The Case of Violation of Human Rights in Sudan and Contributing Factors

In 2003, two Darfuri rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, revolted against the Sudanese government with violent complaints of governmental oppression of Darfur’s non-Arab population. The government responded to this by beginning a brutal and bloody campaign against Darfur’s non-Arabs. The Sudanese military and police in addition to a militia known as the Janjaweed or “devils on horseback” as well as rebel factions such as the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement began a fierce conflict that resulted in the deaths of 400,000 people and the additional displacement of 2,500,000 people (Copnall). The conflict in Darfur is ongoing and more than one-hundred people continue to die every day.

The Sudanese government disputes the accepted death tolls and denies any involvement in the conflict. In 2009, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Arrest warrants for former Sudanese Minister of State for the Interior Ahmad Harun and Janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb have been released by the International Criminal Court. Despite this, the Sudanese government has refused to surrender either suspect. The government of Sudan is unwilling to address the human rights violations in Darfur. With neither protection from the Sudanese government nor military support from another nation, the Darfuri people are left to be massacred.

The international response to the Darfuri travesty is one of outrage. Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell described the Darfuri state of affairs as being a genocide (Hamilton). Gérard Prunier, an academic with a specialty in conflicts in the Horn of Africa, argued that the world’s most powerful countries limited themselves to simply expressing concern and demanding for the United Nations to take action (Prunier). Instead of giving tasks to the United Nations, the United States should recognize her moral responsibility to victims of human rights violations and intervene herself. Circumstances such as those in Darfur can be prevented through intervention by the United States.

Human beings as a race have a responsibility to halt gross acts of violence but the United States as a country has a moral responsibility to intervene in instances of human rights violations. Countries have a responsibility to protect their citizens from mass violence such as ethnic cleansing, genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This simple fact is part of the international law accepted by most countries in the world. However, when a country fails to properly perform its duty to protect its citizens and/or even violates the human rights of its citizens, it is up to the society of countries to protect the citizens of the host country.

The United States specifically has a responsibility to protect citizens of a foreign nation from human rights violations. While other countries may have the desire to intervene in instances of human rights violations of but lack the funds or military to do so, the United States possesses both the funds and the military. The United States is the seventh richest country in the world, following such small nations such as Qatar and Hong Kong that do not possess an equivalent to the American military (Tasch). The U.S. leads the world in military spending at more than $600 billion a year (McCarthy). In addition, aircraft carriers are a key component of a country’s military, and very few countries have one. However, the U.S. possesses ten aircraft carriers in comparison to the number of aircraft carriers that India, the country with the next most aircraft carriers possesses, two. While a military intervention is not always the necessary or moral route, the United States would have the adequate military to do so if all necessary measures were needed to protect citizens from mass atrocities.

Now that it is established that the United States does have a moral responsibility to intervene in countries where human rights violations are occurring, the conditions under which the U.S. has a responsibility to intervene must be addressed. The United States has a responsibility to intervene in the affairs of another country when a genocide occurs. In the United Nation’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (Convention). In these outlined instances, intervention becomes a duty.

Contributions of aid such as food, funds, and the necessary elements for human survival should be the first route of action in the cause of an intervention. However, in this method, the necessary aid does not always come to the persecuted group that so badly needs it due to the often unstable government of the host country procuring the aid for its own needs. If the host country’s government is unwilling to assist the United States and allow distribution of aid to those whose human rights have been violated, a thorough appeal process must begin with that country. However, if all other methods fail and human rights continue to be violated, the only route to reducing the amount of human rights violations may be through military force. Arguments against military intervention may mention the loss of American funds and lives in a foreign war. In response to this, Cicero must be referenced: “The man who does not defend someone, or obstruct the injustice when he can, is at fault just as if he had abandoned his parents or his friends or his country”. The moral responsibility to intervene overrides all. The loss of American lives and funds may be necessary to ensure a more peaceful and safer world for all and to prevent further casualties.

The moral responsibility to help others rides upon the shoulders of all people and upon the great shoulders of the United States. The fulfillment of the American duty could prevent blood spilling from violence such as that displayed in Darfur. The lives of all people are worth the same. As such, all people are worth protecting. A country throws away its duty to protect its people when it violates their human rights. When this happens, it is America’s obligation to protect the unprotected.