Darfur Darfur Darfur
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Editorial, Unkept Promises in Darfur, NYT January 27, 2008, Source.
November 23, 2007, UN MISSION TO SUDAN - Failure Looms for Darfur Peacekeepers, Alexander Schwabe, Source.
Editorial, Unkept Promises in Darfur, NYT January 27, 2008, (Back).
The new United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur is not off to an encouraging start. The five-year-long genocide has already killed some 200,000 people and driven two and a half million more from their homes. What is urgently needed to save those who remain are more peacekeepers, better equipment and a lot less obstruction from Sudan.
The joint force took over this month from an earlier African Union force of 7,000 that was too small and too poorly equipped. The new one was supposed to be the largest international peacekeeping force ever authorized, with nearly 20,000 more soldiers and police officers, modern helicopters and other advanced equipment.
By the start of this year, barely a tenth of those additional forces were in place, and much of the needed new equipment had not arrived. When the peacekeepers were quickly attacked by Sudanese forces, they had to withdraw without returning fire.
While claiming that it will cooperate, Khartoum has repeatedly tried to hobble the force: refusing to accept some non-African peacekeepers, trying to limit the peacekeepers’ use of helicopters and demanding other untenable restrictions. Last week, Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, chose a notorious leader of the janjaweed, the militias that have carried out most of the killing, to be a senior government adviser.
Nobody pretends that bringing a stable peace to Darfur will be easy. The conflict involves not just the janjaweed and the Sudanese Army but also rival Darfur rebels and militias. Underlying it all is a desperate competition between nomads and farmers for land and water in a parched region. There is no hope at all until a credible and credibly armed peacekeeping force is deployed.
The world’s leaders say they care desperately about Darfur’s suffering. But caring is not enough. What is needed is troops, equipment and a lot more diplomatic pressure on Sudan. The word of the United Nations is on the line, and so are the lives of Darfur’s people.
November 23, 2007, UN MISSION TO SUDAN - Failure Looms for Darfur Peacekeepers, Alexander Schwabe, (Back).
The combined United Nations/African Union mission to Darfur is slowly taking shape. But with Khartoum stubbornly refusing to allow Western troops into the country, the peacekeeping force may fail before it even begins.
Almost two months later, the Haskanita massacre still clouds the mission. Rebels drove into the African Union base in eastern Darfur at the end of September and stole technical equipment and weapons. At the same time, they killed 10 Nigerian soldiers and seriously injured several more.
Poorly equipped and outfitted with a weak mandate, the AU soldiers didn't have a chance. They couldn't adequately defend themselves nor could they hunt down their attackers. The 7,000 soldiers currently in Sudan with the African Union mission -- known as AMIS -- don't even have a single military helicopter at their disposal.
The disaster finally brought to light what had long been clear: The peacekeepers from Africa are hopelessly overmatched. They have been charged with patrolling an area that is as large as France -- an area where, despite the peace treaty of January 2005, violence is almost a daily occurrence. One day rebels might attack a government position, the next, government-affiliated paramilitaries from the Janjaweed might attack a defenseless village. Criminal groups murder and plunder almost at will.
Failed Before It's Even Begun
It was a situation that couldn't continue, and at the end of July, the United Nations Security Council decided to boost the AU mission with 12,500 soldiers, 6,400 police and a mandate with teeth. UNAMID, the hybrid UN-African Union mission in Darfur, came into being; at $3.5 billion for the first year alone, the most expensive UN mission ever. Germany, too, wants to participate, and the parliament in Berlin decided to send 250 Bundeswehr soldiers to Darfur. Even the Sudanese government agreed to the mission, with the condition that the overwhelming majority of the international troops in Darfur had to come from Africa.
But since then, Khartoum has done everything in its power to hinder the mission. It has gotten so bad that Jean-Marie Guéhenno, UN Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, warned last week in New York that the UN mission to Darfur may be facing failure before it has even begun.
The Islamist government of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has shown extreme reluctance to allow non-African soldiers into his country. The UN, though, is insisting. There are no African units, it points out, that can do the jobs assigned to those soldiers waiting to enter Sudan: special forces from Nepal, engineers from Norway and infantry from Thailand.
