Sudan: Confronting the Atrocities in Darfur

By: Nick Grono

Darfur's ongoing misery is the world's continuing shame. The international community has conspicuously failed in its responsibility to protect the people of Darfur from large scale crimes against humanity: the result is over 200,000 dead and more than two million forced from their homes.

But one notable exception to this international abdication of responsibility has been on the legal front, with the UN Security Council's referral of Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March 2005. In the face of clear evidence of ethnic cleansing and other atrocity crimes, the ICC investigation has taken on enormous importance. It is also a critical test of the fledgling organisation.

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, faces three big challenges. The first is that Darfur is in the middle of a continuing conflict, making it extraordinarily difficult to conduct a successful investigation and prosecutions. The government and its proxy Janjaweed militias continue to launch attacks on the rebels and their civilian sympathisers in western Sudan and in neighbouring Chad, and the rebels are not only fighting them, but also each other. The Prosecutor does not even have a security force to protect his staff and witnesses on the ground let alone help him collect evidence. Read more >>>