Mr. President, thank you so much for the opportunity to brief the Security Council once again today, and I would also wish to express my thanks to His Excellency, the Permanent Representative of Sudan to the United Nations for his attendance, and I'm really pleased that after this Council session I'll be speaking further with him.
Mr. President, Excellencies, you know, of course, that the last six months have reflected a further descent, indeed a tailspin, into deeper suffering, deeper misery for the people of Darfur.
Famine is present in Darfur. Conflict is increasing. Children are targeted. Girls and women are subject to rape. And the whole landscape is one of destruction, and, we say, criminality. This descent is accelerating, if anything. It's accelerating as we speak. Today and yesterday in El Fasher, we see developments in which serious allegations emerge of more innocent civilians being targeted, vital civilian objects like hospitals being attacked. And there seems to be no respite for the Darfuri people.
It's the clear view of my Office, Mr. President, as reflected in the report that is before the Council that, as we speak, international crimes are undoubtedly being committed in Darfur. They're being committed as we speak. And daily, unfortunately, we see crimes being used as a weapon of war for so many that the law is meant to protect from these types of excesses. And this is not, I want to make clear, a general assessment, it is not an assessment gleaned from unverified reports. It's a hard-edged analysis that my Office has reached based upon evidence and information collected and reviewed.
And we are particularly concerned about the stream of allegations of the targeting of women and girls, the allegations of gender crimes identified through our investigations. And these crimes are a priority of my Office, and in the last six months we have tried to meet the situation on the ground by improving efficiency and trying to be responsive. We've done that by being in Chad, and being in the other countries bordering Sudan, where we've collected evidence from displaced communities about what they've suffered, what they've witnessed, what they've seen. We've conducted witness interviews. We've increased the scale and quantum of evidence we collected from digital and video sources, harnessing technological tools that my Office has put in place, so that we have a better visibility on the linkage between perpetrators, alleged perpetrators, their structures and crime patterns.
We've strengthened, as detailed in the report, partnerships with national authorities, sharing information with national law enforcement so that they can also do their part and carry the burden of accountability more broadly. And that has found form in an increased number of domestic investigations by third countries.
And based on that action, and as confirmed in my report, I can confirm today that my Office is taking the necessary steps to put forward applications for warrants of arrest in relation to crimes we allege are being committed, and have been committed, in West Darfur.
But I want to be very clear: my Office will only move, will only submit those applications when we are satisfied, following our internal processes, that there's a realistic prospect of conviction. By founding applications before the judges of the ICC on strong evidence that can withstand scrutiny, we have the best chance, not only that judges may grant the applications, but also that individuals that may be apprehended can be subjected to due process to vindicate the rights of survivors.
And I think a simple message, Mr. President, should be understood by those on the ground in El Fasher, in Al Geneina, and across Darfur: now, better late than never, for goodness sake, comply with international humanitarian law, not as a charity, not out of some political necessity, but out of the dictates of humanity and black letter law.
In the suffering of women and children and men in Darfur, we hear very close echoes that gave rise to the original referral that this Council made in Resolution 1593 20 years ago. And I state that the pattern of crimes, the perpetrators, the parties track very closely with the same protagonists, the same targeted groups as existed in 2003, and that led to the referral. It's the same communities, the same groups suffering, a new generation suffering the same hell that has been endured by other generations of Darfuris.
And this tragic, awful, unnecessary, preventable connection between the past and the present in Darfur emphasises, we say, the need and the value of the very significant progress we've seen in this reporting period.
For in this reporting period, just last month, I had the honour of appearing with the members of the Darfur Unified Team, presenting closing arguments before the Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court in the case of Mr. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Mr. Ali Kushayb. And that trial means an awful lot. That trial focused on crimes allegedly committed between August 2003 and April 2004, and, fast forward, one sees similar crimes being committed now.
But for Darfuris, this trial means a lot. Different communities, witnesses that have come to The Hague, communities we've met in Germany, in Adré, on the border in Chad, on the border of Darfur, in Darfur itself, and even here in New York, we have affected communities in the public gallery. And it means a lot to them, they say, that they're not forgotten. They have not been airbrushed out of public consciousness. They are not invisible, and their lives are not without value, and their lives are as important to this Council and the covenant made, as lives of people anywhere else.
And this process, victim after victim has underlined, is not simply because of the historical significance of a trial, nor simply because of the importance of collective memory or truth-telling. But the fact that it gives victims hope that the promises made, however delayed, will be kept, not only by my Office or by the Court, but by you, by the Council and by the broader international community to honour the lives, the dignity and the value of the people of Darfur.
It is important, Mr. President, and I think that's a point also I raised with the Darfuri community today and on other occasions, that the Abd-Al-Rahman case cannot be viewed as a final step. It's a beginning, a solid start, we say, to justice and accountability. But it needs support. It needs action, and definitely the impunity gap needs to be rendered smaller. And more support is needed. And to do that, we need your support. We need the support of this Council that made a very sombre finding under Chapter VII of the UN Charter that the situation in Darfur represented a threat to international peace and security. And how prescient you were. We see 20 years later, in the absence of warrants issued by the judges of the ICC being executed, destabilisation being risked in Darfur, more misery for the people of Darfur, but also a real risk to destabilise the area.
So you're quite right, if I may say so, and with the greatest of respect, the finding that the situation in Darfur constitutes a threat to international peace and security was a very solid finding that led to the referral, but clearly it exists today. The same ingredients, the same conditions of threat to international peace and security, and the right of individuals to be seen and to have justice delivered to them is important.
