moved on and the extent to which their concerns have already been conceptually accommodated.Trouble from those who say they are friends of R2P comes in two other ways. First, from those who play into the hands of the ideological critics I have just mentioned by being far too ready to think of R2P situations only in military terms. This has been a recurring problem with much of the campaigning over Darfur, where the debate has tended to polarise into a choice between, as Lee Feinstein puts it in his recent Council on Foreign Relations paper, ‘the stark options of Doing Nothing and Sending in the Marines’, without acknowledging the many way stations in between. The International Crisis Group, by contrast, has argued that in the present circumstances a non-consensual military intervention would almost certainly be disastrously counterproductive, in terms of its impact on current humanitarian relief operations and the very fragile north-south peace process; the situation is still, we have said, very much an R2P one, where there has been an abdication of its responsibility by the Khartoum government, but here R2P objectives are better pursued in other ways, including economic and legal pressures. If the concept of R2P is not to be eroded it is important that its friends apply it in an appropriately nuanced way.The more troubling friends of R2P are those false friends who have misapplied it to justify military intervention in circumstances where this was plainly wrong. Nothing has done R2P more harm than its invocation by some of the defenders of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, notably the UK government, to paint it as justified by R2P principles, as other defences in terms of possession of weapons of mass destruction or support for international terrorism crumbled away. This has not been in the slightest bit analytically persuasive for a whole variety of reasons, including on the threshold question of whether Saddam Hussein’s current behaviour – as distinct from a decade earlier – could be characterised as either large scale killing or ethnic cleansing. But all the talk about overthrowing tyranny, and responding to Saddam’s human rights abuses, succeeded admirably in reinforcing the arguments of R2P opponents that any concession as to the limits of state sovereignty would create an excuse that would be exploited all too willingly by neo-colonialists and neo-imperialists keen to return to their bad old interventionist habits of decades past. This almost sank R2P at the World Summit, and has the capacity to continually undermine it in the future if not met with robust counter arguments about what R2P is really about.3. Unfinished Conceptual BusinessAn important piece of unfinished business in this respect, and this is my third point, is the need to spell out with absolute precision what are the circumstances in which non-consensual military force can, and cannot, be used in a way that is consistent with R2P principles. The ICISS Commission, while of course making the point over and again that R2P was about much more than military intervention – and in fact more than anything else about the responsibility to prevent these situations arising in the first place – recognised that to the extent this was acknowledged as an option, albeit only in the most extreme cases, in reaction to major harm actually occurring or about to occur, then one simply had to spell out in detail when it was actually right to fight, and when it was not. We accordingly identified a set of prudential criteria in this respect which we argued should be adopted by the Security Council. These were the seriousness of the harm being threatened (which would need to involve large scale loss of life or ethnic cleansing to prima facie justify something as extreme as military action); the motivation or primary purpose of the proposed military action (whether it was primarily to halt or avert the threat in question, or had some other main objective); whether there were reasonably available peaceful alternatives; the proportionality of the response; and, not least, the balance of consequences – whether overall more good than harm would be done by a military invasion. These recommendations were subsequently embraced both by the High Level Panel and the Secretary-General in his own report – but not adopted by the World Summit, and they remain in limbo. Of course no criteria of the kind the Commission argued for, even if agreed as guidelines by the Security Council, will ever end argument on how they should be applied in particular instances, for example Darfur right now. But it is hard to believe these criteria would not be more helpful than the present totally ad hoc system in focusing attention on the relevant issues, revealing weaknesses in argument, and generally encouraging consensus.4. Unfinished Practical BusinessIf R2P is not to remain more theoretical than real, we must somehow solve the problem of capacity, ensuring that the right civilian and, as necessary, military resources are always there in the right amounts and with the appropriate capability. And that means having readily available a set of responses that are somewhere between Doing Nothing and Sending in the Marines.We need stronger early warning coordination and response machinery at the centre – with the UN Secretary General having a Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and other Mass Atrocities reporting to him – a person, like the retiring incumbent Juan Mendez, of real international stature, but working full time, with a staff of appropriate size and quality, and supported by a standing Advisory Committee able to make waves as occasion demands and ensure that we never again have early warnings fall into the black hole of indifference that confronted General Dallaire in 1994. We need effective diplomatic capacity ready and available to negotiate and mediate those situations which are capable of being stopped by effective early intervention of this kind.We need a repertoire of carefully thought–through sanctions measures, with an effective, professionally resourced, mechanism ready to be put in place immediately to monitor the application and effectiveness of those sanctions.We need a full range of civilian capabilities, especially effective policing, on permanent standby, with the capacity to be immediately deployedAnd we do also need effective preparedness to mount military operations for civilian protection purposes – with the consent if at all possible of the government in question (as was the case in East Timor, for example, and has been the case with the limited forces so far sent to Darfur), but in really extreme cases, if there is no other way of protecting the people in question from slaughter and ethnic cleansing, without that consent. The experience of the current AU mission in Darfur is a classic demonstration of the problem of military capacity in a consensual intervention situation – too few troops, too poorly equipped, and too immobile to perform effectively even the limited civilian protection task required by their present mandate. The UN is currently feeling desperately overstretched, with over 80,000 military and 15,000 civilian personnel deployed worldwide, but with the world’s armed services currently absorbing some 20 million men and women in uniform (with another 50 million reservists, and 11 million paramilitaries), it hardly seems beyond the wit of man to work out a way of making some of that capacity available when and where it’s needed to prevent and react to man-made catastrophe. Another crucial practical operational issue is to address the question, up until now almost completely neglected by the world’s militaries, of developing detailed concepts of these R2P/ civilian protection operations, which involve neither traditional war-fighting (where the object is not to stop violence as such, but to defeat an enemy) and peacekeeping operations (which although these days usually involving much more than the traditional passive monitoring, have still not come to grips with the kind of responses needed to cope with the threat or reality of atrocity crimes). It’s not just a matter of force configuration, but of developing new doctrine, and new kinds of rules of engagement, and new kinds of training. Victoria Holt has shown us the way on all these topics in her excellent recent book for the Stimson Center, and it’s more than time for the relevant militaries and their governments around the world to respond. 