Photograph from Government of Canada, http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/sudan-soudan/assets/images/10-03-10.jpg.

I’d like to start this entry by apologising for the long hiatus in my blog entries. This was partly due to the fact that I spent the month of July doing research in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which was fascinating, difficult, and above all, time-consuming!

I’m now back and would like to pick up where I left off, which is with looking at security, the third and final pillar in Canada’s three-pronged strategy towards Sudan (the other pillars are aid and diplomacy). Here I return to the Canadian government’s website on Sudan – which, just to remind you, can be found at http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/sudan-soudan/index.aspx. According to this site, Canada is a contributor to both of the UN peacekeeping operations in Sudan: the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and the United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS). The government reports that “in addition to diplomatic, financial and material support, Canada has committed up to 50 Canadian Forces personnel and 25 civilian police officers to these peacekeeping operations in Sudan.”

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In my last blog entry, it was my aim to look at what Canada is concretely doing to take action on the situation in Darfur. I wrote about Canada’s relations with Sudan, and, drawing on the Canadian government’s website, outlined Canada’s approach to Sudan in the realm of diplomacy (one of three pillars including aid and security). I will now turn to the first of two remaining pillars, aid, looking at what the Canadian government website says it is doing to assist Sudan in this area.

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If you have been following the Canadian government’s action on the crisis in Darfur, you might feel that they – like the majority of governments around the world – have fallen short when it comes to taking action on the Darfur. There is no better proof than the fact that this sad situation persists even though the uprising of Darfuri rebel groups, and the corresponding counter-insurgency campaign launched by the Sudanese government, dates back to 2003. We all know that the failure to find a way to stop the atrocities sponsored by the Sudanese government in the Darfur region has been paid for largely with the blood of Darfur’s civilians. If more countries had taken a real stand on this issue, the situation might be very different today.

But for a moment, rather than focusing on what the Canadian government isn’t doing, let’s take a look at what they ARE doing. The following statement, which opens the “Canada: Active in Sudan/ Le Canada à l’œuvre au Soudan” section of the Canadian government’s website, makes it clear that Canada sees itself very much as part of the solution, not part of the problem:

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Bashir shows his defiance in the face of the International Criminal Court’s warrant for his arrest (Photo from De Welt).

Some recent news coming out of Darfur is that a Sudanese aid worker with Canadian agency Fellowship for African Relief (based in Ontario) has been shot to death. It has been suggested that there is a link with the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment of Sudanese President Bashir, though at this stage it’s only speculation (UNAMID is investigating the crime). A clearer link can be made between the indictment and the kidnapping about two weeks ago in Darfur of three aid workers, including Laura Archer, a Canadian nurse. Happily, the kidnapped workers were released three days later, but Médecins sans frontières (MSF) had to withdraw almost all of its expatriate employees from the region. This will only compound the already drastic effects of President Bashir’s expulsion of a number of humanitarian NGOs from Darfur in the wake of the ICC indictment.

A dangerous trend is apparent here. There is no justification for transferring anger about the application of international criminal justice to aid agencies. Yet President Bashir has managed to take this position to the extreme with his expulsion of aid agencies from the country. But is it the government or other actors who are behind the latest attacks? World leaders, including the Canadian government, need to make sure that a high-quality investigation is carried out into these latest attacks, to prevent the impunity that already surrounds the expulsion of humanitarian agencies from going any further.

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