And that also requires, Mr. President, concrete action to be taken in relation to the warrants issued by the ICC in relation to former President Omar Al Bashir, Mr. Hussein, and also Mr. Harun. And it's particularly important, and I've made this clear in my interactions with the Government of Sudan, that the transfer of Mr. Harun will be especially impactful at this time because also there's a very clear nexus with the charges concluded of Mr. Abd-Al-Rahman, Ali Kushayb. We believe we know where Ahmad Harun is. We have communicated that to Sudan. And we need now to find a way to deliver on the terms of the Security Council Resolution and meet the expectations, not of abstract legal principles, but on the victims, on the representatives of the Darfuri community here in this Court and those thousands watching, that are looking for promises made to be promises kept, for the law to apply equally, and for their hell to stop, or at least for the temperature to be turned down, to allow them to live without the burning conditions that they are currently enduring.
There have, with respect, in this reporting period, been signs of cautious optimism regarding the cooperation with the Government of Sudan. In this reporting period, we've had further engagements with the Sudanese authorities. We've made some progress in the prioritisation of requests for assistance. And I was pleased to meet His Excellency, the Attorney General of Sudan, just last month. He came with a delegation to the closing of the trial of Mr. Abd-Al-Rahman, Ali Kushayb, and we had some constructive discussions with them and promises of more cooperation to come, and I think it's only right to recognise the efforts made not only by him, but by the focal point that was appointed by General Burhan following my meeting with General Burhan here in New York 18 months ago. That focal point has made a tangible, positive impact on collaboration with my Office. But that progress must be consolidated and expanded in the next six months, in line with the terms, the expectations, and the legal requirements of Security Council Resolution 1593.
Mr. President, I've also made efforts in the reporting period to engage with the Rapid Support Forces in order to obtain information relevant to our investigations. Following a meeting with members of my Office and representatives of the RSF last week, I do expect and hope and require swift and meaningful action, and will be monitoring that, and I'll be reporting on whether or not that cooperation promised, those responses to requests for assistance are forthcoming in the next report.
This report that we present, Mr. President, is the 40th. It's the 40th report on the Situation in Darfur. Now, one can say it's taken too long, and I would agree, and too many lives have been lost, and that's true. But it underlines something very important: that the International Criminal Court is as strong as the support of states. It's as strong as the honour and the desire to fulfil the obligations of the UN Charter and enforce one of the most serious findings that can be made, namely a situation meets the requirements of Chapter VII of the Charter.
But it also takes us back, I think, to a time when this Council spoke with one voice to combat impunity and to try to respond collectively to suffering, to misery, to people that do feel in their daily lives they're too small to be seen by their own countries, never mind powerful institutions in New York, like the Security Council.
And when the Council took that action, it created a binding link, not only by referring it to the International Criminal Court as a judicial institution, but it provided and created and welded and forged an unbreakable link - or one hopes an unbreakable link - between this Council and survivors and their families that we are seeking collectively to serve; to put them first, not politics; to put them first, not division; to put them first, and their rights to the equal protection of the promise of the law.
Now, I recognise, of course, Mr. President, this is a different time. It's a different age. It's a different moment. I hope it's not naïve, and even if it is, it's an obligation to at least make a simple request. Let us not forget, or completely abandon, the sense of unity that this Council is capable of by putting people first, allowing the voice of people to be heard over the clamour of politics and division and strategic interests. The trial that concluded last month was a tangible reassurance to victims that they haven't been forgotten.
And Mr. President, that is something that they thank this Council for, for making the referral in the first place. But we also can't look away from the fact that if action is taken against the International Criminal Court, it will directly impact our ability to deliver on justice for the survivors, on the victims, on the people of Darfur that we've met and that are in this building today.
It's trite, it's obvious and it's right: individual prosecutors come and go. Individual judges come and go, like ships that pass in the night. But the ICC, as an institution, was established and has a special relationship with the United Nations, and is signed up to and supported by 125 State Parties to protect the rights of the most vulnerable globally and across situations for which we have jurisdiction.
So my prayer, my hope and my plea, Mr. President, is we resolve to work together to renew and reinforce the bond created between the Council and the ICC and the victims of Darfur and those that suffer so much today.
And it's right, particularly today, on Holocaust Memorial Day, when in this building you've heard, so many of you have heard, the world has heard, the voices of witnesses to the awful pogroms, persecution of the Jewish people and other minorities 80 years ago, when Auschwitz was liberated and scenes of hell were recorded and presented in Nuremberg, and there was accountability, there was truth telling. To honour those victims of Auschwitz, to honour the victims of crimes that we have seen in the intervening decades, maybe on a different scale to the Holocaust, but a promise was made of never again. It is time to fulfil that promise of never again, for the rights of all victims that have suffered so many crimes, whether it's in Sierra Leone or in Cambodia or in Rwanda or in the former Yugoslavia, in so many conflicts that we see today.
If we can work in this new way, if politics and division can be silenced for a moment and we focus on people that are innocent and vulnerable, hopefully we will hear the cries of the people of Darfur to justice. They are in need. They are in danger. And you have already determined that they have a right, by dint of Resolution 1593, they have a right to justice. It's time for us collectively to join hands and deliver on that promise to prevent this constant cycle of despair that generations of Darfuris have suffered.
Thank you so much.