5. Unfinished Political BusinessAs always, generating the political will to act – both in putting in place the necessary capacity-building measure, and then in responding with all that machinery to particular new crisis situations as they arise – is the biggest and hardest piece of unfinished business. But we have to recognise that finding the necessary political will to do anything hard, or expensive, or politically sensitive, or seen for better or worse as not directly relevant to national interests, is just a given in public affairs, domestically or internationally: its absence should not be a matter for lamentation, but mobilization. Political will is not hiding in a cupboard or under a stone somewhere waiting to be discovered: it has to be painstakingly built.All of us have a role in this respect. It is a matter of not just top-down effort – with key officials in key governments, and those who can influence them directly (as hopefully we in Crisis Group can) making the effort to persuade and mobilise their peers in the international community to take the necessary action in the UN Security Council and elsewhere. It’s also a matter of bottom-up mobilisation: making the voices of ordinary concerned citizens heard in the corridors of power. My own view, which I know is shared by many government and NGO representatives here today, is that it is time to build a new institutional structure to advance politically the R2P agenda. What is needed is a structure – perhaps we could call it the ‘Global Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect’ (GCR2P for short) – is a structure which draws together civil society organizations to liaise with like-minded governments and international organizations to recommend strategy, coordinate efforts, identify gaps, build political will, and serve as an information clearing house on R2P. Ideally it would have a group of distinguished international patrons – maybe one from each continent – and an effective working secretariat based here in New York, not trying to tightly control campaign and related activity, both top-down and bottom-up, but helping to guide and coordinate it. Discussions along these lines have commenced between a number of organisations, and I believe it’s in all our interests that something of this kind comes together over the next few months. I have often argued that there is a political case for R2P on hard-headed, practical, national interest grounds: states that can’t or won’t stop internal atrocity crimes are the kind of rogue states, or failed or failing states, that can’t or won’t stop terrorism, weapons proliferation, drug and people trafficking, the spread of health pandemics and other global risks. But at the end of the day I think all of here know and accept that the case for R2P rests simply on our common humanity: the impossibility of ignoring the cries of pain and distress of our fellow human beings. For any of us in and around the international community – from individuals to NGOs to national governments to international organizations – to yet again ignore that distress and agony, to once again be guilty of the tragic neglect with which we reacted to Rwanda thirteen years ago, and to once again make ‘never again’ a cry that rings totally emptily, is to diminish that common humanity to the point of despair. We should be united in our determination to not let that
Sudan: China Takes Credit for Sending Int'l Troops to Darfur
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
April 21, 2007Posted to the web April 21, 2007
Antoaneta BezlovaBeijing
China is taking credit for its role in persuading the Sudanese government to accept an international peacekeeping force to stop the killings in Darfur and is determined to prevent further sanctions on a country in which it has massive investments.
Speaking to the press last week after a special mission to Sudan, assistant foreign minister Zhai Jun said it was due to China's efforts that Khartoum is relenting to international pressure to accept the Annan peace plan.
"We are not in favour of increasing sanctions or expanding sanctions, because there is much hope for resolving this (Darfur) issue," Zhai said.
Until Zhai's trip to Sudan when he met with the country's President and toured refugee camps, Khartoum had repeatedly refused to bow to international pressure to allow U.N. intervention in Darfur. President al-Bashir has said such action would endanger his country's sovereignty and has described the U.N. peacekeeping forces as "neo-colonists".
Beijing's stance continues despite new evidence that the Sudanese government is directly involved in the civil war ravaging the Darfur region. A U.N. report, leaked to the press, has revealed that Khartoum disguised military planes to look like U.N. aircraft and used them to bomb villages in Darfur.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan has long maintained that his government has nothing to do with the ongoing civil war in the region, which has taken the lives of more than 200,000 people and uprooted another 2.5 million from their homes.
The Darfur conflict began in 2003 when black ethnic African tribes rebelled against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, accusing it of decades of discrimination and marginalisation. Human rights groups and the U.N. say the government responded by arming and unleashing a militia, Janjaweed, which is widely alleged to have destroyed hundreds of villages, murdering the inhabitants and raping the women.
The new evidence of Khartoum's involvement in the atrocities came in a confidential U.N. panel report which was leaked to the press this week. Backed by photographs, the report says that Sudan government had painted military aircraft white -- a colour usually reserved for the U.N. -- and used them to ferry arms to the Janjaweed militia and for reconnaissance flights and bombing missions in Darfur.
China has, however, preferred to focus on what it termed a "positive move towards peace" achieved this week. After months of frustrated diplomatic efforts Sudan finally agreed Monday to a large-scale assistance from the U.N. that would see the deployment of 3,000 military police officers along with six attack helicopters and other aviation to Darfur.
The dispatch represents the second stage of a much-delayed three-stage proposal initiated by the former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan whose ultimate aim was to create a 21,000-member joint African Union-U.N. force to replace the 7,000-member African Union force acting there now.
The Chinese foreign ministry said it believed now was not the "proper time" to discuss sanctions and world powers should seize the diplomatic opportunity and concentrate on installing a U.N. force into the war-torn Darfur region.
"It is time to undertake constructive measures to implement the agreement, instead of talking about new sanctions," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular press briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
Despite Khartoum's demonstration of will to compromise, the U.S. and Britain have threatened stiffer sanctions if Sudan did not act quickly and resolutely to halt the violence.
