To remind Europe

“I am here to remind Europe and the world of the tragedy of my people: to recall the 400,000 dead and the over two million refugees” whose fate is in itself an eloquent testimonial of “the current situation of Darfur”. SALIH OSMAN , Sudanese lawyer and MP, arrived at the seat of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday 11 December to be presented with the Sakharov Prize “for freedom of thought”. The Prize is awarded each year to persons or organizations that campaign for the defence of human rights, democracy and freedom of expression in the world.DEFENDER OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY. For the 2007 Sakharov Prize the European Parliament had drawn up a short list of distinguished candidates, including the Chinese dissidents Zeng Jinyan and Hu Jia and the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya (in posthumous recognition), assassinated in Moscow after her denunciation of the horrors of the war in Chechnya. Osman was chosen as the winner. Born in Darfur, he is the exponent of a Sudanese human rights organization that campaigns against torture and provides free legal assistance and aid to the victims of the conflict that has for years been tearing his country apart. One of his main commitments as a human rights lawyer is the gathering of documentation against war criminals: his work has been of material help to the International Criminal Court in recognizing sexual violence as a war crime. In presenting the winner with the award (accompanied with a cheque for 50,000 euros), the President of the European Parliament HANS-GERT POETTERING explained: “The victims of the Sudanese tragedy know very well the name of Salih Osman, who puts his life in peril every day for the cause of human dignity and justice”. The lawyer’s own family has been subjected to threats and reprisals: “Also for this reason – he continued – together with Osman, his wife sits here beside him, for she shares her husband’s battles and mission”. “AN INTERNATIONAL FORCE IN SUDAN”. Addressing the European Parliament, Salih Mahmoud Osman first explained the gravity of the situation in Sudan, “where the government is perpetrating a real genocide”, “with an oppressive policy”, without any respect for religious and ethnic minorities, such as animists or Christians. Pointing out that though “the UN Security Council has adopted several resolutions on Darfur, unfortunately none has been implemented effectively” and “people continue to die of the violence inflicted by the government of Khartoum”. Osman insisted: “the situation continues to deteriorate; children die, women are violated, and rape is used as a weapon of war. No aid is reaching the millions of displaced people and hope in the future is fading”. Osman therefore urged the sending of a hybrid military force composed of troops from EU countries and those from the African Union. “The declarations of European politicians – he added – are not enough: resolute actions are needed to stop the violence. Justice, too, needs to be restored: “In Darfur, and in Sudan, there will be no peace without justice”, he insisted. “We want Europe to exert pressure on the Sudanese government to permit the presence of international troops”, he said. He then added: “If China opposes in the UN Security Council any intervention of the international community, the deployment of such a forces must proceed all the same, just as happened in Kosovo years ago”. The commitment of the EU in the Middle East, in Iraq or in Afghanistan “cannot be adopted as an excuse to forget this region of Africa. Unless, that is, we want the death toll to rise above one million”. COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE. During his address, Osman described the sufferings imposed “on my people, who have been forced to leave their homes, knowing they would never return to them. They have been forced into refugee camps, without any chance to lead a normal life”, and subjected to poverty, hunger, disease and harassment from the military, “who continue to bombard and shoot” them. He then explained why he wanted to continue his “commitment to justice”, since “none of the perpetrators of this ethnic cleansing had yet been brought to justice. All of them are beyond the reach of domestic justice. This conflict is one that is marked by a culture of total impunity”. “In 2009 – said Osman – general elections are due to be held in Sudan. My hope is that they may be free and fair and that the result of the popular vote will be respected”. Osman’s speech was followed by a long burst of applause. Speaking with journalists afterwards he added: “Human suffering cannot be forgotten as it was at the summit between the EU and Africa in Lisbon”. Such an important question, an “extermination of these proportions, ought to have been placed on the order of the day” at the summit held in the Portuguese capital last week. In the view of the African lawyer, Europe must “recognize its moral and political responsibilities towards the genocide being committed” in the Sudanese region and intervene “without waiting any longer”. Lastly, before leaving the EP, Osman dedicated the Prize he had just received “to Darfur, to Sudan, to Africa, to the victims of violence and to all those who campaign in the world for the protection of peoples”.