Sudan's calculation is clear: Only a streamlined, efficient fighting force could earn enough respect in the region to put a halt to the fighting and disarm the Janjaweed. But Khartoum has no interest in seeing the war end. The African countries attached to UNAMID have already shown that they have little interest in confronting Sudan directly. The first soldiers sent -- a 22-person unit -- weren't even able to get enough fuel for their reconnaissance airplane. The mini-force hardly left Fashir, the capital of northern Darfur, and operated out of an office that suffered from frequent power outages.
Upping the Pressure
Khartoum, though, has other reasons for wanting to keep the peacekeeping force an all-African affair. As long as UNAMID casualties are limited to African soldiers, the slow burn in Darfur will continue to be ignored by the outside world. Should European or American soldiers lose their lives in Sudan, however, pressure on Bashir's government to bring hostilities to an end would increase exponentially.
His calculation is a shrewd, if cynical, one. For years, the West has been half-heartedly trying to make Bashir's position untenable. The US and Britain showed their cards by insisting on UN Resolution 1769 upbraiding Sudan. Both countries likewise used the word genocide in referring to the ongoing violence in Darfur. Their long-term goal is that of regime change in "rogue state" Sudan. Indeed, some have said that UNAMID is little more than a Western strategy to focus more of the world's attention on the goings on in Darfur.
Indeed, even if the UN/Africa force gets the green light from Khartoum, it is not clear that it could ever be effective. The logistical hurdles are immense. Most of the equipment for the force -- including weapons, materiel and food -- is to be shipped in to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. From there, it is a 10 day journey to Darfur, in the western part of Sudan, Africa's biggest country by area. But the biggest problem is that of supplying the troops with water. The donkey carts that deliver water to households in Fashir would be hopelessly inadequate to meet UNAMID needs.
UN soldiers are allotted 85 liters of water per day, not including drinking water. Each Darfuri has access to about the same amount -- for an entire year. A vast underground lake in the region -- pinpointed by scientists in July -- has often been cited as a potential solution to the supply problem. Otherwise, a fleet of some 1,000 tanker trucks would have to be brought in to import enough water from the White Nile.
'Peacekeeping Will Fail'
Reliance on such a delivery system would likely mean reliance on the government in Khartoum, and the Sudanese government would likely be capable of shutting off the water supply whenever they wanted.
Other UN agencies already operating in Sudan, like the World Food Program, are wary of the military mission. "Peace keeping will fail," is a refrain one hears among UN workers currently posted in Khartoum. "It will only create more problems." In addition to the 20,000 soldiers and 6,000 police, UNAMID would also include some 60,000 additional support personnel. Johann van der Kamp, who leads the Sudanese chapter of German Agro Action (Deutsche Welthungerhilfe), a food aid group, says that many NGOs will likely lose valuable workers to the UN, which is able to pay much more.
And there won't just be a personnel shortage. The military mission will also make the humanitarian presence more expensive. Already, trucking companies in Sudan are charging higher prices and there is a shortage of vehicles. Five thousand trucks recently brought in to Sudan are in the hands of just three logistics firms.
Van der Kamp likewise says that the peacekeepers could even result in making the security situation worse. He says that the African soldiers have become a favorite target for rebels and criminal groups, meaning that convoys escorted by African Union soldiers are also coming under fire more often. "The main problem is the gangs, the locally organized criminals, whose only interest is enriching themselves," says Van der Kamp. He says that no army in Darfur is capable of neutralizing such groups because of their hit-and-run attacks.
The skepticism, in short, is everywhere. Few are willing to put much faith in a group of 26,000 soldiers asked to control a vast area full of rebels, government-sponsored troops and common criminals. The underlying causes seem equally difficult to address: A shortage of water, the ongoing expansion of the Sahara Desert, and the resulting increase in pressure on the little land available for agriculture and grazing.
UNAMID is set to begin implementing its mandated tasks no later than the end of this year. Ongoing resistance by Khartoum, however, make that timeline unlikely. But even if the full allotment of UN and African troops are allowed to take up their positions, it is unclear that the conflict in Darfur will come to an end anytime soon.
