On March 4, the Sudanese government began expelling aid agencies from Sudan, leading to the gaps in the provision of humanitarian assistance throughout Darfur that were identified in this week’s Joint Assessment Report. Three weeks after these expulsions the UN Security Council has finally managed to:
“appeal to it [the Government of Sudan] to reconsider the decision of suspending the activities of some non-government organizations in Sudan.”
The statement, endorsed by all members of the Security Council, was read out to the press by the current UN Security Council President, H.E. Mr. Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham (Permanent Representative of Libya) after the Council met in New York yesterday afternoon.
This half-sentence, non-binding, appeal took three weeks to deliver because, according to one source on the Council, agreement on a public statement of “deep concern” about the expulsion decision was thwarted by the Libyan delegation. They refused to agree to it unless the statement was linked to a formal acknowledgment of an African Union communiqué seeking an Art. 16 suspension of the ICC’s case against the Sudanese President.
To their credit, other members of the Council resisted Libya’s attempt to link these two issues. To have done so would have played directly into the blackmail set-up that Khartoum is attempting to create by using the ICC arrest warrant as a pretext to up-the-ante on their obstruction of humanitarian relief.
In reality the obstruction of relief has been an ever-present threat (and frequent actuality) over the course of the six-year conflict in Darfur, including prior to the situation being referred to the ICC. This reality was recognized in one section of a NYT Op Ed today by Dr. Christophe Fornier of Doctors Without Borders. Fornier writes:
“[I]ndependence from the I.C.C. is not enough to avoid being blocked from providing lifesaving humanitarian aid. Recent events demonstrate that whatever position international groups have taken with regard to the I.C.C., emergency assistance in Darfur is being held hostage to political wrangling between the international community and the Sudanese government.”
But in another part of the piece Fornier draws direct causality between support for the ICC’s actions and the obstruction of humanitarian assistance, stating that “international pressure seeking to punish indicted Sudanese officials has led to relief efforts being cut in half, threatening the lives of millions of people.”
Unfortunately the NYT’s headline writer focused on this latter point in framing the article with the title: “Punishment or Aid?” – – exactly the binary framework that Khartoum is hoping states will use in formulating their response to the expulsions.
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