Sovereignty vs. Survival: Is the Responsibility to Protect a Broken Promise in Sudan?
Amgad Fareid Eltayeb
المقال باللغة العربية
On the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomatic Forum, which took place from March 1 to 3, 2024, news emerged of a meeting between Sudan's acting Foreign Minister, Ambassador Ali Al-Sadiq, and the Deputy Director of the United Nations World Food Program, Carl Skau.
Following the meeting, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Sadiq had informed Skau of the Sudanese government's rejection of the WFP’s request to transfer humanitarian aid across the Chadian borders. The Sudanese government's decision came against the backdrop of international reports, including the report of the UN Panel of Experts on Darfur, formed according to Security Council Resolution 1591, that countries (mainly the UAE) supporting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia exploited the Chadian airport near the border with Sudan to supply the RSF with equipment and weapons, which contributed to fueling the war that broke out between the Sudanese Army Forces (SAF) and the RSF since April 15, 2023.
The Sudanese government quickly reversed its decision to prevent the passage of humanitarian assistance across the border. However, the decision itself was irrational in substance and intrinsically discordant with reality. The Sudanese army and government forces do not have complete control of the Sudanese-Chadian border. The RSF controls four of the five states that make up the Darfur region adjacent to Chad, while the situation in North Darfur remains uncertain so far. North Darfur remains the largest state in the Darfur region in terms of area and population, as well as the largest in terms of the number of displaced people who sought refuge in it to escape the violations committed by the Rapid Support Forces in the areas under its control over other states, especially after the massacres and violations committed in the cities of El Geneina in West Darfur, Zalingei, the capital of Central Darfur State, and Nyala, the capital of South Darfur State.
Concerning Al-Fashir, the administrative center of North Darfur State, both the army and RSF forces maintain a presence within the city and state. However, a state of equilibrium is preserved, and confrontations are averted due to the presence of the joint forces of the Darfur armed struggle movements that signed the Juba Peace Agreement. These movements, notwithstanding their divergent political stances, have thus far maintained a declared neutrality in the ongoing conflict.
In addition, obstructing the passage of humanitarian aid in any form is a clear failure of the de facto government to perform its own duties and responsibilities. Claiming that closing the border is justified because some countries use it to smuggle weapons to the RSF militia is illogical. Those countries that brazenly engage in weapon smuggling and supply provisions to the RSF militia without requiring humanitarian delivery as a pretext. Before the press reports, United Nations reports document this military supply in an open manner. The supply of weapons does not occur through humanitarian organizations that transport food, medicine, and aid, nor through the WFP convoys that the Sudanese government has the opportunity to monitor and ensure that they don’t contain any military aid or equipment to support the militia.
However, in a positive step, the UN Resident Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, Ms. Clementine Nkeita Salama, announced on March 5, 2024, that the Sudanese Foreign Affairs Ministry had informed her of its approval to facilitate the passage of humanitarian aid through the Tina border crossing on the Sudanese-Chadian border and from the Rank border crossing on the border with South Sudan, and to facilitate its transportation routes to the rest of the country. The Sudanese Foreign Ministry confirmed this in a statement released the following day, March 6, 2024, in which it confirmed its approval for cross-border aid from Chad, the Republic of South Sudan, and the Arab Republic of Egypt in addition to allowing the use of the airports of Al-Fashir, Kadugli, and Al-Obyad for the transport of humanitarian aid in case it cannot reach via land routes.
The Sudanese Foreign Ministry's retreat from its previous decision was praiseworthy and constituted a positive development. However, it places the United Nations and its humanitarian agencies in a challenging spot in ensuring that humanitarian aid is activated in a timely manner to adequately address the humanitarian crisis and bring their performance up to par. Numerous observers pointed to the ineffectiveness of United Nations agencies, particularly with the international reluctance to formally declare a state of severe famine in Sudan, where the numbers and proportions have long surpassed the thresholds required for such a declaration. Similarly, we observe the insufficiency in the budget's coverage for essential humanitarian provisions in Sudan, estimated at around $2.7 billion for 2024, of which presently, as the first quarter draws to a close, less than 4% is available. This further demonstrates the laxity of international humanitarian action concerning Sudan.
The current situation in Sudan reignites the need for a critical debate within the international community concerning the response to large-scale human suffering. While adherence to the principle of state sovereignty is indeed essential for the normal functioning of the international system, it is not the sole governing principle. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle, enshrined within international law, stands as a countervailing principle. This doctrine aims to prevent mass atrocities and alleviate severe human suffering, particularly in light of the international community's shortcomings in addressing the Rwandan genocide and the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s.
