BAHAI, Chad -- Here, at this refugee
camp on the border of Sudan, nothing separates us from Darfur but a small
stretch of desert and a line on a map. All the same, it's a line I can't
cross. As a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, I have traveled into Darfur before, and I had hoped to return. But
the UNHCR has told me that this camp, Oure Cassoni, is as close as I can get.
Sticking to this side of the Sudanese
border is supposed to keep me safe. By every measure -- killings, rapes, the
burning and looting of villages -- the violence in Darfur has increased since
my last visit, in 2004. The death toll has passed 200,000; in four years of
fighting, Janjaweed militia members have driven 2.5 million people from their
homes, including the 26,000 refugees crowded into Oure Cassoni.
Attacks on aid workers are rising,
another reason I was told to stay out of Darfur. By drawing attention to their
heroic work -- their efforts to keep refugees alive, to keep camps like this
one from being consumed by chaos and fear -- I would put them at greater risk.
I've seen how aid workers and
nongovernmental organizations make a difference to people struggling for
survival. I can see on workers' faces the toll their efforts have taken.
Sitting among them, I'm amazed by their bravery and resilience. But
humanitarian relief alone will never be enough.
Until the killers and their sponsors are
prosecuted and punished, violence will continue on a massive scale. Ending it
may well require military action. But accountability can also come from
international tribunals, measuring the perpetrators against international
standards of justice.
Accountability is a powerful force. It
has the potential to change behavior -- to check aggression by those who are
used to acting with impunity. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court (ICC), has said that genocide is not a crime of
passion; it is a calculated offense. He's right. When crimes against humanity
are punished consistently and severely, the killers' calculus will change.
On Monday I asked a group of refugees
about their needs. Better tents, said one; better access to medical
facilities, said another. Then a teenage boy raised his hand and said, with
powerful simplicity, "Nous voulons une épreuve." We want a trial.
He is why I am encouraged by the ICC's announcement yesterday that it will
prosecute a former Sudanese minister of state and a Janjaweed leader on
charges of crimes against humanity.
Some critics of the ICC have said
indictments could make the situation worse. The threat of prosecution gives
the accused a reason to keep fighting, they argue. Sudanese officials have
echoed this argument, saying that the ICC's involvement, and the implication
of their own eventual prosecution, is why they have refused to allow U.N.
peacekeepers into Darfur.
It is not clear, though, why we should
take Khartoum at its word. And the notion that the threat of ICC indictments
has somehow exacerbated the problem doesn't make sense, given the history of
the conflict. Khartoum's claims aside, would we in America ever accept the
logic that we shouldn't prosecute murderers because the threat of prosecution
might provoke them to continue killing?
When I was in Chad in June 2004,
refugees told me about systematic attacks on their villages. It was estimated
then that more than 1,000 people were dying each week.
In October 2004 I visited West Darfur,
where I heard horrific stories, including accounts of gang-rapes of mothers
and their children. By that time, the UNHCR estimated, 1.6 million people had
been displaced in the three provinces of Darfur and 200,000 others had fled to
Chad.
It wasn't until June 2005 that the ICC
began to investigate. By then the campaign of violence was well underway.
As the prosecutions unfold, I hope the
international community will intervene, right away, to protect the people of
Darfur and prevent further violence. The refugees don't need more resolutions
or statements of concern. They need follow-through on past promises of action.
There has been a groundswell of public
support for action. People may disagree on how to intervene -- airstrikes,
sending troops, sanctions, divestment -- but we all should agree that the
slaughter must be stopped and the perpetrators brought to justice.
In my five years with UNHCR, I have
visited more than 20 refugee camps in Sierra Leone, Congo, Kosovo and
elsewhere. I have met families uprooted by conflict and lobbied governments to
help them. Years later, I have found myself at the same camps, hearing the
same stories and seeing the same lack of clean water, medicine, security and
hope.
It has become clear to me that there
will be no enduring peace without justice. History shows that there will be
another Darfur, another exodus, in a vicious cycle of bloodshed and
retribution. But an international court finally exists. It will be as strong
as the support we give it. This might be the moment we stop the cycle of
violence and end our tolerance for crimes against humanity.
What the worst people in the world fear
most is justice. That's what we should deliver.
