Daily Darfur: Complicit in Mass Atrocity? Join the Club.

My immediate reaction upon seeing this headline yesterday:

"African Union wants Mbeki to head Darfur panel"

...was, "Are you freaking kidding me?" (There may or may not have been another expletive somewhere in there.)

From Reuters:

"The African Union has asked former South African leader Thabo Mbeki to head a panel on how to reconcile the need for accountability in Darfur with opposition to calls for Sudan's president to be prosecuted.

Jean Ping, the chairman of the AU Commission, made the announcement on Thursday at a meeting of the continent's foreign ministers ahead of a February 1-3 AU summit in Ethiopia.

‘I have written to President Mbeki to ask him to chair a high level panel to submit recommendations on how best to reconcile the fight against impunity (in Darfur) while also dealing with reconciliation and forgiveness,' Ping said."

Let's review Mr. Mbeki's recent record on "fighting impunity" and promoting "reconciliation and forgiveness":

• He quickly came to the defense of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in July, following the initiation of indictment proceedings against the leader by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

• He has, nearly single-handedly, supported and enabled the criminal regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

• He was openly hostile to his own country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and tried to stop the inclusion of crimes committed by the ANC against civilians in the Commission's final report, and, as President of South Africa following Nelson Mandela, essentially disregarded the TRC's work and recommendations.

To make recommendations for "reconciliation and forgiveness" on behalf of the people of Darfur is more than a little presumptuous --- to charge a leader with a track record of enabling impunity for human rights abusers rather than fighting is more than a little disappointing, if not foolish.

Susan Rice Commits the US to R2P

In her first appearance at the UN Security Council yesterday, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice expressed a commitment to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine:

"As agreed to by member states in 2005 and by the Security Council in 2006, the international community has a responsibility to protect civilian populations from violations of international humanitarian law when states are unwilling or unable to do so," Rice told the council in a closed-door session.

"The United States takes this responsibility seriously," Rice said, according to a transcript of her remarks.

Rice also emphasized US support for international prosecution of war crimes:

"It is in this spirit of cooperation and determination that we will seek to use this body of international law to minimize human suffering and protect vulnerable populations," Rice said.

She said the International Criminal Court "looks to become an important and credible instrument for trying to hold accountable the senior leadership responsible for atrocities committed in the Congo, Uganda, and Darfur."

Other items of note...

The ENOUGH Project released a handy guide to the Darfur rebel movement yesterday --- which I only skimmed, as I spent six hours last night writing this, but look forward to digging into later today....because what else would I do on a Friday night?

The UN's chief mediator in Darfur warned that recent fighting between the government of Sudan and the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement is "endangering civilians and undermining hopes for a settlement."

A new report from the Feinstein Center at Tufts argues that the "vulnerability of livelihoods" drove Arab groups from North Darfur to form the Janjaweed and join the government's counterinsurgency efforts in Darfur.

In a statement yesterday, Vietnamese Deputy Representative to the UN Security Council expressed "deep concern" (diplomats are always "deeply concerned") over the conflict in Darfur:

"The diplomat asked concerned parties to cease fire, respect international humanitarian law, abide by relevant UNSC resolutions and ensure safety for civilians as well as UN officers who are working in the region."

That would, indeed, be nice.

[Photo: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and former South African President Thabo Mbeki.]