"The time for promises is over, President Bashir must act. If President Bashir does not meet his obligations, the U.S. will act," President George W. Bush was quoted as saying Wednesday.
Among the measures being considered are sanctions on companies doing business with Sudan, freezing financial assets, arms embargo and creating no-fly zones.
China has cautioned though that new sanctions would only worsen the humanitarian crises there. "It is better not to move in that direction (imposing sanctions)," China's deputy U.N. ambassador Liu Zhenmin said, also Wednesday. "I think in a few weeks, or a few months, the political process will produce some results."
China worries that stiffer sanctions could derail a political process which its diplomats have worked hard to set in pace and for which Beijing is taking credit for.
The Chinese intervention marks a shift from past policy under which Beijing seemed reluctant to use its influence in Sudan. China, a veto-yielding Security Council member, has invested billions of dollars in developing Sudan's oil fields and is one of the country's main commercial partners.
The Bush administration has long urged China to put more pressure on the Sudanese government to cooperate with the U.N., citing Beijing's large oil purchases, investment and weapons sales as possible tools of leverage. China, however, has preferred to view Sudan as an important source of energy for its booming economy, refusing to take stance on the internal politics of the country.
In recent months though, China's "hands-off politics" approach to Sudan has come under fire by non-governmental organisations and rights activists, which have insisted that by failing to act Beijing has effectively condoned atrocities.
U.S. actress Mia Farrow, a U.N. good-will ambassador, has linked the 2008 Olympic Games, that Beijing is hosting, to the killings in Darfur. In a campaign labelling the Beijing Olympics the "Genocide Olympics", Farrow and other rights groups have tried publicly to shame China into acting on the Darfur issue.
Beijing has defended China's engagement with Sudan by blaming the civil strife and humanitarian crisis in Darfur on poverty. Zhai described Chinese aid and investment in the country as viable solutions to the crisis.
"If the living conditions of the Sudanese people don't improve, they will keep on fighting for the limited natural resources, aggravating the situation," he told reporters.
April 21, 2007Posted to the web April 21, 2007
Antoaneta BezlovaBeijing
China is taking credit for its role in persuading the Sudanese government to accept an international peacekeeping force to stop the killings in Darfur and is determined to prevent further sanctions on a country in which it has massive investments.
Speaking to the press last week after a special mission to Sudan, assistant foreign minister Zhai Jun said it was due to China's efforts that Khartoum is relenting to international pressure to accept the Annan peace plan.
"We are not in favour of increasing sanctions or expanding sanctions, because there is much hope for resolving this (Darfur) issue," Zhai said.
Until Zhai's trip to Sudan when he met with the country's President and toured refugee camps, Khartoum had repeatedly refused to bow to international pressure to allow U.N. intervention in Darfur. President al-Bashir has said such action would endanger his country's sovereignty and has described the U.N. peacekeeping forces as "neo-colonists".
Beijing's stance continues despite new evidence that the Sudanese government is directly involved in the civil war ravaging the Darfur region. A U.N. report, leaked to the press, has revealed that Khartoum disguised military planes to look like U.N. aircraft and used them to bomb villages in Darfur.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan has long maintained that his government has nothing to do with the ongoing civil war in the region, which has taken the lives of more than 200,000 people and uprooted another 2.5 million from their homes.
The Darfur conflict began in 2003 when black ethnic African tribes rebelled against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, accusing it of decades of discrimination and marginalisation. Human rights groups and the U.N. say the government responded by arming and unleashing a militia, Janjaweed, which is widely alleged to have destroyed hundreds of villages, murdering the inhabitants and raping the women.
The new evidence of Khartoum's involvement in the atrocities came in a confidential U.N. panel report which was leaked to the press this week. Backed by photographs, the report says that Sudan government had painted military aircraft white -- a colour usually reserved for the U.N. -- and used them to ferry arms to the Janjaweed militia and for reconnaissance flights and bombing missions in Darfur.
China has, however, preferred to focus on what it termed a "positive move towards peace" achieved this week. After months of frustrated diplomatic efforts Sudan finally agreed Monday to a large-scale assistance from the U.N. that would see the deployment of 3,000 military police officers along with six attack helicopters and other aviation to Darfur.
The dispatch represents the second stage of a much-delayed three-stage proposal initiated by the former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan whose ultimate aim was to create a 21,000-member joint African Union-U.N. force to replace the 7,000-member African Union force acting there now.
The Chinese foreign ministry said it believed now was not the "proper time" to discuss sanctions and world powers should seize the diplomatic opportunity and concentrate on installing a U.N. force into the war-torn Darfur region.
"It is time to undertake constructive measures to implement the agreement, instead of talking about new sanctions," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular press briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
Despite Khartoum's demonstration of will to compromise, the U.S. and Britain have threatened stiffer sanctions if Sudan did not act quickly and resolutely to halt the violence.
"The time for promises is over, President Bashir must act. If President Bashir does not meet his obligations, the U.S. will act," President George W. Bush was quoted as saying Wednesday.
Among the measures being considered are sanctions on companies doing business with Sudan, freezing financial assets, arms embargo and creating no-fly zones.
China has cautioned though that new sanctions would only worsen the humanitarian crises there. "It is better not to move in that direction (imposing sanctions)," China's deputy U.N. ambassador Liu Zhenmin said, also Wednesday. "I think in a few weeks, or a few months, the political process will produce some results."
China worries that stiffer sanctions could derail a political process which its diplomats have worked hard to set in pace and for which Beijing is taking credit for.
The Chinese intervention marks a shift from past policy under which Beijing seemed reluctant to use its influence in Sudan. China, a veto-yielding Security Council member, has invested billions of dollars in developing Sudan's oil fields and is one of the country's main commercial partners.
