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| June 17, 2008 |
My statement to UN Security Council -June 17
I would like to thank the US Mission and Security Council President Ambassador Khalilzad, U.S. Special Envoy Williamson and the members of the Council for inviting me here today and for holding this meeting.I know you have all just returned from the Darfur region, and I have no doubt that you are deeply affected by the suffering you have witnessed. I too, am just back from my ninth trip to the region since 2004.
If you have been there, you know the devastation and horrors: perhaps, like me, you met a woman whose body was branded with knives after she was raped by 20-30 men. Or the children who are dying of acute malnutrition because there is no protection for humanitarian convoys that could deliver food. Or the mutilated elderly woman whom they tried to burn alive.
Without question you met many victims of utter despair.
I wonder if any of you encountered Halima? Her story is numbingly similar to those of countless women I have spoken to since 2004. She told of the morning when the skies over her village suddenly filled with bombers and attack helicopters, raining bombs upon families as they slept, as they were cooking breakfast, as they prayed. Halima tried to gather her children and run, but militia swarmed the village on camels and horseback, shooting and shouting racial slurs. They tore her infant son from her arms and bayoneted him before her eyes. Three of her five children were killed on that day.
She took this hijaab from her neck and insisted that I wear it-for my protection - I who could offer her no protection. She clasped my hands and said, "tell people what is happening here. Tell them we will all be slaughtered. Tell them we need help."
That was 2004. I don't know if Halima is still alive. I do know that at least 2 million men women and children are now completely outside of humanitarian reach.
In 2005, in the World Summit Outcome document, world leaders pledged that the international community, acting through the Security Council "was prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner" when states, "manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity."
Those words and your responsibility could hardly be clearer.
Yet after more than 5 years, what message have we sent to Darfur's anguished people? Only that they are dispensable. The people of Darfur have been left to watch each other die. And you are watching too.
History will long remember that the UN Security Council has, for five years, failed in the task you have been charged with - protecting a defenseless population.
You have already failed the 300,000 or more who have died needlessly in Darfur. You are failing the millions of civilians who are struggling to survive in wretched camps across Darfur, eastern Chad and now CAR. And you are failing this body - the ideals and principles it represents.
It is past time that a united Security Council stand up to end this human tragedy.
UN Res 1769, authorizing the deployment of a protection force of 26,000, was passed in July of 2007 but one year later- with only a fraction of that number on the ground- the people of Darfur are still waiting for protection.
You have allowed the Government of Sudan, perpetrator of atrocities of the worst kind, to dictate which battalions can and cannot enter Darfur; to determine when and whether the Thai and Nepalese troops can deploy, or the Swedes or Norwegians.
This body referred Darfur to the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against Minister Ahmed Harun, responsible for crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. Instead of arresting him, the Sudanese regime made Harun their liaison to oversee the deployment of UNAMID.
As the Prosecutor of the ICC told you last month, Sudan has put the arsonist in charge of deploying the firefighters. Instead of removing the arsonist, you are negotiating with him.
I ask you: How long will you continue to allow the government of Sudan to manipulate this body? Did Adolph Hitler get to choose which troops should be deployed to end his genocide?
I tell my children that with knowledge comes responsibility. An inescapable knowledge of Darfur is yours. It is your right and responsibility to stand up to the Khartoum regime and ensure the full and effective deployment UNAMID in Darfur.
Nothing has changed since Nov 2007 when Jean-Marie Guehenno expressed the fear that, quote, the "force will not have the capability to defend itself, and that carries the risk of humiliation for the Security Council and the United Nations, and tragic failure for the people of Darfur."
The force was to have been "predominantly African in character". But Khartoum has twisted the intention of the resolution and 'predominantly' has become 'exclusively'. If we must accept that, then I am proposing that militarily capable nations partner with those African battalions in need of training and logistical support. In addition to the United States and those few European countries already committed, a group of volunteer nations might include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Portugal.
Five years of terror and destruction is too long. The future of Darfur's people - and the moral credibility of this body - is in your hands.
The world is looking to you to finally act on that responsibility.
If not now, when? If not the United Nations, who?
This is a defining moment for the United Nations Security Council