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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/04
Ending Starvation as a Weapon of War in Sudan
November 2002
Abstract
Warring parties and international aid providers in Sudan have an historic opportunity to bring to an end what is perhaps the most extreme and long-running example in the world of using access to humanitarian aid as an instrument of war. A mid-December meeting between the UN and Sudan's warring parties - the Technical Committee for Humanitarian Assistance (TCHA) - provides an unparalleled vehicle to build on recent short-term agreements and to once and for all remove the institutional barriers to unimpeded access for humanitarian agencies. Such an opportunity may not arise again, so it is imperative that mediators, the UN Security Council, and interested governments provide concentrated and immediate support for this objective.
Resolving this issue will have more than just humanitarian significance. Sudan is presently poised between making peace and intensifying war. The next months are a crucial period for the peace initiative being managed by the regional body IGAD (Inter-governmental Authority on Development), supported on-site by four official observers (Italy, Norway, UK and U.S.), and backed by governments in the IGAD Partners Forum such as Switzerland, Canada and the Netherlands. This process offers by far the best hope yet for an end to the country's devastating nineteen-year civil conflict. Manipulation of humanitarian assistance has been throughout the conflict an integral part of the strategies of both warring parties - but especially the government, relying on its sovereign right to deny access to its territory. To end permanently restrictions on access to humanitarian aid would provide a major additional foundation for further efforts by the mediators to broker a comprehensive peace.