The Bush administration has long urged China to put more pressure on the Sudanese government to cooperate with the U.N., citing Beijing's large oil purchases, investment and weapons sales as possible tools of leverage. China, however, has preferred to view Sudan as an important source of energy for its booming economy, refusing to take stance on the internal politics of the country.
In recent months though, China's "hands-off politics" approach to Sudan has come under fire by non-governmental organisations and rights activists, which have insisted that by failing to act Beijing has effectively condoned atrocities.
U.S. actress Mia Farrow, a U.N. good-will ambassador, has linked the 2008 Olympic Games, that Beijing is hosting, to the killings in Darfur. In a campaign labelling the Beijing Olympics the "Genocide Olympics", Farrow and other rights groups have tried publicly to shame China into acting on the Darfur issue.
Beijing has defended China's engagement with Sudan by blaming the civil strife and humanitarian crisis in Darfur on poverty. Zhai described Chinese aid and investment in the country as viable solutions to the crisis.
"If the living conditions of the Sudanese people don't improve, they will keep on fighting for the limited natural resources, aggravating the situation," he told reporters.
jueves, 19 de abril de 2007
"Ya Está Bien De Que La UE Sienta «Preocupación» Por Darfur",
Chris Patten en El Mundo
23 March 2007El Mundo
Cuatro años han transcurrido ya desde que comenzó la tragedia de Darfur. Resulta increíble lo blanda que ha sido hasta ahora respecto a este genocidio la respuesta de la Unión Europea. El Viejo Continente no ha funcionado a la hora de adoptar medidas mínimamente eficaces encaminadas a presionar al Gobierno de Sudán para que ponga fin a los crímenes de guerra y a los crímenes contra la Humanidad cometidos por sus soldados y por las milicias afines en la parte occidental del país, y que han provocado a largo de este periodo el abandono de sus casas de más de dos millones de personas y la muerte de al menos 200.000 civiles.
Como es natural, si las expresiones europeas de malestar hubieran sido eficaces, la depuración racial en Sudán se habría interrumpido hace mucho tiempo. Desde abril del 2004, en su Consejo, los ministros europeos de Asuntos Exteriores han hecho públicas sobre Darfur 19 declaraciones de conclusiones -la más reciente, una del 5 de marzo de 2007- en las que han expresado colectivamente su «preocupación», su «grave preocupación», su «permanente preocupación» o su «profunda preocupación», no menos de 53 veces.
A nadie sorprenderá que el régimen de Jartum se haya mostrado poco impresionado por toda esta preocupación de los europeos, ya que cuando se ha tratado de llegar a algo más que palabras, la UE se ha quedado corta y no ha sancionado más que a cuatro individuos: un ex mando de las fuerzas aéreas sudanesas de graduación media, un cabecilla de la milicia árabe de los Janjawid y dos rebeldes. Ha impuesto, además, un embargo de armas escasamente contundente e ineficaz a las partes en conflicto, embargo que tanto un bando como otro se han saltado sin mayores dificultades.
La reticencia a actuar de manera más enérgica no está fundamentada en ninguna objeción de carácter filosófico a las sanciones. Europa no ha mostrado ningún reparo en congelar los bienes y prohibir los viajes de dirigentes de Bielorrusia, por ejemplo, por «infracciones de las normas internacionales generalmente aceptadas» y por sus medidas represoras contra la sociedad civil. Ha impuesto, asimismo, prohibiciones a los viajes de los separatistas de Moldova por su «campaña contra las escuelas de escritura latina» y a los dirigentes de Uzbekistán por la matanza de Andijan. Los responsables de las tragedias del Congo, Liberia y Costa de Marfil también han sido objeto de congelación de bienes y de prohibición de desplazamientos por la UE. Sin embargo, si bien todos ellos se han hecho acreedores de condena, las conductas contra las que se ha actuado en estos casos no resisten la comparación con la campaña sistemática de arrasamiento total impulsada por el Estado sudanés en Darfur.
Tampoco cabe la posibilidad de que haya en Europa alguien que todavía albergue dudas sobre el profundo grado de implicación de Jartum en las atrocidades masivas de Darfur. De hecho, de existir alguna, debería haber quedado despejada en las últimas semanas. A finales del mes pasado, la Fiscalía del Tribunal Penal Internacional presentó pruebas exhaustivas contra dos individuos -uno de ellos, un importante ministro del Gobierno, Ahmed Harun- por crímenes de guerra y crímenes contra la Humanidad. En referencia al papel del ministro, la Fiscalía concretaba que «la más destacada de las misiones de coordinación encomendadas a Ahmed Harun como jefe de la Oficina de Seguridad de Darfur ha sido la dirección de la operación de reclutamiento de la milicia Janjawid y su participación personal en ella, con la finalidad de complementar a las Fuerzas Armadas sudanesas». El hecho constitutivo de esta prueba es quizás el indicio más claro hasta el momento de que el Gobierno de Sudán ha jugado en sus niveles más altos un papel fundamental en la planificación y en la realización de las atrocidades que nos ocupan.
Una misión de alto nivel enviada a la zona por el Consejo de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas, con sede en Ginebra, presentó posteriormente -el 12 de marzo- un informe en el que establece como conclusión, con un lenguaje que no deja lugar a dudas, que «el Gobierno de Sudán ha dejado manifiestamente de proteger a la población de Darfur de crímenes internacionales a gran escala y él mismo ha orquestado dichos crímenes y ha tomado parte en ellos». Todo esto no hace sino confirmar lo que desde hace años vienen denunciando incontables informes de grupos de defensa de los Derechos Humanos y otras organizaciones, por no hablar de los informes de los años 2005 y 2006 de la Comisión de Investigación y del Grupo de Expertos de Naciones Unidas.
