The African Union and the Conflict in Sudan’s Darfur Region

Abstract

This chapter interrogates the role of the African Union (AU) in the genocidal conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region. The chapter begins by mapping out the roots of the conflict. A major one is the marginalization of the Darfur region in the economic and political spheres of the Sudan. In turn, with all legal-constitutional options for redress blocked, some Darfuris opted to organize various armed groups for the ostensible purpose of fighting the Sudanese government. With regard to the role of the AU, the chapter argues that the organization’s intervention has been ineffective in terms of ending the conflict. The chapter attributes this primarily to the fact that the organization is conflicted in light of the fact that some African governments are also visiting violence on their own people. The chapter then proffers some suggestions for helping to make the AU effective in helping to manage the conflict in Darfur, including the need for what it calls “robust peacemaking,” effective peacekeeping, the imperative of labeling the conflict a genocidal civil war, and the need to impose travel bans and the freezing of the assets of the perpetrators of genocidal acts.