Text for Translation 2005:
  The Rt. Hon. Tom Clarke CBE MP

Crisis in Sudan

One of the negative aspects of the current focus on Iraq is the failure to concentrate, with sufficient commitment on appalling events elsewhere. Take for example Sudan. Just as we all thought we were learning the lessons of Rwanda over a decade ago, it is becoming palpable each day that terrible things are happening to Sudanese people, particularly in the Darfur and Malakal areas and the International response is falling well below that which is adequate.

I recognise, as I did in an exchange on the floor of the House with Hilary Benn (and Hilary gets high marks for at least recognising there is a serious problem) that as with Rwanda, early warning signs that problems in Sudan were increasing were ignored by the international community until it was too late.

My own visit to the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda in 1994 as bodies floated on the water was an indication that something awful was then taking place in the neighbouring state.

But it was not for some years that it was established beyond doubt that one million people from a population of nine million, had perished in that genocide.

With that warning and with Bill Clinton’s wake-up call, can indolence over Sudan be justified now? Clinton’s comments carry all the more weight in view of his blemished record with regard to Sudan when he ordered the cruise missile attack on the El Shila pharmaceutical factory in 1998.

Poor forgotten Sudan. Those living in the South faced a brutal Civil War for over twenty years, and famine and carnage prevailed as the eyes of the world looked elsewhere. Today a fresh crisis in the West is embracing genocide reminiscent of Rwanda 10 years ago.

NGO’s are pleading with the developed world to “speak out urgently” against current displacement and slaughter of a million people. They point out that we risk failing on a monumental scale, refugees at the heart of one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the new Millennium.

Where is the International community when in Western Sudan we see every day thousands of traumatised families forsaking their treasured land and seeking safe haven in neighbouring Chad? True the UK has contributed £17 million towards humanitarian aid in Darfur; there Arab Militia men, seemingly encouraged by the Sudanese government, have massacred tribal civilians.

In addition a further conflict has broken out in the region of Malakal in the south. Up to 70,000 people have had their homes burnt and their crops destroyed by militia who have been armed and encouraged by the government in Khartoum.

Specialist staff from DFID have been posted in Sudan to advise on the UN aid contribution, working through the Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

NGO’s however feel strongly that despite Britain’s comparatively good record contrasting with the rest of Europe, there is a moral obligation on the UK Government to do much more to stop the slaughter. Darfur simply can’t become as bloody as Rwanda.

And yet there are extreme physical dangers for those who seek to help. The displaced non Arabic speaking black Africans are in a highly vulnerable state. The fact that the Sudanese Government does not like media coverage should be seen as a challenge to ensure that the full story is told.

The United Nations has described the situation in Darfur as the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis. What is staring us in the face is that the Government of Sudan is engaged in genocidal warfare against many of its own people. If this is not a scorched earth policy what is?

It must surely be immensely worrying when the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres wars us that the Region’s entire population, six million people in all are “teetering on the verge of mass starvation”.

The Scotsman reported an NGO representative on the ground as saying “generally speaking, Britain now needs to display a greater sense of urgency to prevent this crisis escalating further”.

Faced with such pressure, Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, has recently said that for the next three months aid workers would not need travel permits to go to Darfur as it relaxed its barriers to the delivery of humanitarian aid. For this small step we are at least thankful. Moreover peace talks in Kenya last week were positive, even if belated, about ending civil war in the South. Darfur, however, is not on the agenda.

There is still an imperative on all of us to save lives. Because even if these tragic people are rescued from conflict and rape, they face starvation on an unbelievable scale. Yet, this is no ordinary famine. A UN report itself said that this tragic indescribable scene arises from “a strategy of systematic and deliberate starvation by the Sudanese Government against tribes in the West of the country”.

If this is not ethnic cleansing in practice what is it?

We are told there is reluctance on the part of those who could influence the UN still more to be come more proactive because the tribes involved are overwhelmingly Muslim. Some seem to have missed the point that this is Muslim fighting Muslim – fratricidal war if there ever was.

Why do the industrial countries continually ignore problems in Africa until the last minute – until public pressure and the media make it impossible for them not to react? It is because they know that they are part of the cause of these problems and that until where is a real change in out aid and trade relationships with Africa, until we allow better access to our markets and relieve the debt burden, there is not going to be any lasting reduction of poverty on the continent.

Whatever the influences, it cannot be right that in the modern world such carnage should be allowed to continue. History, if we do nothing, will rightly judge us harshly. But not as harshly as we are entitled to judge ourselves.

The Rt. Hon. Tom Clarke CBE MP