Genocide evidence must not be lost in Darfur

Most governments don’t acknowledge it. The Sudanese president dismisses it.

Darfurians demand that it be recognised.

Academics, activists, and lawyers dispute whether it is still occurring or whether it occurred at all.

International Criminal Court judges debate standards of evidence surrounding it.

The nature of recent attacks by Sudanese government forces and militia allies against defenceless civilians potentially augurs its resurgence.

And if a fledgling peace process continues to move forward, then any evidence of its ever happening may well be swept under the carpet.

The “it” in question is Darfur’s genocide.

Seven years after a small rebellion in western Sudan by Darfurian insurgents unleashed a massive counter-insurgency strategy by the Sudanese government and its Janjaweed militia allies, the debate continues: What should be done about the genocide? How can justice and peace simultaneously be pursued?

The ICC’s recent ruling that genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir are possible gives new life to the issue.

And responding to a YouTube question posed by the Enough Project, President Obama appeared to reverse his administration’s stated policy of an “ongoing genocide” by referring to it in the past tense. How do we make sense out of all this?

In our eight trips into Darfur over these past seven years, we have never met a Darfurian who does not believe genocide has occurred.

But genocide is ultimately the subject of international law.

The Genocide Convention states that the crime pertains when a party intends to destroy — in whole or in part — a particular group of people based on their identity. Although judges will ultimately rule on this, we believe the evidence for genocidal intent is there.

Eyewitness reports this past week of aerial bombardment of villages followed by attacks on civilian populations by armed horsemen echo back to a period just a few years ago when much of Darfur was literally on fire.

These reports are emerging simultaneous to a series of framework ceasefire agreements, thus complicating the Darfur landscape further.