Chad and Darfur: Cannot Mention One Without the Other

A few short months ago, the relatively safe place to be in order to gather documentation and witness reports from the genocide in Darfur was the border with Chad. Permission to enter Darfur is extremely difficult to obtain from the Sudanese government, so Chad was the place for journalists to be. Darfuri refugees camps in Chad were easy to come across, and relatively safe from physical attack.

Today, 150 kilometers away from its border with Darfur, Chad is as unstable as Darfur itself. The genocide has broken its way through to another country, and the Janjaweed have followed their Sudanese victims into Chad, now attacking Chadian "blacks" as well. The following is an excerpt from a recent Amnesty International report on the situation, to be found at http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGAFR200132006 :

"'Five men who tried to run away were captured by the Janjawid.(...) They tied ropes around their necks and then to their horses and then rode their horses back and forth dragging their bodies for about five to ten minutes. Blood was pouring out of their mouths and noses. They even whipped them on their heads and bodies with their reins, until they were completely covered in blood.'"
Testimony of Abdelrahman Sinoussi, describing the killing of five villagers from Koloye."

What is required is swift and decisive international action in the form of deploying a UN peacekeeping force into the affected region, without the permission of the Sudanese government. Peacekeepers must be sent to Chad, as well, and Sudanese President al-Bashir can say nothing about that. Certainly, there must be a peace established to be kept by these peacekeepers, and al-Bashir has made it clear with his repeated and vehement proclamations against the UN that he is not to be negotiated with. He and his cohorts must be arrested and taken to the International Criminal Court, where Louis Moreno-Ocampo (chief prosecutor at the ICC) is almost ready to state his case against the war criminals in Sudan.

The one problem with Moreno-Ocampo's case is that the charges (though they have not been formally made) do not include the crime of genocide. What is occurring in Darfur and Chad is as much a genocide as what occurred in Europe during World War Two and has since occurred in Bosnia, Cambodia, Iraq, and Rwanda, and it must be treated as such by the the International Criminal Court and by the world at large.