Además, no se ha detenido el arrasamiento de Darfur; de hecho, la situación, que ya era horrenda, se ha deteriorado aún más en los últimos meses. A mediados de enero, organizaciones de ayuda que trabajan en la región advirtieron que sus operaciones de socorro estarían condenadas al fracaso en caso de que no mejorara la seguridad. Además, Jartum ha estado alimentando de forma muy activa rebeliones en los vecinos países de Chad y de la República Centroafricana, en los que se están produciendo espantosas consecuencias humanitarias como puede imaginarse.
En lugar de expresar su preocupación por 54ª vez, los ministros europeos de Asuntos Exteriores deberían dedicar su próxima reunión mensual en abril a hacer caso del llamamiento del Parlamento Europeo a que se apliquen sanciones a Jartum. Deberían imponerse restricciones a los viajes y la congelación de bienes a todos los individuos a los que se señala por su nombre en los informes de la Comisión de Investigación y del Grupo de Expertos de Naciones Unidas. Deberían centrarse en medidas que de modo muy concreto tuvieran por objeto los ingresos del sector del petróleo de Sudán, así como las inversiones extranjeras en ése y en otros sectores industriales conexos y el suministro de bienes y servicios a dichos sectores. La UE y los gobiernos de sus Estados miembros podrían promulgar una legislación que prohibiera a las empresas domiciliadas en sus países intervenir directamente en el sector del petróleo del país africano y en las industrias relacionadas con él.
Los ministros de Asuntos Exteriores de la UE deberían autorizar una investigación judicial de las cuentas que tengan en paraísos fiscales empresas sudanesas subsidiarias del partido que mayoritariamente gobierna en Jartum, El Partido del Congreso Nacional, con lo que se abriría el camino a las sanciones contra las entidades comerciales del régimen, que constituyen la principal vía de canalización de financiación de los Janjawid, las milicias que utiliza de pantalla y que tanto daño han producido en Darfur.
Está claro que las palabras no son suficientes para conseguir que el Gobierno sudanés se lo piense dos veces. Ha faltado reiteradamente a sus compromisos de desarmar a los Janjawid, hacer efectivo un alto el fuego y permitir el despliegue de unas fuerzas de pacificación más sólidas, todo ello dentro de la más absoluta impunidad. En fechas bien recientes, una carta fechada en el 8 de marzo, enviada por el presidente sudanés, Omar Bashir, al secretario general de las Naciones Unidas, Ban Ki-moon, enumeraba al detalle numerosas restricciones y medidas en las que insiste ahora Jartum antes de autorizar que se despliegue en Darfur la segunda fase de una misión híbrida de la UA [Unión Africana, anteriormente Organización de la Unidad Africana] y la ONU. Esto ha equivalido a una bofetada en la cara de la ONU, que trabajó intensamente para llegar a un compromiso con el Gobierno en torno a la fuerza híbrida en Adis Abeba, el 16 de noviembre de 2006, acuerdo que posteriormente fue ratificado por Jartum en una cumbre de la UA en Abuja (Nigeria) dos semanas más tarde. Los miembros del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas, China incluida, expresaron su consternación y su frustración porque el Gobierno de Sudán haya vuelto a incumplir otro acuerdo más.
El hecho es que, mientras no se le impongan costes de importancia, Jartum no encontrará ningún incentivo en atender las demandas de la comunidad internacional o en cambiar su manera de proceder. La UE tiene poder para imponer dichos costes.
Por último, lo que quizá se entienda peor de todo es que el régimen de Jartum tiene un historial de reaccionar ante una presión internacional insistente. Muy concretamente, firmó el Acuerdo General de Paz de enero del 2005, por el que se ponía fin a los 20 años de guerra civil en el sur del país, en parte gracias a las exigencias de la comunidad internacional, respaldadas por medidas de fuerza. El régimen puede ser criminal, pero se cuida muy mucho de su propia supervivencia y, en coherencia con ello, gradúa sus acciones de acuerdo con la coacción internacional.
La «preocupación» formularia que se expresa desde Europa simplemente no va a lograr nada. Ha llegado la hora de adoptar sanciones duras que merezcan en la práctica la atención de Jartum y que convenzan a los dirigentes sudaneses de que continuar con su campaña de violencia generalizada contra sus propios ciudadanos tiene un coste real.
Chris Patten es ex comisario europeo de Relaciones Exteriores y presidente del consejo de dirección del International Crisis Group
23 March 2007El Mundo
Cuatro años han transcurrido ya desde que comenzó la tragedia de Darfur. Resulta increíble lo blanda que ha sido hasta ahora respecto a este genocidio la respuesta de la Unión Europea. El Viejo Continente no ha funcionado a la hora de adoptar medidas mínimamente eficaces encaminadas a presionar al Gobierno de Sudán para que ponga fin a los crímenes de guerra y a los crímenes contra la Humanidad cometidos por sus soldados y por las milicias afines en la parte occidental del país, y que han provocado a largo de este periodo el abandono de sus casas de más de dos millones de personas y la muerte de al menos 200.000 civiles.
Como es natural, si las expresiones europeas de malestar hubieran sido eficaces, la depuración racial en Sudán se habría interrumpido hace mucho tiempo. Desde abril del 2004, en su Consejo, los ministros europeos de Asuntos Exteriores han hecho públicas sobre Darfur 19 declaraciones de conclusiones -la más reciente, una del 5 de marzo de 2007- en las que han expresado colectivamente su «preocupación», su «grave preocupación», su «permanente preocupación» o su «profunda preocupación», no menos de 53 veces.
A nadie sorprenderá que el régimen de Jartum se haya mostrado poco impresionado por toda esta preocupación de los europeos, ya que cuando se ha tratado de llegar a algo más que palabras, la UE se ha quedado corta y no ha sancionado más que a cuatro individuos: un ex mando de las fuerzas aéreas sudanesas de graduación media, un cabecilla de la milicia árabe de los Janjawid y dos rebeldes. Ha impuesto, además, un embargo de armas escasamente contundente e ineficaz a las partes en conflicto, embargo que tanto un bando como otro se han saltado sin mayores dificultades.
