Sudan: ‘If the World Stands Idly By This Time, They Will Bring Genocide’

On the Verge of Crisis in Sudan: ‘If the World Stands Idly By This Time, They Will Bring Genocide’
“Serious atrocities are being witnessed between Kadugli and Dilling. Nuba people are being dragged and killed instantly from lorries trying to ferry them northward for safety. Unnecessary checkpoints are put to trap the Nuba fleeing the violence from Kadugli and Dilling. The Nuba people who escaped to safety are being hunted like rats. Anyone found with SPLM card (ID), flag or document is summarily executed without interrogation.”

Similar alarms about mass atrocities and an immediate humanitarian crisis are sounding from many quarters, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and The UN Refugee Agency. The debate over how best to respond has begun. The anti-genocide Enough Project of the Center for American Progress, for example, has called for arming the south with “air defense capabilities” to protect civilians from aerial bombardment.

Allegations of ethnic cleansing by the SAF and allied militia during the invasion of Abyei in May foreshadowed the current crisis, and indeed this is the same Khartoum regime whose leaders were indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, including genocide, in Darfur.

Many stakeholders are nevertheless trying to salvage the 2005 peace accords that ended decades of civil war in which some two million people died. In January the South elected to secede with upwards of 95% of the vote. But 75% of the nation’s oil production of 480,000 barrels a day is located in the South, contributing to disputes over fertile border regions, and how to apportion oil revenues.