Resolution: Stop the Darfur genocide

The Executive Committee of the Liberal International meeting in San José, Costa Rica on 6 November 2004

 

- considering that, according to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the genocide in Darfur (Western Sudan) is currently the worst humanitarian disaster in the world, resulting in more than 70,000 deaths, thousands of women victimised by systematic rape, 1.5 million people expelled from their homes and leaving 2 million at the risk of famine;

 

- regrets that political statements from countries around the world, and from the EU in particular, on the systematic atrocities committed in Sudan, have been vague and confusing;

 

- urges the Sudanese government to disarm the Janjawid militia and prosecute those guilty of atrocities, as set out by the UN Security Council in its resolution 1556;

- calls on the European Union and all governments to follow the example of the United States in considering the current atrocities to be genocide;

 

- calls on Governments to demand that the Sudanese government accepts the tens of thousands of troops from the African Union that are needed to create stability in Darfur and to make it possible for refugees to return home, and to be prepared to finance jointly the African Union troops;

 

- insists the African Union troops must be mandated to use armed force to protect civilians in Darfur;

 

- considers that a further international intervention in Darfur may become necessary, should the African Union be unsuccessful in stopping the genocide, and that such action would be in accordance with the UNSC resolution;

 

- calls on the United Nations to initiate an urgent international appeal for humanitarian efforts in Darfur, as a large-scale international presence would provide conditions for a plan for democratisation and development in Sudan and the Horn of Africa, as well as preventing further famine and future genocide;

 

- stresses that mass rape, expulsion and systematic killings are all crimes against humanity that must be punished by the international community, and that war criminals should be put on trial either in the International Criminal Court at The Hague or before an international commission such as that in Arusha, Tanzania, which was set up after the genocide in Rwanda;

 

- calls on the international community to grant economic aid to neighbouring Chad, which has been forced to take far too big a responsibility for the care of refugees from Sudan.