La reticencia a actuar de manera más enérgica no está fundamentada en ninguna objeción de carácter filosófico a las sanciones. Europa no ha mostrado ningún reparo en congelar los bienes y prohibir los viajes de dirigentes de Bielorrusia, por ejemplo, por «infracciones de las normas internacionales generalmente aceptadas» y por sus medidas represoras contra la sociedad civil. Ha impuesto, asimismo, prohibiciones a los viajes de los separatistas de Moldova por su «campaña contra las escuelas de escritura latina» y a los dirigentes de Uzbekistán por la matanza de Andijan. Los responsables de las tragedias del Congo, Liberia y Costa de Marfil también han sido objeto de congelación de bienes y de prohibición de desplazamientos por la UE. Sin embargo, si bien todos ellos se han hecho acreedores de condena, las conductas contra las que se ha actuado en estos casos no resisten la comparación con la campaña sistemática de arrasamiento total impulsada por el Estado sudanés en Darfur.
Tampoco cabe la posibilidad de que haya en Europa alguien que todavía albergue dudas sobre el profundo grado de implicación de Jartum en las atrocidades masivas de Darfur. De hecho, de existir alguna, debería haber quedado despejada en las últimas semanas. A finales del mes pasado, la Fiscalía del Tribunal Penal Internacional presentó pruebas exhaustivas contra dos individuos -uno de ellos, un importante ministro del Gobierno, Ahmed Harun- por crímenes de guerra y crímenes contra la Humanidad. En referencia al papel del ministro, la Fiscalía concretaba que «la más destacada de las misiones de coordinación encomendadas a Ahmed Harun como jefe de la Oficina de Seguridad de Darfur ha sido la dirección de la operación de reclutamiento de la milicia Janjawid y su participación personal en ella, con la finalidad de complementar a las Fuerzas Armadas sudanesas». El hecho constitutivo de esta prueba es quizás el indicio más claro hasta el momento de que el Gobierno de Sudán ha jugado en sus niveles más altos un papel fundamental en la planificación y en la realización de las atrocidades que nos ocupan.
Una misión de alto nivel enviada a la zona por el Consejo de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas, con sede en Ginebra, presentó posteriormente -el 12 de marzo- un informe en el que establece como conclusión, con un lenguaje que no deja lugar a dudas, que «el Gobierno de Sudán ha dejado manifiestamente de proteger a la población de Darfur de crímenes internacionales a gran escala y él mismo ha orquestado dichos crímenes y ha tomado parte en ellos». Todo esto no hace sino confirmar lo que desde hace años vienen denunciando incontables informes de grupos de defensa de los Derechos Humanos y otras organizaciones, por no hablar de los informes de los años 2005 y 2006 de la Comisión de Investigación y del Grupo de Expertos de Naciones Unidas.
Además, no se ha detenido el arrasamiento de Darfur; de hecho, la situación, que ya era horrenda, se ha deteriorado aún más en los últimos meses. A mediados de enero, organizaciones de ayuda que trabajan en la región advirtieron que sus operaciones de socorro estarían condenadas al fracaso en caso de que no mejorara la seguridad. Además, Jartum ha estado alimentando de forma muy activa rebeliones en los vecinos países de Chad y de la República Centroafricana, en los que se están produciendo espantosas consecuencias humanitarias como puede imaginarse.
En lugar de expresar su preocupación por 54ª vez, los ministros europeos de Asuntos Exteriores deberían dedicar su próxima reunión mensual en abril a hacer caso del llamamiento del Parlamento Europeo a que se apliquen sanciones a Jartum. Deberían imponerse restricciones a los viajes y la congelación de bienes a todos los individuos a los que se señala por su nombre en los informes de la Comisión de Investigación y del Grupo de Expertos de Naciones Unidas. Deberían centrarse en medidas que de modo muy concreto tuvieran por objeto los ingresos del sector del petróleo de Sudán, así como las inversiones extranjeras en ése y en otros sectores industriales conexos y el suministro de bienes y servicios a dichos sectores. La UE y los gobiernos de sus Estados miembros podrían promulgar una legislación que prohibiera a las empresas domiciliadas en sus países intervenir directamente en el sector del petróleo del país africano y en las industrias relacionadas con él.
Los ministros de Asuntos Exteriores de la UE deberían autorizar una investigación judicial de las cuentas que tengan en paraísos fiscales empresas sudanesas subsidiarias del partido que mayoritariamente gobierna en Jartum, El Partido del Congreso Nacional, con lo que se abriría el camino a las sanciones contra las entidades comerciales del régimen, que constituyen la principal vía de canalización de financiación de los Janjawid, las milicias que utiliza de pantalla y que tanto daño han producido en Darfur.
Está claro que las palabras no son suficientes para conseguir que el Gobierno sudanés se lo piense dos veces. Ha faltado reiteradamente a sus compromisos de desarmar a los Janjawid, hacer efectivo un alto el fuego y permitir el despliegue de unas fuerzas de pacificación más sólidas, todo ello dentro de la más absoluta impunidad. En fechas bien recientes, una carta fechada en el 8 de marzo, enviada por el presidente sudanés, Omar Bashir, al secretario general de las Naciones Unidas, Ban Ki-moon, enumeraba al detalle numerosas restricciones y medidas en las que insiste ahora Jartum antes de autorizar que se despliegue en Darfur la segunda fase de una misión híbrida de la UA [Unión Africana, anteriormente Organización de la Unidad Africana] y la ONU. Esto ha equivalido a una bofetada en la cara de la ONU, que trabajó intensamente para llegar a un compromiso con el Gobierno en torno a la fuerza híbrida en Adis Abeba, el 16 de noviembre de 2006, acuerdo que posteriormente fue ratificado por Jartum en una cumbre de la UA en Abuja (Nigeria) dos semanas más tarde. Los miembros del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas, China incluida, expresaron su consternación y su frustración porque el Gobierno de Sudán haya vuelto a incumplir otro acuerdo más.