The 2005 UN World Summit witnessed the universal endorsement of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle, a landmark evolution in safeguarding fundamental human rights. This principle, now a cornerstone of international legitimacy, empowers the global community to intervene in situations of egregious human rights violations and mass atrocities. The Summit established a three-pillared framework for R2P implementation, prioritizing preventative measures to avert such crises. These pillars encompass:
- Pillar 1. The State Responsibility to Protect: This pillar emphasizes the primary obligation of individual states to protect their own populations and take necessary measures to ensure the safety of their citizens.
- Pillar 2. Responsibility of the International Community to Support: The international community should assist states in fulfilling their obligations regarding the responsibility to protect. This includes diplomatic efforts, humanitarian assistance, and capacity-building.
- Pillar 3. The International Community's Responsibility to Take Collective Action: This pillar outlines the international community's responsibility to intervene in situations where a state manifestly fails to protect its own population. This intervention can involve a range of measures, including, as a last resort, the authorization of the use of force to prevent large-scale atrocities and human suffering.
Needless to say, the concept of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has ignited a contentious debate concerning the sovereignty principle upon which state governments base their monopoly of management of internal affairs. Traditionally, sovereignty has implied a state's freedom from any form of external interference. However, the "Responsibility to Protect" principle challenges this absolutist perspective. Sovereignty is not absolute but rather comes with the responsibility to protect citizens. Sovereignty hinges on the state government's responsibility to its people. If this responsibility is not fulfilled, the contract between the government and its citizens is rendered null and void, or at best incomplete, and sovereignty is therefore not absolute. The principle of Responsibility to Protect emerges from this delicate balance.
Enforcement measures and the use of force are not limited to military intervention to end war or the deployment of troops to halt hostilities and separate forces (which is yet another requirement in the case of Sudan). They can also be used to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid and to put an end to the escalating and ongoing suffering in Sudan.
The evolution of this principle and its organizing pillars can be traced back to the work of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, established by the United Nations in response to the question posed by then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan: "If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to Rwanda, to Srebrenica, to gross and systematic violation of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity?". This commission was formed and developed the concept of the Responsibility to Protect, which was adopted internationally at the 2005 UN World Summit. However, the United Nations led by Kofi Annan and his predecessors in the Secretary-Generalship is not the same United Nations led by António Guterres today. The United Nations of today prefers to do nothing at all rather than doing anything to uphold the "precept of our common humanity," as Kofi Annan called it.
The tragedy unfolding in Sudan has transformed, within months of the outbreak of this accursed civil war last year, into the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of our time. Over 25 million Sudanese civilians are now in dire need of basic humanitarian assistance, including 14 million children requiring life-saving aid. 18 million Sudanese civilians are experiencing severe food insecurity, with around 5 million of them facing critical hunger levels. Additionally, 3.8 million children under five are suffering from severe malnutrition. Statistics indicate that 95% of Sudanese civilians within the country are unable to afford a single adequate meal per day, while cholera cases have reached 11,000.
This is in addition to the plight of the displaced and refugees who have been forcibly uprooted from their homes and communities, reaching a total of around 10 million people to date. The United Nations itself has compiled reports of identity-based murders and violence in Darfur. RSF also, on February 4, 2024, shut down all telecommunications networks operating in Sudan, plunging the country into a complete blackout of telephone and internet services. This has exacerbated the deteriorating humanitarian situation and completely disrupted relief coordination efforts, halting the operations of over 300 solidarity kitchens in Khartoum State that were providing food to around 3.5 million people in the war-ravaged capital.
Furthermore, the World Food Program has reported repeated looting of its warehouses by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the most recent being on December 28, 2023, when the RSF looted food supplies from its warehouses in Gezira State. These supplies were intended to provide food assistance to 1.5 million Sudanese civilians for at least one month. The RSF also looted essential nutrition supplies needed to treat malnutrition in a total of 20,000 children, pregnant women, and breastfeeding mothers.
If all this does not constitute a clearly manifested failure of the state's responsibility to protect civilians in Sudan, I do not know what a manifested failure is.
Thus far, the United Nations and the international community have demonstrated a conspicuous lack of interest and inadequacy in their response to the situation in Sudan, showing a disgraceful lack of interest in fulfilling the principles of international law, which also make them responsible for protecting civilians. This inaction increases and prolongs this suffering. In the interest and safety of the Sudanese people, the international community must now take decisive and effective action rather than wasting time on diplomatic niceties to please the two belligerent parties and their regional and international allies.
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