Letter to the Editor, Financial Times, 2nd October 2006

Sir,
 
Tom Lantos is correct: If Khartoum continues to reject the deployment of UN peacekeepers, an imposed civilian protection regime in Darfur should be the priority of the international community to neutralise the military forces employed by Sudan to attack civilians, as pointed ou in “We must mobilise pressure and fear to save Darfur” (FT, Sept 25th).

The evidence is mounting that Sudan is positioning air and ground forces. Given the government’s record, it seems quite likely that Khartoum is intent on completing the genocide that it already underway.

With the UN constrained by Sudan’s approval for a force, the UK or US – which both have troops and have made clear their willingness to join a UN-sponsored response unit – should take unilateral action. The onus is on them to bring this carnage to an end, and prevent another humanitarian catastrophe. They must go it alone and put the lives of the most vulnerable before all else.

Indeed the UN’s failure to send in troops makes a mockery of their “Responsibility to Protect” commitment signed by leaders at the UN Millenium Plus 5 Summit one year ago. It agreed that state sovereignty could not be used to justify atrocities—or to bar collective international action to protect those citizens. Where “national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity,” the UN Security Council could put a Chapter VII military force on the table, the treaty reads.

Despite the pronouncement of “never again” in the wake of the Rwanda genocide, the massacres have continued unabated for three and a half years.

Yours sincerely,

JOHN O’SHEA