Progress on Darfur?


The United Nations moves slowly, while the crisis rapidly worsens.
August 4, 2007
Washington Post
Original Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080301945_pf.html
THE UNITED Nations is crawling toward action to staunch the killing in Darfur. On Tuesday, the Security Council finally authorized a joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force of 26,000 troops and police to deploy in the France-sized region -- 11 months after first adopting the idea. Yesterday, U.N. mediators met with a dozen of the Darfur rebel groups to try to establish a common agenda for peace negotiations with the central government. Meanwhile, France is organizing a separate police force that will deploy in Chad and the Central African Republic in an attempt to limit the spillover of fighting into those countries.
It's easy to call this progress compared with the relative paralysis of international diplomacy on Darfur a few months ago, when deployment of the expanded peacekeeping force was blocked by the resistance of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al Bashir's government. That there has been movement is due in part to pressure on the government from the Bush administration -- which imposed new sanctions in June -- and from the Chinese government, Sudan's most important ally. The arrival of a new French president eager to act has also helped, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has made Darfur a focus of his first year in office.
Yet the fact remains that the situation in Darfur continues to worsen. According to a recent U.N. report, 25,000 people were driven from their homes in May and June alone, further straining the capacity of the refugee camps. Bombing raids by the government were reported in northern Sudan in late June. According to an internal U.N. report obtained by the Independent, a British newspaper, the government may be trying to repopulate parts of Darfur with Arab settlers from neighboring countries, a potentially explosive new tactic. More than 30,000 Arabs are said to have crossed the border in recent months.
It's hard to be optimistic that the peacekeeping force can fulfill its mission to protect civilians and humanitarian operations. Most of the force probably will not be deployed until next year. The number of troops mandated is too small, but even that force will be hard to raise -- the United States and most European countries are unlikely to participate.
Mr. Bashir has a long history of breaking agreements; he will surely attempt to undermine the U.N. force. And, thanks to compromises by the Security Council, there will be no ready means to exert pressure: The threat of sanctions was deleted from this week's resolution. Peacekeepers and peace talks are two important elements of a solution for Darfur. But a solution won't come without much more pressure on Mr. Bashir.