Daily Darfur: John Kerry - "Time is of the essence"

Senator John Kerry, speaking to Reuters while traveling in Darfur last week, said that one message was repeatedly conveyed during the course of his trip:

"It is high time for the Obama administration to seize the opportunity to realise peace in Sudan," said Kibir.

Kerry told Reuters this was a message he had received often during his three-day visit.

"Everybody here has emphasised that the United States is the country with the leverage and the ability to make a difference, so we have a responsibility to do that," he said. "It's going to take a lot of lifting and a lot of leverage."

The senator urged both the government and the rebels in Darfur to engage in serious peace negotiations.

Kerry also noted that Khartoum's willingness to allow some humanitarian aid to be restored to Darfur was not sufficient:

"Time is of the essence to avert a humanitarian catastrophe."

(Sidebar: At what point do we actually say, "This is a humanitarian catastrophe?" Articles always speak of "averting" one...but the conditions that pushed 2.7 million people in camps and made a total of 4.7 million dependent on assistance sound pretty catastrophic to me. Just sayin'.)

Khartoum, for its part, says that new organizations will be considered, but the 13 that were expelled will not be allowed back in. (Which doesn't really qualify as "allowing some aid back in," does it?)

Meanwhile, aid groups remaining in Darfur are struggling to fill the gaps.

Not Just After Bashir

The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo, submitted a new application for the issuance of a summons against rebel leaders for an attack on African peacekeepers in 2007:

"The ICC's third case on Darfur, opened in late 2007, investigates an alleged rebel attack on the Haskanita military base that left 10 African Union (AU) soldiers dead and one missing.

The counts against the three unnamed rebel commanders in the case filed under seal included war crimes of violence to life, intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a peacekeeping mission and pillaging."

The Sudan Tribune notes that the summonses --- requested by Ocampo instead of arrest warrants out of a reasonable believe that the rebels will appear voluntarily (I think) --- pose an interesting dilemma for African states who oppose the arrest warrants for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir:

"But the victims of the attack on the African peacekeepers came from Nigeria, Mali, Senegal and Botswana.

It will be difficult to see the AU not supporting the ICC case against those figures believed to be behind killing of their own troops in Darfur.

The AU Peace and Security Council issued a statement in the aftermath of the attack stressing ‘the urgent need to bring the culprits to international justice.'"

You Ain't Goin' Nowhere.

Opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi was prevented from traveling to Paris to receive medical treatment:

"Turabi had obtained permission to travel from the interior ministry and a boarding pass, but several security men came and took his passport... and returned to tell him that he was not permitted to leave," Mr Turabi's office manager, Awad Abu Bakr, told AFP news agency.

Turabi is one of Bashir's most vocal critics, and was detained for 2 months earlier this year for publicly stating that the president should turn himself in to the ICC.

Other items of note...

UN human rights experts condemned the execution of 9 Darfuri men, who were hanged in Khartoum last week for allegedly killing the editor of a Sudanese newspaper.

Save Darfur President Jerry Fowler takes Mahmood Mamdani to task for his bogus accusations against the coalition.

Care to join Mia Farrow on a hunger strike?

[Photo: U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator John Kerry talks to displaced Sudanese women and children at a camp in Al-Slaam camp near Al-Fasher town, north Darfur, April 17, 2009.]