Addressing the UN on Sudan: Possibly Futile, but Still Necessary

on November 20, 2012

 

One activist has compared the fight to stop Sudan’s jihadist genocide with trying to kill a cancerous tumor with radiation. To most successfully shrink or destroy tumors, radiation oncologists attack them with simultaneously multi-directional radiation beams. Similarly, Sudan activists have learned that it is necessary to conduct multi-directional attacks against the Islamist regime of Omar al Bashir. They attempt to weaken the regime and prevent its atrocities by pressing the Administration, Congress, the media, the financial world, churches and other religious groups, and international leaders. In this spirit, even those of us who have little faith in the United Nations recently signed on to a letter to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), requesting it strongly act to protect innocent civilians in the conflict areas of Sudan.

The Institute on Religion and Democracy, along with 83 other human rights and religious freedom organizations signed a letter that was sent to the United Nations Security Council on Monday, November 12, 2012. In addition to the organizations that signed, individual signers included two members of the British Parliament, well-known human rights activists The Baroness Cox and Lord Alton of Liverpool, along with actress Mia Farrow and Sudan advocate and author, Professor Eric Reeves. The letter from the activists urges the UNSC to impose deadlines and consequences on the Government of Sudan that has acted with impunity throughout the deadly conflicts it is waging in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile State, and beyond.

“Urgent and decisive action by the UN Security Council is required to save lives,” the letter declares. So far, action has seemed neither urgent nor decisive. The activists note that in October, the UNSC received recommendations in a communiqué from the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) which are to be reviewed and voted on by the UNSC in the coming days. In the time that it has taken for the AUPSC to issue the recommendations and for the UNSC to review and vote on them, the people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State have continued to die and be displaced. The Darfurians continue to suffer ongoing attacks. There is no guarantee that the UNSC will approve the recommendations. And even if it does, say the activists, “We do not believe the Communiqué is adequate in addressing the crises in the two states and, as expected, it does not include necessary recommendations for Darfur.”

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