30th Anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.. It’s high time for Africa to hold RSF accountable for genocide in Sudan

As the world commemorates this year, the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan geocide in 1994, one of the most important lessons that should have been learnt worldwide, has been the importance of setting up an agenda for early warning mechanisms, for deterring  and prevent the crime of  genocide in the future.

Such preemptive measures include inter alia, close monitoring of all manifestations of gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, which if left without being properly checked or de-escalated, may spiral to end up in genocidal situation.

In this context, the United Nations has employed multitude of researchers and experts to identify the widely agreed upon social, cultural, and even psychological risk factors, that make a country, a social, cultural, or ethnic group, increasingly more prone to the risk of genocide.

In reality, the said United Nations’ early warning systems and mechanisms, has not only failed  to prevent genocide in Sudan, worse still, when geocidal situation was proven and  established by international credible reports and figures, as in El-Genina in western Darfur for instance, it has not warranted enough response or a prompt action, to hold its – already named- perpetrators accountable, in complete disregard or rather betrayal, to the very innocent victims of these matchless atrocities and their respevtive families.

Whilst few days ago,  Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, bluntly and courageously dubbed the situation in Gaza Strip, as not “war” but a “genocide”  comarably Sudan on its part, is yet  another victim of more or less,  similar blurring narratives, and was kept denied,  its due fair and objective  characterization of its 18 months-long ordeal.

Regretfully, Sudan’s efforts have met with little success in getting the world to classify the RSF rebel militia as a terrorist organization and rather genocidaires. Ensuingly  that has not only obstructed efforts to halt the military and logistical supply and mercenaries from the regional neighboring States and States involved in inflaming the war, but also  encouraged the militia to persist on committing these atrocities in broad daylight.

We can not skip the fact  that RSF, as “hired guns,” simply operates primarily to serve the goals of some influential regional and international sponsors.

These said sponsors in return, continued in one way or another, to procrastinate and obstruct – whenever necessary, the militia’s classification as a terrorist entity, much the same as ISIS or Boko Haram. That opens up in return, the looming challenge in the international landscape today; the pandora box of prioritizing political, security, and economic interests at the expense of so-called international justice.

Renewed and celebrated  vows and commitments toward the prevention and the fight against genocide and to ensure that it never happens again in Rwanda or anywhere else, was not followed by proper action and thereby continues to fail the first litmus tests.

These painful realities were  further elucidated in the latest UN fact-finding mission report  concludes that RSF militia fighters attempted a genocide to wipe out non-Arab ethnic groups in the region, particularly the Masalit ethnic group.

 The report further adds that the RSF militia raped and attacked minority groups in Darfur, threatened to force them to have “Arab babies” and used ethnic slurs during their attacks.

 RSF’s deliberate intent to commit genocide, was further confirmed by the most senior international staff in this field; the UN Secretary-General’s special adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, namely Alice wairimu Ndreto.

 In her statement, on the 5th of June 2024, Ndeo unequivocally indicated that the killing of civilians in that part of Darfur, was racially motivated; merely because of their color, race and identity.

 What on earth, could further align   and fit into the very classic and simple definition of genocide?(certain acts that  intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group)

As a matter of fact, the above  high ranking international official deplored and further warned that “the weak reaction with regard to genocide by the international community, reduces any progress that has been made collectively to prevent the most serious crimes”.

 In fact, the said inaction and deafening silence,  on the part of the international community, was good enough to give   to RSF Genocidaires, a blank check to commit yet more genocides in other parts of Sudan namely in El Gazira state in central Sudan, which has been and continues to be, the scene for scale of atrocities and bestialities, that were hardly known, even during the Nazi wars.

 Even Nazis did not murder defenseless civilians by deliberately poisoning their drinking water sources. A bestiality that turns villagers into slaves, and imposes heavy ransoms on the victims in exchange for their freedom to leave their villages.

Reports reveal that RSF has so far murdered more than 500 civilians including women and children in El Hilalia , where it’s  reported that scores of defenseless women had to  resort to suicide, to protect themselves or escape the shame of rape by the predatory militia.

Adding insult to injury, is the shocking news and clips which indicate that it has been the modus operandi of the militia since the inception of the conflict, to   kidnap at gun – point, tens of women and young girls from their neighborhoods in Khatoumand elsewhere,  and transfer them as sex slaves and forced prostitution, to be sold in special markets in west Africa.

Such untold barbarity coincided with yet a fresh wave of revenge campaigns, during which the militia burned more than 40 villages around El Fashir in Darfur, to force the remaining survivors to flee for their safety: which is an integral part of a   systematic demographic change against the people of the Sudan, perpetrated by the militia in different parts of the Sudan.

To that effect, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta Salami, made statement in which she said that she was deeply shocked and appalled by the (recurrence) of human rights violations in El Gazira, of the kind we witnessed in Darfur in western Sudan last year, including ethnic cleansing, murder, mass rape, terrorism, and persecution of innocent civilians, to name a few.

The US special envoy to Sudan, Tom Perriello, after long months of misleading and biased narratives on the nature of the conflict in Sudan – perhaps  in the face of compelling evidence – had to come couple of days ago, to say that that reports that RSF soldiers poisoned food and drinking water (causing the death of  hundreds of civilians including women and children  in the town of (El-Hilalia) “shocks the conscience.” he said.

The US and the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court have talked about war crimes in Darfur, but again they have not specifically mentioned genocide. What is really interesting is that even AU’s special envoy for the prevention of the crime of genocide and other mass atrocities, voluntarily opted to walk in their orbit.

African Union’s Envoy Ahmada Deing, whose core of mandate is upholding accountability standards, in his first statement on Sudan, whilst   enumerating some gross crimes of the RSF in the Sudan, which constitute  per se,  a prime facie case,  for the occurrence of genocide, the envoy however,  choses to fall short or opts like others,  not to walk the walk and to  refrain from using or even hinting to the key word, namely genocide, which should have been, otherwise,  the key term that frames his mandate.

History tells how it took France 27 years, to officially confess its guilt in the Rwandan genocide, likewise, it took the Netherlands another 27 years to apologize for their failure to prevent the genocide in Srebrenica, likewise, by it took Germany long 113 years, to apologize for the brutal genocide in Namibia. Hence, by the same criteria, it’s only God Almighty who knows, how many years should pass, before the African Union apologizes to the people of Sudan, for being in the wrong side of history; shying away from calling RSF genocides in Sudan, by their proper name!