TTTT, (Back).
November 23, 2007, UN MISSION TO SUDAN - Failure Looms for Darfur Peacekeepers, Alexander Schwabe, Source.
Editorial, Unkept Promises in Darfur, NYT January 27, 2008, (Back).
The new United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur is not off to an encouraging start. The five-year-long genocide has already killed some 200,000 people and driven two and a half million more from their homes. What is urgently needed to save those who remain are more peacekeepers, better equipment and a lot less obstruction from Sudan.
The joint force took over this month from an earlier African Union force of 7,000 that was too small and too poorly equipped. The new one was supposed to be the largest international peacekeeping force ever authorized, with nearly 20,000 more soldiers and police officers, modern helicopters and other advanced equipment.
By the start of this year, barely a tenth of those additional forces were in place, and much of the needed new equipment had not arrived. When the peacekeepers were quickly attacked by Sudanese forces, they had to withdraw without returning fire.
While claiming that it will cooperate, Khartoum has repeatedly tried to hobble the force: refusing to accept some non-African peacekeepers, trying to limit the peacekeepers’ use of helicopters and demanding other untenable restrictions. Last week, Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, chose a notorious leader of the janjaweed, the militias that have carried out most of the killing, to be a senior government adviser.
Nobody pretends that bringing a stable peace to Darfur will be easy. The conflict involves not just the janjaweed and the Sudanese Army but also rival Darfur rebels and militias. Underlying it all is a desperate competition between nomads and farmers for land and water in a parched region. There is no hope at all until a credible and credibly armed peacekeeping force is deployed.
The world’s leaders say they care desperately about Darfur’s suffering. But caring is not enough. What is needed is troops, equipment and a lot more diplomatic pressure on Sudan. The word of the United Nations is on the line, and so are the lives of Darfur’s people.
November 23, 2007, UN MISSION TO SUDAN - Failure Looms for Darfur Peacekeepers, Alexander Schwabe, (Back).
The combined United Nations/African Union mission to Darfur is slowly taking shape. But with Khartoum stubbornly refusing to allow Western troops into the country, the peacekeeping force may fail before it even begins.
Almost two months later, the Haskanita massacre still clouds the mission. Rebels drove into the African Union base in eastern Darfur at the end of September and stole technical equipment and weapons. At the same time, they killed 10 Nigerian soldiers and seriously injured several more.
Poorly equipped and outfitted with a weak mandate, the AU soldiers didn't have a chance. They couldn't adequately defend themselves nor could they hunt down their attackers. The 7,000 soldiers currently in Sudan with the African Union mission -- known as AMIS -- don't even have a single military helicopter at their disposal.
The disaster finally brought to light what had long been clear: The peacekeepers from Africa are hopelessly overmatched. They have been charged with patrolling an area that is as large as France -- an area where, despite the peace treaty of January 2005, violence is almost a daily occurrence. One day rebels might attack a government position, the next, government-affiliated paramilitaries from the Janjaweed might attack a defenseless village. Criminal groups murder and plunder almost at will.
Failed Before It's Even Begun
It was a situation that couldn't continue, and at the end of July, the United Nations Security Council decided to boost the AU mission with 12,500 soldiers, 6,400 police and a mandate with teeth. UNAMID, the hybrid UN-African Union mission in Darfur, came into being; at $3.5 billion for the first year alone, the most expensive UN mission ever. Germany, too, wants to participate, and the parliament in Berlin decided to send 250 Bundeswehr soldiers to Darfur. Even the Sudanese government agreed to the mission, with the condition that the overwhelming majority of the international troops in Darfur had to come from Africa.
But since then, Khartoum has done everything in its power to hinder the mission. It has gotten so bad that Jean-Marie Guéhenno, UN Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, warned last week in New York that the UN mission to Darfur may be facing failure before it has even begun.
The Islamist government of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has shown extreme reluctance to allow non-African soldiers into his country. The UN, though, is insisting. There are no African units, it points out, that can do the jobs assigned to those soldiers waiting to enter Sudan: special forces from Nepal, engineers from Norway and infantry from Thailand.
