African Union monitors send message in Darfur: We’re watching

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press Writer

MISTIRIA, Sudan, Oct 9, 2004 (AP) — Patrolling a war zone the size of France (Texas) with just 12 two-man crews, Maj. Panduleni Martin’s mission this day takes him to Mistiria, the stronghold of Darfur’s feared Arab militia, for banter with a suspected Janjaweed field commander about the market price in camels for a Sudanese bride.

African Union ceasefire monitor Maj. Panduleni Martin from Zambia, center, talks with Commander Abdul Waheed Saeed, center-left, who is in charge of a military unit calling themselves variously the Border Intelligence Division, Second Reconnaisance Brigade, or the Quick and the Horrible, also believed to form part of the Janjaweed militia, at the weekly animal market in Mistiria in North Darfur, Sudan, Tuesday, Oct 5, 2004.(AP)

Through small talk with government forces and their rebel rivals, and keeping tabs on more than 1 million war-displaced civilians, Martin and the rest of the minuscule African Union monitoring crew hope at least to send all sides in Darfur a message: The world is watching.

To an extent, it’s working, the military monitors assembled in west Sudan from armed forces across Africa say.

“They know we are foreign eyes when we go there,” Cmdr. Seth Appiah-Mensah, an African Union officer from Ghana, says of a Janjaweed base in Misteria. “And they don’t like foreign eyes,” he adds, tapping his own.

Darfur’s conflict is blamed for more than 50,000 deaths and has driven 1.4 million mostly non-Arab civilians from their homes in the past 20 months. The bloodletting, allegedly carried out by government-backed militiamen known as the Janjaweed, and conflict-related disease that killed many followed attacks by two non-Arab rebel groups in Darfur.

The unarmed African Union military observers, protected by roughly 300 African Union troops, monitor a regularly violated April cease-fire.

The African Union force is to grow to 3,500 in coming weeks, gaining increased U.S. funding and logistical support from private military contractors PAE Group and Dyncorps. Sudan’s government reluctantly agreed to the bolstered force, but has resisted international prodding to shift AU duties from monitoring to peacekeeping.

Large-scale attacks on civilians have eased in recent weeks under international scrutiny. Some of the Arab tribal militia fighters known as Janjaweed — a traditionally insulting term they do not use for themselves — have pulled back to bases like the one in Mistiria, in north Darfur.

Under African Union scrutiny, suspected Janjaweed at least take the trouble to keep their Kalashnikov assault weapons out of sight when they go into town, Appiah-Mensah and Martin said.

Last week, the monitoring mission found Martin — an officer from the southern African nation of Zambia — on patrol in Mistiria, hearing out a suspected Janjaweed commander’s complaint of a rebel cattle raid.

Martin asked politely for details, while an unsaddled camel rolled on its back in the sand of a nearby dry wadi.

Suspected Janjaweed fighters, standoffish in a machine gun-mounted pickup truck, guarded the dirt track leading across the wadi into Mistiria. In sunglasses, flip-flops and uniforms without insignia, they surveyed the camel, and the AU team.

One, identifying himself as Sudanese army Sgt. Mohammed Kadada Ramadan, broke away to shake hands with the visitors. As usual, the AU team includes one representative from each of Darfur’s two rebel groups and from the Sudanese military.

Ibrahim Ali Hassan of the Islamist-leaning rebel Justice and Equality Movement accepts the offered hand of his suspected Janjaweed enemy. Politely, if awkwardly, Hassan comes up with a compliment: I like your camel milk. Conversation petered out thereafter.

Martin’s team bounced on through a landscape of emptied villages, some burned, and all abandoned by their non-Arab African farm communities after alleged government and militia attacks last year.

Arab herders now lead sheep and goats through the crumbling villages — their former inhabitants dead, in hiding or scattered in camps in Darfur and across the border in Chad.

A few communities of the non-Arab farmers remain among hundreds of other emptied villages. One such community still lives at the wadi crossing. Children of Darfur’s non-Arab Fur tribe peep out.

Martin asks a Fur man about life there. Elder Abdu Mahan Yassir starts to complain of difficulties getting food:”Living is complicated here,” Yassir says, then falters under the gaze of the team’s Sudanese military representative and the suspected Janjaweed fighters.

Everything’s fine, says Yassir, for the moment the most uncomfortable man in Darfur.

No shortages of fuel, food? Martin asks. No, it’s fine, the village elder says, and Martin moves on.

With reporters, the Sudanese, and militia members along, Martin’s work this day is limited to stilted exchanges and roast mutton at the Janjaweed base at Mistiria.

“I have a question,” Martin demands of Saeed, as the disparate group of enemies and outsiders drink tea in concrete buildings in the heart of Janjaweed territory.

“I want to take a Sudanese bride. How many camels will that take?” Martin asks, joking.

One camel, militia commander Saeed tells him — plus a lot of cash.

Saeed then volunteers news of his own upcoming nuptials. In his 30s, he is taking a third wife, a girl of 13.

The day ends at the end of a tow rope. One of the AU team’s two utility vehicles has broken down.

Equipment shortages have plagued the AU mission, blocking most of the 400-plus monitors and protection troops from even starting their work.

While the United Nations prods Europe and the United States for promised support, AU monitors complain of shortages even of the arm bands that show them to be AU observers.

At dusk, two Americans — both aging military contractors, one white-haired, one paunchy — arrive to attempt repairs on the utility vehicle.

Officially, the AU mission has six American and six European military members — one adviser each for each of the 12 AU teams.

Americans are especially resented among the Sudanese military and allied militia, the AU officers say — the United States has led in terming Darfur’s conflict genocide and pushing for sanctions.

At the AU sector base in the nearby town of Kabkabiyah, the area’s American adviser sends out word declining an interview.

With the upcoming strengthening of the AU force to 3,500, the African officers will be able to place permanent teams in each hot spot, Maj. Johan Odendaal of South Africa says.

But absent a change in mandate to peacekeeping from monitoring, their role will limit them to just that: watching.

Aid groups have urged AU teams to establish regular patrols, at least, so women can feel safe from rape — by suspected Janjaweed — while gathering firewood outside camps.

Asked if their limited monitoring mandate allowed them to act in a recent rape case they investigated, that of a 13-year-old girl, Martin nodded firmly.

“Yes. We sent a report,” he said.