Mission UNtenable

Steve Bloomfield
July 9, 2007
Sunday Herald
Original Source: http://www.sundayherald.com/international/shinternational/display.var.1528400.0.0.php


The United Nations project covering one of the world’s worst conflicts is leaderless. Steve Bloomfield in Nairobi asks why the UN is turning a blind eye to genocide in Sudan
THE OFFICES of the United Nations' Mission in Sudan (Unmis) in the suburbs of Khartoum are normally a hive of activity. The mission is one of the largest in the world and, in many respects, the most important.
It has not one but two major international crises to deal with. Since 2005, Unmis has been responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), a deal reached between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) after 21 years of civil war in the country's south. Around 10,000 UN troops are stationed in the south and Unmis is also providing logistical support to the nascent South Sudan government - a group of former rebels with no experience of governing.
It is no easy task but to many in Unmis, and in the wider international community, even this is not the number one priority. Since the signing of the CPA, attention in Sudan has switched from one brutal internal conflict to another.
Rebels from three marginalised African tribes in Darfur launched a series of attacks against the Sudanese armed forces in early 2003. Khartoum responded with a scorched-earth counter-insurgency, arming Arab militia groups to raze villages across the region that contained people from the tribes which started the rebellion.
In the four and a half years since the rebels began their uprising, Darfur has become the setting for one of the world's most shocking conflicts. Out of a population of seven million people, spread across a region twice the size of the United Kingdom, more than 2.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes, driven out by janjaweed militia and government forces. They now live in a series of camps on the outskirts of major towns, unable to return home. A further 1.5 million people are reliant on the massive humanitarian aid operation.
It is estimated that around 200,000 people have been killed.
Throughout it all, the United Nations has been there. Former secretary-general Kofi Annan made several visits, not just to Khartoum but to Darfur itself. Resolutions have been passed, 16 at last count, urging action. The new secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, has said Darfur is one of his top priorities.
But a brief visit to the Unmis office in Khartoum tells a very different story. While officials from dozens of different countries work away, one desk stands empty. It is the desk of the secretary-general's special representative - the head of Unmis.
It has been empty since October last year when the then head, Dutch politician Jan Pronk, was unceremoniously booted out of the country by the Sudanese government. Pronk was deemed persona non grata by Khartoum after writing a series of undiplomatic comments about the Sudanese armed forces on his blog.
Annan decided not to appoint a successor. He himself had only two months left in charge and felt it would be better for his successor to choose his own man.
But more than six months after Ban's appointment he has yet to choose anyone. Instead, the mission, covering one of the 21st century's worst conflicts and the aftermath of one of the 20th century's, is without a leader. One of the two deputy special representatives, Taye Zerihoun, has been covering for nearly nine months, but is said to be desperate to leave. As soon as a new man is appointed he is likely to go.
The other deputy, Manuel Da Silva, was responsible for the humanitarian relief effort - the largest in the world. Two months ago his contract came to an end and he packed his bags. He is yet to be replaced. The head of UNOCHA, the body which co-ordinates the 80 aid agencies and 14,000 staff working in Darfur, has also left in the past two months. He too is yet to be replaced.
The UN has appointed a special envoy to Darfur, tasked with bringing rebels and government together in a renewed peace process. But Jan Eliason, a Swedish diplomat, has also come under fire for preferring to be based in Stockholm rather than Khartoum. He has a deputy, a Finn, who is based in Helsinki.
It is always easy to have a pop at the UN, said James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust, which has been campaigning for stronger international action, but the lack of leadership is appalling. Ban Ki Moon has taken the pressure off the government of Sudan. One of the earliest statements he made was we need to be more patient'. The last thing we need on Darfur is patience.
Sally Chin, a Sudan analyst for International Crisis Group, said the UN is sending the wrong signal to the Sudanese government. It is shocking that the UN hasn't appointed a special representative, she said. It is a huge problem for the entire UN operation in Sudan. It suggests that the UN doesn't have the resolve to engage at the highest level.
One senior aid agency official based in Sudan said the UN is running around like a headless chicken. The UN has also been hampered by the attitude of its member states. US President Theodore Roosevelt once characterised the art of diplomacy as talking softly while carrying a big stick. Darfur activists have charged that Western governments, in particular the US, have instead been talking loudly while wielding a toothpick. Statements of concern, threats of sanctions, warnings of some unspecified action have been made regularly by Britain, the US and the European Union.