El hecho es que, mientras no se le impongan costes de importancia, Jartum no encontrará ningún incentivo en atender las demandas de la comunidad internacional o en cambiar su manera de proceder. La UE tiene poder para imponer dichos costes.
Por último, lo que quizá se entienda peor de todo es que el régimen de Jartum tiene un historial de reaccionar ante una presión internacional insistente. Muy concretamente, firmó el Acuerdo General de Paz de enero del 2005, por el que se ponía fin a los 20 años de guerra civil en el sur del país, en parte gracias a las exigencias de la comunidad internacional, respaldadas por medidas de fuerza. El régimen puede ser criminal, pero se cuida muy mucho de su propia supervivencia y, en coherencia con ello, gradúa sus acciones de acuerdo con la coacción internacional.
La «preocupación» formularia que se expresa desde Europa simplemente no va a lograr nada. Ha llegado la hora de adoptar sanciones duras que merezcan en la práctica la atención de Jartum y que convenzan a los dirigentes sudaneses de que continuar con su campaña de violencia generalizada contra sus propios ciudadanos tiene un coste real.
Chris Patten es ex comisario europeo de Relaciones Exteriores y presidente del consejo de dirección del International Crisis Group
Sudán bombardea Darfur con aviones con los colores de la ONU
Jartum camufla algunas de sus aeronaves con símbolos y emblemas de Naciones Unidas
F. PEREGIL - Madrid - 19/04/2007
Durante el día, en los tres aeropuertos de Darfur la policía ejerce un riguroso control. Algunos lugareños se arremangan y depositan en una mesa el puñal que llevan pegado al bíceps con una goma. Pero de noche los aeropuertos quedan cerrados. Entonces llegan a la provincia sudanesa las armas más mortíferas, las que están prohibidas desde hace dos años por una resolución de la ONU. Llegan en el interior de aviones que el Ejército sudanés usa para bombardear aldeas camuflados como si fueran de Naciones Unidas.
Y estas aeronaves operan en Darfur con el color blanco que usa la ONU para identificar sus vehículos, aviones y helicópteros. Ésas son algunas de las informaciones reveladas en el informe de cuatro expertos encargado por la ONU y hecho público ayer por el diario The New York Times. El texto señala que esas aeronaves actúan desde los tres aeropuertos de Darfur (El Fashir, El Geneina y Niala) y están siendo utilizados en la vigilancia aérea y los bombardeos de aldeas, además del transporte de carga.
Desde 2003, cuando tres grandes tribus de la provincia sudanesa se rebelaron contra la hegemonía del Gobierno, musulmán también pero de mayoría árabe, han muerto en Darfur (oeste del país) más de 200.000 personas y más de dos millones continúan desplazadas, viviendo de la caridad internacional en campos de refugiados.
Las milicias árabes de Darfur, conocidas como yanyauid, solían atacar las aldeas a lomos de sus camellos o en coches todoterreno y apoyadas por la aviación del Gobierno. Por eso, cada vez que en Darfur se oye el zumbido de un avión sudanés o se avista a lo lejos un helicóptero del Gobierno, la gente sale en estampida. A no ser que se acerquen con el color blanco de la ONU y sin insignias identificativas.
Desde enero a marzo, el grupo de expertos localizó tres helicópteros blancos pertenecientes al Ejército sudanés. Sólo uno de ellos cuenta con bandera sudanesa. Y los otros dos disponen de la identificación del Ejército pintada en la cola, en tal tamaño que sería imposible saber que se trata de helicópteros militares si se observan "desde una distancia moderada", según los expertos.
Intento deliberado
El grupo de cinco expertos consiguió fotografías de un avión Antonov estacionado en el aeropuerto de El Fashir "junto a lo que parecen ser decenas de bombas", según el informe. "El grupo [de expertos] cree que el uso de aviones blancos por el Gobierno de Sudán constituye un intento deliberado de ocultar la identidad de esos aviones", señala el documento. En el ala de una de las aeronaves del Ejército sudanés aparecen incluso las siglas UN (United Nations).
El secretario general de la ONU, Ban Ki-moon, expresó ayer su preocupación por las informaciones. "Si se confirman, estas acciones son una clara violación del derecho internacional y contraviene el estatus internacional de la ONU", declaró uno de sus portavoces. El hecho de que entre 2003 y 2004 muriesen en Darfur más de 200.000 personas en absoluta impunidad, sin presencia de periodistas ni trabajadores humanitarios, ha desatado campañas de concienciación en todo el mundo. Esta semana, la ONG Oxfam calificaba Darfur como "la mayor concentración de sufrimiento humano en el mundo".
El informe no sólo pone el dedo acusador sobre el Gobierno de Jartum, sino sobre los rebeldes que en 2003 se alzaron contra el Gobierno hartos de tanta pobreza y marginación. Esos grupos, según el informe, se encuentran ahora muy fragmentados. Y son responsables de tráfico de armas, de la violación de los controles fronterizos entre Sudán y Chad y de atentados contra los trabajadores humanitarios y el robo de sus vehículos.
"El crimen organizado y los actos de bandidaje se han convertido en una fuente de subsistencia para muchos grupos que operan en Darfur y en otros Estados vecinos", señala el citado documento.
