Peacekeeping in Africa: Sudan

Peacekeeping in Africa: Sudan

Introduction

The humanitarian crisis in Darfur--a region in western Sudan roughly the size of France--is widely recognized as one of the direst in the world. Hundreds of thousands of civilians native to the area have been killed by local militias, while millions more have had to flee their homes for refugee camps; thousands have died of disease and starvation in those camps. The crisis in Darfur began in 2003, around the time that a decades-long civil war between the Sudanese government, based in the north of the country, and southern rebels was drawing to a close. A separate coalition of rebels in Darfur attacked government troops, provoking a response in which government-sponsored militias--known as the Janjaweed--began a systematic campaign of destroying Darfuri villages and killing their residents.

According to the terms of the CPA, any adult who either was a permanent resident of southern Sudan or had a southern Sudanese parent or grandparent had the right to vote in the January 2011 independence referendum. An estimated 5.5 million people were thus eligible to participate, of whom nearly 3.8 million registered to vote. Many waited for hours in huge lines beneath an unrelenting African sun just to register for the historic election. Additionally, as many as 120,000 southern Sudanese living in northern Sudan registered to vote, as well as roughly 60,000 living abroad in countries such as the U.S., Canada and Great Britain. The CPA ruled that a simple majority vote was sufficient to declare independence; however, the results of the election would be invalidated if less than 60% of registered voters turned out to the polls in January 2011.

The U.S., meanwhile, has kept a close eye on Sudan since the Bush administration helped to broker the CPA in 2005. In September 2010, during a speech at the foreign-policy think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cautioned that the upcoming independence referendum represented a "ticking time-bomb" that could explode into war if not handled properly. Still, she explained that the U.S. unequivocally favored secession, and that it is "worth [the north's] while to peacefully accept an independent South, and for the South to recognize that unless they want more years of warfare and no chance to build their own new state, they've got to make some accommodations with the north as well".

Discussion

In March 2009, the International Criminal Court (ICC)--an international body with over 100 member nations committed to prosecuting individuals for crimes against humanity--issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with seven counts of human rights violations and war crimes. The arrest warrant has since become a significant source of controversy, as it represents the first concrete step that the international community has taken against Bashir. Did the ICC do the right thing in charging Bashir with war crimes and issuing a warrant for his arrest? Or will the warrant further destabilize Darfur, making it an even more dangerous and deadly place than ...