Last month, new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, opened a conference on Darfur in Paris by claiming that silence is killing.
But, as activists quickly pointed out, the volume of protest is not the problem with regards to Sudan.
Governments are fully aware of what is happening in Sudan. The media, across the US and Europe, regularly fills its news pages or its airtime with news from Darfur - often of the latest statement of concern from a Western leader. Both the US and Britain have been accused of working alongside the Khartoum government when it suits them. Sudan has a long history with Britain.
Many of Khartoum's elite were educated in British public schools. Even now, few struggle to get a visa. Human rights groups have accused the British government of working alongside Khartoum to send Darfurian refugees back to Sudan.
It is unbelievable that we send people back to get tortured, said Smith. The signal is that the British government doesn't care less about what's going on in Darfur.
Even the US - which, alone among the international community, has called the conflict in Darfur genocide - has been accused of being inconsistent in its dealings with Khartoum. The US State Department refers to Sudan as a strong partner in the war on terror. Sudanese nationals have been employed by the CIA to spy for the US in Iraq and Somalia.
All over the world, said Smith, from member states and the UN secretariat, weak political signals are being sent. The government of Sudan knows they can run rings around them - and they do.
The battle over whether the UN can send peacekeepers to Darfur has demonstrated this argument perfectly. There are currently around 7000 African Union (AU) troops in Darfur, struggling to keep the peace. They are underfunded, under-resourced and increasingly under fire. In August last year the UN passed a resolution calling for 22,500 UN peacekeepers to be sent to Darfur.
Crucially, the resolution - watered down by Sudan's strong ally, China - asked the Sudanese to invite in the peacekeeping force. Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, declined the offer, likening the presence of a UN force to Western colonisation and later pledging to personally lead the jihad against the troops if peacekeepers were sent without his blessing.
Three months later, at a meeting in Addis Ababa, Kofi Annan announced that Sudan had agreed to a hybrid force of between 17,000 and 19,000 UN and AU peacekeepers. Before the ink was dry, Khartoum was raising objections. The hybrid force was supposed to be implemented in three phases. It took two months for al-Bashir to finally give the green light to the first stage, a light support package of UN non-military personnel to assist the AU mission. More negotiations took place for the second phase - a heavy support package of 3000 UN personnel and equipment, including a handful of attack helicopters. It was finally agreed in April - a full six months after Annan thought Sudan had first agreed. The final phase, which would actually see the additional troops deployed, has been even trickier to get Sudan to agree to.
Last month it was claimed that Khartoum had unconditionally agreed to the full deployment of the UN/AU force but few analysts will believe it until they see it. Even in the best case scenario nobody expects the full deployment to occur until next year. Some elements of the light support package are still not in place. For Darfur's displaced - many of whom are now into their fifth year of living in camps - the failure of the UN and its member states to stop the violence and smooth the way for them to return home becomes more vital every day.
The aid agencies which are helping to keep them alive are now under attack on a daily basis from armed bandits and militias. The agencies also face enormous bureaucratic obstacles as the Sudanese authorities deny visas, obstruct aid delivery and kick out those who make a fuss. A senior UN humanitarian official in Nyala, south Darfur, and the head of the UN's security department have both been forced out in the past three months. Lots of people are quite scared, said one senior aid agency official. UN and NGO people are getting kicked out and they are not making a fuss about it. We look to the UN to stand up for the humanitarian community and it hasn't been happening since Pronk left.
A spokeswoman for Unmis, Radhia Achouri, denied the organisation is lacking leadership. The mission is being handled very capably. It is not like we have stopped working. However, Achouri admitted that the failure to appoint a permanent replacement for Pronk was not ideal.
It is important to have one. Politically speaking, it is important for the secretary-general to appoint a special representative, she said.
Earlier this year, Ban Ki Moon opened an exhibition in New York entitled Lessons From The Rwanda Genocide - The 13th Anniversary Of The Rwanda Genocide. While comparisons between the Rwandan genocide and the conflict in Darfur can be overplayed, many Darfur activists - including the Aegis Trust, which co-sponsored the exhibition - believe it is a reminder to those in power of what happens when the world does nothing to stop slaughter.
It was called Lessons From The Rwanda Genocide and Ban Ki Moon did not mention Darfur, said Smith. How is that possible? Letting a government get away with murder is not the role of the UN - but that is exactly what they are doing.