Sudan's calculation is clear: Only a streamlined, efficient fighting force could earn enough respect in the region to put a halt to the fighting and disarm the Janjaweed. But Khartoum has no interest in seeing the war end. The African countries attached to UNAMID have already shown that they have little interest in confronting Sudan directly. The first soldiers sent -- a 22-person unit -- weren't even able to get enough fuel for their reconnaissance airplane. The mini-force hardly left Fashir, the capital of northern Darfur, and operated out of an office that suffered from frequent power outages.
Upping the Pressure
Khartoum, though, has other reasons for wanting to keep the peacekeeping force an all-African affair. As long as UNAMID casualties are limited to African soldiers, the slow burn in Darfur will continue to be ignored by the outside world. Should European or American soldiers lose their lives in Sudan, however, pressure on Bashir's government to bring hostilities to an end would increase exponentially.
His calculation is a shrewd, if cynical, one. For years, the West has been half-heartedly trying to make Bashir's position untenable. The US and Britain showed their cards by insisting on UN Resolution 1769 upbraiding Sudan. Both countries likewise used the word genocide in referring to the ongoing violence in Darfur. Their long-term goal is that of regime change in "rogue state" Sudan. Indeed, some have said that UNAMID is little more than a Western strategy to focus more of the world's attention on the goings on in Darfur.
Indeed, even if the UN/Africa force gets the green light from Khartoum, it is not clear that it could ever be effective. The logistical hurdles are immense. Most of the equipment for the force -- including weapons, materiel and food -- is to be shipped in to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. From there, it is a 10 day journey to Darfur, in the western part of Sudan, Africa's biggest country by area. But the biggest problem is that of supplying the troops with water. The donkey carts that deliver water to households in Fashir would be hopelessly inadequate to meet UNAMID needs.
UN soldiers are allotted 85 liters of water per day, not including drinking water. Each Darfuri has access to about the same amount -- for an entire year. A vast underground lake in the region -- pinpointed by scientists in July -- has often been cited as a potential solution to the supply problem. Otherwise, a fleet of some 1,000 tanker trucks would have to be brought in to import enough water from the White Nile.
'Peacekeeping Will Fail'
Reliance on such a delivery system would likely mean reliance on the government in Khartoum, and the Sudanese government would likely be capable of shutting off the water supply whenever they wanted.
Other UN agencies already operating in Sudan, like the World Food Program, are wary of the military mission. "Peace keeping will fail," is a refrain one hears among UN workers currently posted in Khartoum. "It will only create more problems." In addition to the 20,000 soldiers and 6,000 police, UNAMID would also include some 60,000 additional support personnel. Johann van der Kamp, who leads the Sudanese chapter of German Agro Action (Deutsche Welthungerhilfe), a food aid group, says that many NGOs will likely lose valuable workers to the UN, which is able to pay much more.
And there won't just be a personnel shortage. The military mission will also make the humanitarian presence more expensive. Already, trucking companies in Sudan are charging higher prices and there is a shortage of vehicles. Five thousand trucks recently brought in to Sudan are in the hands of just three logistics firms.
Van der Kamp likewise says that the peacekeepers could even result in making the security situation worse. He says that the African soldiers have become a favorite target for rebels and criminal groups, meaning that convoys escorted by African Union soldiers are also coming under fire more often. "The main problem is the gangs, the locally organized criminals, whose only interest is enriching themselves," says Van der Kamp. He says that no army in Darfur is capable of neutralizing such groups because of their hit-and-run attacks.
The skepticism, in short, is everywhere. Few are willing to put much faith in a group of 26,000 soldiers asked to control a vast area full of rebels, government-sponsored troops and common criminals. The underlying causes seem equally difficult to address: A shortage of water, the ongoing expansion of the Sahara Desert, and the resulting increase in pressure on the little land available for agriculture and grazing.
UNAMID is set to begin implementing its mandated tasks no later than the end of this year. Ongoing resistance by Khartoum, however, make that timeline unlikely. But even if the full allotment of UN and African troops are allowed to take up their positions, it is unclear that the conflict in Darfur will come to an end anytime soon.
TTTT, (Back).
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