El tira y afloja de Al Bashir
La ONU quiere intervenir en Darfur. Pretende enviar 17.000 cascos azules a la zona. Pero el Gobierno sudanés del presidente Omar al Bashir no está por la labor. Hasta el pasado lunes, el Gobierno sudanés sólo se mostraba dispuesto a ampliar el número de los 7.500 soldados emplazados en el lugar por la Unión Africana. En gran medida esta dotación está financiada con dinero de la Unión Europea. Pero hasta el momento, su labor se ha mostrado insuficiente.
Los soldados de los países africanos no están autorizados a disparar salvo en caso de legítima defensa, con lo cual se han ganado la enemistad de buena parte de las víctimas, que en ocasiones han visto cómo las milicias pro gubernamentales asesinaban a sus familiares delante de los soldados de la Unión Africana.
El lunes, Al Bashir, temiendo tal vez las sanciones con que Estados Unidos le viene amenazando desde hace años, decidió admitir la presencia de 3.000 cascos azules en Darfur.
F. PEREGIL - Madrid - 19/04/2007
Durante el día, en los tres aeropuertos de Darfur la policía ejerce un riguroso control. Algunos lugareños se arremangan y depositan en una mesa el puñal que llevan pegado al bíceps con una goma. Pero de noche los aeropuertos quedan cerrados. Entonces llegan a la provincia sudanesa las armas más mortíferas, las que están prohibidas desde hace dos años por una resolución de la ONU. Llegan en el interior de aviones que el Ejército sudanés usa para bombardear aldeas camuflados como si fueran de Naciones Unidas.
Y estas aeronaves operan en Darfur con el color blanco que usa la ONU para identificar sus vehículos, aviones y helicópteros. Ésas son algunas de las informaciones reveladas en el informe de cuatro expertos encargado por la ONU y hecho público ayer por el diario The New York Times. El texto señala que esas aeronaves actúan desde los tres aeropuertos de Darfur (El Fashir, El Geneina y Niala) y están siendo utilizados en la vigilancia aérea y los bombardeos de aldeas, además del transporte de carga.
Desde 2003, cuando tres grandes tribus de la provincia sudanesa se rebelaron contra la hegemonía del Gobierno, musulmán también pero de mayoría árabe, han muerto en Darfur (oeste del país) más de 200.000 personas y más de dos millones continúan desplazadas, viviendo de la caridad internacional en campos de refugiados.
Las milicias árabes de Darfur, conocidas como yanyauid, solían atacar las aldeas a lomos de sus camellos o en coches todoterreno y apoyadas por la aviación del Gobierno. Por eso, cada vez que en Darfur se oye el zumbido de un avión sudanés o se avista a lo lejos un helicóptero del Gobierno, la gente sale en estampida. A no ser que se acerquen con el color blanco de la ONU y sin insignias identificativas.
Desde enero a marzo, el grupo de expertos localizó tres helicópteros blancos pertenecientes al Ejército sudanés. Sólo uno de ellos cuenta con bandera sudanesa. Y los otros dos disponen de la identificación del Ejército pintada en la cola, en tal tamaño que sería imposible saber que se trata de helicópteros militares si se observan "desde una distancia moderada", según los expertos.
Intento deliberado
El grupo de cinco expertos consiguió fotografías de un avión Antonov estacionado en el aeropuerto de El Fashir "junto a lo que parecen ser decenas de bombas", según el informe. "El grupo [de expertos] cree que el uso de aviones blancos por el Gobierno de Sudán constituye un intento deliberado de ocultar la identidad de esos aviones", señala el documento. En el ala de una de las aeronaves del Ejército sudanés aparecen incluso las siglas UN (United Nations).
El secretario general de la ONU, Ban Ki-moon, expresó ayer su preocupación por las informaciones. "Si se confirman, estas acciones son una clara violación del derecho internacional y contraviene el estatus internacional de la ONU", declaró uno de sus portavoces. El hecho de que entre 2003 y 2004 muriesen en Darfur más de 200.000 personas en absoluta impunidad, sin presencia de periodistas ni trabajadores humanitarios, ha desatado campañas de concienciación en todo el mundo. Esta semana, la ONG Oxfam calificaba Darfur como "la mayor concentración de sufrimiento humano en el mundo".
El informe no sólo pone el dedo acusador sobre el Gobierno de Jartum, sino sobre los rebeldes que en 2003 se alzaron contra el Gobierno hartos de tanta pobreza y marginación. Esos grupos, según el informe, se encuentran ahora muy fragmentados. Y son responsables de tráfico de armas, de la violación de los controles fronterizos entre Sudán y Chad y de atentados contra los trabajadores humanitarios y el robo de sus vehículos.
"El crimen organizado y los actos de bandidaje se han convertido en una fuente de subsistencia para muchos grupos que operan en Darfur y en otros Estados vecinos", señala el citado documento.
El tira y afloja de Al Bashir
La ONU quiere intervenir en Darfur. Pretende enviar 17.000 cascos azules a la zona. Pero el Gobierno sudanés del presidente Omar al Bashir no está por la labor. Hasta el pasado lunes, el Gobierno sudanés sólo se mostraba dispuesto a ampliar el número de los 7.500 soldados emplazados en el lugar por la Unión Africana. En gran medida esta dotación está financiada con dinero de la Unión Europea. Pero hasta el momento, su labor se ha mostrado insuficiente.
Los soldados de los países africanos no están autorizados a disparar salvo en caso de legítima defensa, con lo cual se han ganado la enemistad de buena parte de las víctimas, que en ocasiones han visto cómo las milicias pro gubernamentales asesinaban a sus familiares delante de los soldados de la Unión Africana.
El lunes, Al Bashir, temiendo tal vez las sanciones con que Estados Unidos le viene amenazando desde hace años, decidió admitir la presencia de 3.000 cascos azules en Darfur.
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