Genocide evidence must not be lost in Darfur

What we do know, though, is that these recent attacks and their aftermath reinforce a disturbing trend: Evidence of the human rights crimes that have been and are being committed is being concealed and compromised.

The ruling party in Sudan responsible for the bulk of the crimes in Darfur is covering up the evidence for previous and ongoing human rights crimes in five unique ways.

The international community must act now — in the context of peacemaking efforts — to blow the lid off this elaborate and deadly cover-up.

First, most of the aid agencies that were thrown out last year by President Bashir were working quietly to support survivors of sexual violence and to protect thousands of women and girls from rape.

One of the principal tools of war in Darfur has been systematic rape, a factor in any argument supporting the existence of genocidal intent.

By removing most of the groups that were protecting or caring for rape survivors, the cover-up is on.

Second, the Khartoum regime has systematically denied access to the United Nations/African Union observer mission to investigate attacks on civilians, so many of these attacks go unreported and the culpability remains mysterious.

The observer mission has had no access to the areas of recent government attacks, and thus the UN mission has been totally silent in the face of major attacks.

What is the role of this hugely expensive mission if not to observe and report?

Denial of access is part of the Khartoum regime’s ongoing cover-up of new crimes, so the false argument can be strengthened that rights violations in Darfur are a thing of the past.

Third, there continue to be humanitarian black spots, areas where aid agencies simply can’t go, such as the areas affected by this week’s fighting, leaving over a third of Darfur unreached by food and medical aid.

We don’t know the scale or scope of this problem, but we do know that when access is denied or when aid agencies are expelled, people are much more at risk of disease or malnutrition, which have been by far the biggest killers in Darfur.

Fourth, Khartoum has systematically denied access to journalists and human-rights investigators, and repressed independent Darfurian civil society groups, thus robbing us of another means of independently ascertaining what is happening today in Darfur, or gathering evidence about past crimes.

Illustratively, there is a total media blackout of the attacks being undertaken now in Darfur.

Fifth, the Bashir administration has intimidated aid agencies and UN bodies so no independent information gets released about human-rights issues, because to do so would mean certain expulsion for the responsible organisation.