Crime against humanity in Darfur right now

The Sudanese government has made it clear they intend to negotiate with one hand while crushing Darfur with the other. The Sudanese government, as the peace talks in Libya began, called a unilateral ceasefire. At the same time, they were forcibly relocating internally displaced persons from Otash camp in Southern Darfur, near Nyala. United Nations humanitarian chief, John Holmes:

"Given that security forces were threatening the displaced with sticks and rubber hoses at Otash camp, the involuntary nature of this relocation is clear…10 armed pickup trucks rounded up refugees at Otash on Sunday. U.N. and aid workers were initially barred from the camp, but eventually got in to see eight large commercial trucks being loaded with the belongings of women and children”.

The images conjured by what is happening in Otash are not pretty (please go to the link for more details). Women and children being separated from their male relatives, from their belongings, and being forcibly relocated to “safety” is reminiscent of the treatment received by Jewish women and children before they were loaded onto trains and sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust.

My purpose in making this allusion is neither to shock nor to shame, and not to minimize the gravity of the Holocaust, but to describe what is happening in Darfur. A semantic debate over genocide has no purpose other than to distract from the fact that innocent people are being forced from their temporary homes, rounded up into trucks, and driven off in the middle of the night by government troops brandishing semi-automatic weapons, sticks, and rubber hoses.

Deportation or forcible transfer of population is a crime against humanity according to the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court when it is committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population. What happened in Otash on Sunday night and into Monday in October 2007 fits this definition. Please go to the Aegis Trust to learn more about this situation and what you can do.