Failure looms in Darfur
Peacekeeping effort in Sudan has no strategic plan: critics

By Peter Goodspeed 
December 24, 2007
National Post  
Original Source: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=195012


OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty ImagesSince a war over Darfur's resources broke out five years ago, 2.5 million people have been left homeless, fleeing to refugee camps such as this one in Chad

Three years after the United States accused Sudan of committing genocide in Darfur and a full year after the United Nations began pushing to deploy its own peacekeeping force there, the conflict remains one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
There will be only about 6,500 UN peacekeepers in Darfur 10 days from now, when a new joint UN-African Union force (UNAMID) is scheduled to take over in western Sudan.
That's barely a quarter of the promised force of 26,000 peacekeepers who were supposed to replace 7,000 under-equipped, dejected and ineffective African Union troops who have been struggling to stop a conflict that has raged for nearly five years.
Before the UN even sets foot in Darfur, critics are predicting the mission could become the world's biggest peacekeeping failure.
It's too big, too disorganized and has no strategic plan. It lacks critical international support and is being hamstrung by the deliberate obstruction of the Sudanese government.
Last week, a coalition of 35 foreign aid groups working in Darfur issued a report that predicted the deployment of this force is in danger of failing and accused the government in Khartoum of actively undermining the ability of the force to protect civilians.
Sudan is saying 'yes' and then doing everything in its power to obstruct and undermine the hybrid force, said Steve Crawshaw of Human Rights Watch.
The Security Council has responded to this defiance with hand-wringing but nothing more.
If it continues, the UN's hands will be tied as much as the African Union's have been, spelling disaster for the UN and more importantly for the Darfuri people, said Erwin van der Borght, Amnesty International's Africa director.
The new UN-led force is not expected to reach half-strength until March and UN negotiators are still unable to plan even the most basic elements of the Darfur peacekeeping operation.
General Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Sudan's President, has thrown as many roadblocks in the way of a UN deployment as possible.
He has refused to approve non-African troops for the combined forces, rejecting offers of help from Thailand, Norway and Nepal.
He has tried to impose limits on UN flights in Sudan, refusing landing rights to heavy-transport aircraft, restricting helicopter flights, and banning night flying. He has also refused adequate access to Port Sudan and refused to provide land or water for peacekeeping bases in Darfur.
Sudan has also demanded advance notification of all peacekeeping troop movements, which would cripple any rapid-response measures. It also wants the UN to shut down all communications systems when Sudan is conducting its own military operations.
Foreign-aid groups say Sudan has regularly impeded the delivery of relief supplies to Darfur, and the government has been accused of tolerating, if not inciting, attacks on aid workers.
Khartoum is also cynically playing on a growing international reluctance to get involved.
After the International Criminal Court indicted Ah-mad Harun, Sudan's Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs, for war crimes in Darfur, Gen. Bashir did not rush to hand him over for prosecution. Instead, he appointed Mr. Harun to head a committee overseeing deployment of the new peacekeeping mission.
So far, the general has been given a free ride by the international community. He has followed a pattern of resisting international pressure until it peaks, then appearing to give in and waiting for the world's attention to shift elsewhere, before resuming his delaying tactics.
In June, he reluctantly agreed to a UN-AU hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur when the United States and the European Union began talking of a no-fly zone and installing troops in neighbouring countries.
Since then international interest in Darfur has waned. For the last five months the UN has been unable to find countries willing to supply two dozen helicopters needed to give peacekeepers the mobility they need to police Darfur, a region the size of France.
NATO members alone are said to own 18,000 helicopters but have not offered a single one for use in Darfur.
It is not enough for the international community to simply wring its hands about the ongoing tragedy in Darfur, while not providing the necessary equipment, said Mr. van der Borght.
International anguish about the suffering in Darfur seems insincere when governments are not even willing to donate a single helicopter to enable the troops to be able to do the job being asked of them.
If international peacekeepers ever do manage to deploy fully to Darfur, it is doubtful there will be a peace agreement for them to enforce.
The AU-and UN-mediated peace negotiations that began in Libya on Oct. 27 were adjourned when Darfur's most influential rebel leaders refused to attend.
The conflict grows more complex by the day. It is no longer simply a fight between the Sudanese government and its Arab Janjaweed militias on one hand and African rebel groups on the other. The rebel groups and Arab tribes have fragmented and are now fighting among themselves.
Alliances constantly shift, banditry is rampant and violence threatens to spill over into neighbouring countries such as Chad and the Central African Republic.
Since the war over Darfur's resources broke out five years ago, more than 200,000 people have died from fighting, famine and disease, and 2.5 million more have been left homeless.
While there are fewer deaths now than in 2003-04, the parties have splintered, confrontations have multiplied and violence is again rising, the Belgium-based International Crisis Group said in a recent report.
Access for humanitarian agencies is decreasing, international peacekeeping is not yet effective and a political settlement is still far away, it said.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of UN peacekeeping, has already raised the possibility of abandoning the Darfur deployment, suggesting Sudanese restrictions on the force's movements and refusal to accept non-African troops could limit the UN's usefulness.
Do we move ahead with the deployment of a force that will not make a difference, that will not have the capability to defend itself and that carries the risk of humiliation of the Security Council and the United Nations and tragic failure for the people of Darfur? Mr. Guehenno asked.
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com
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