The most recent installment of the humanitarian travesty and farce that is occurring in the western Sudanese region of Darfur happened on Monday when Paul Foreman, head of the Dutch branch of Medecins San Frontieres, which translates as “doctors without borders,” was arrested for perpetrating crimes against the state of Sudan with his report about the rapes that are occurring in the genocide-ridden region of Darfur. The pro-government Janjaweed militias in Darfur have been charged with genocide and systematic rapes, and the Sudanese government has been implicated as complicit in the acts; the Sudanese government denies such charges. And now the Sudanese government has jailed the head of a medical charity for compiling a report about the mass rapes.

The Crushing Burden of Rape: Sexual Violence in Darfur catalogues the sexual mistreatment of 500 women who received treatment from Medecins San Frontieres over four and a half months in Darfur. Medecins San Frontieres insists that its report is accurate; the Sudanese government is livid about the report that highlights the grotesque abuse occurring in the region, and when Foreman refused to present the government with the evidence which led to the report — Foreman states that to do so would violate the confidential nature of the doctor-patient relationship — the government promptly arrested him. He has since been released on bail.

The Darfur region is located in western Sudan, and the Sudanese government stands accused of providing support and arms to the Arab Janjaweed militias that are engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleaning against Sudan’s black African population. Since February of 2003, the conflict has resulted in over 70,000 deaths and two million refugees.  

The recent arrest of Paul Foreman is merely the most recent travesty related to Darfur.  Earlier this year a United Nations report claimed, in a preposterously worded report and against all evidence, that genocide was not occurring in Darfur. The United Nations report, begun in October of 2004 at the behest of the U.N. Security Council, on whether genocide is taking place in Sudan, stated that “the commission found that (Sudan’s) government forces and militias conducted indiscriminate attacks,” including “killing of civilians, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and forced displacement, throughout Darfur.”  Although some individuals might have perpetrated “acts with genocidal intent,” the government of Sudan “has not pursued a policy of genocide.”

The U.N. report — which contradicts the American declaration that genocide is currently occurring in Darfur — recommends that the International Criminal Court (ICC) located in The Hague try any specific cases of genocide and war crimes that may have occurred in the Sudan. Had the U.N. report concluded that genocide is occurring in Darfur, the U.N. would have been legally obligated to intervene to help end the conflict.

Mimi Hanaoka