Increasing AU troops, not serious response to insecurity in Sudan’s Darfur
Proposed Increases in African Union Monitoring Presence in Darfur: Still no serious response to insecurity facing civilians, humanitarian workers
By Eric Reeves
May 7, 2005 — Despite recent announcements that the AU will seek NATO logistical help
in augmenting its woefully under-sized and under-equipped monitoring
force in Darfur, there is no sign that the international community is
serious about addressing the acute insecurity threatening civilian
populations and humanitarian operations in Darfur. On the contrary, the
force size and mandate of the international presence in Darfur continue
to be defined by AU capacity and the lowest common political denominator
at the UN. Instead of asking seriously what force could address the
multiple, urgent security needs in Darfur, the international community
is content to ask what the AU can muster, and what will escape a Chinese
veto in the UN Security Council.
If we want to understand the meaning of the proposed increase in the AU
force—to 7,500 by August 2005 and possibly 12,300 by spring 2006—we
must see that these numbers represent the maximum the AU political
leadership believes may be effectively promulgated. They are certainly
not defined by a credible assessment of security needs in Darfur (see
below). Moreover, to anyone who has watched the painfully slow and
frequently inept deployment of the current AU force over the past half
year, these proposed timetables for augmentation will seem
disingenuously optimistic, even with NATO logistical help. The August
target date itself bespeaks the dubious prospects for completed
deployment to create a 7,500-man force: this is the height of the rainy
season in Darfur, when transportation is most difficult.
The willingness to allow the security presence in Darfur to be
determined by AU capacity rather than by actual security needs extends
to others in the international community. Both Jan Pronk, Kofi Annan’s
special representative for Sudan, and Jan Egeland, UN Under-secretary
for Humanitarian Affairs, have recently promulgated figures in the range
of 8,000-11,000. The relation of these proposals to the new AU
proposals (again, 7,300 by August and 12,300 by spring 2006) is hardly a
coincidence: it reflects a willingness to defer to AU definition of
security requirements for Darfur. Nor has there been any Western
government that has dared to say what is obvious to all: truly effective
security measures for civilians and humanitarian operations will require
in the range of 30,000-50,000 well-trained troops and personnel on the
ground in Darfur.
Why such a large force, several times what the AU proposes as adequate
for a year from now? If we assess Darfur’s needs, rather than AU
capacity or UN political practicability, the following tasks must be
fulfilled by any force that truly intends halt genocidal destruction and
the vast attrition that will occur if humanitarian capacity is not
increased, and Darfur’s agricultural economy is not re-started:
CIVILIAN AND HUMANITARIAN PROTECTION
[1] The more than 150 camps scattered throughout Darfur, some with
huge populations (Kalma camp near Nyala may house as many as 150,000
displaced persons), desperately require internal security as well as
secure perimeter areas. This demands a very substantial international
police presence, replacing Khartoum’s current security apparatus for the
camps (which includes many Janjaweed who have been recycled into the
ranks of regime’s “police” force). There must be significant patrols of
the camp perimeters and extended environs so that women and children can
gather firewood for cooking, animal fodder, and water. Presently,
leaving the camps exposes women and girls to the risk of brutal rape by
marauding Janjaweed forces and increasingly numerous lawless elements;
men and boys leaving the camps face execution. Securing the camps and
camp perimeters, and thus protecting the almost 2 million people
populating them, is a huge policing and military task unto itself.
[2] There are large populations of people in rural Darfur—certainly
numbering in the hundreds of thousands—presently beyond the reach of
humanitarian organizations; in many cases they are unable to reach camps
or secure locations. The international force in Darfur must have a
mandate that includes creating secure corridors for these people,
allowing them to reach safety and the balm of humanitarian relief.
[3] Humanitarian convoys, including contracting drivers for
organizations such as the UN’s World Food Program, must be afforded full
security, and all humanitarian routes must be vigorously patrolled as a
means of controlling growing lawlessness and anarchy. While the
Janjaweed and the insurgency groups are responsible for most threats to
humanitarian convoys and transport, opportunistic banditry is rapidly
increasing throughout Darfur as conflict grinds on for a third year.
Such paralyzing violence will continue unless the larger climate of
impunity in Darfur is reversed; this cannot be achieved by the AU, even
operating at the contemplated higher force levels.
[4] Security must be provided to displaced persons wishing to return
to their villages, or the sites of their former villages, and resume
agriculturally productive lives. Though all camp residents are
desperate to begin such returns, a recent survey by an inter-agency
survey in North Darfur made clear that “98% of the Internally Displaced
Person (IDP) households surveyed are currently unwilling to return to
their villages of origin, mainly due to insecurity, lack of housing and
land” (UN Sudan “sit-rep,” April 26, 2005). These people simply do not
feel secure enough to leave the camps, despite their frequently
appalling conditions, including increasingly acute water shortages.
Critically, such returns must not be enforced; it is thus of particular
significance that there continues to be evidence that forced returns
remain a key part of Khartoum’s genocidal policy in Darfur (see below).
Initial returnees to villages must have especially high levels of
security, as they will serve as the means by which larger populations
judge the safety of return.
MILITARY CONTROL
[5] In order to ensure that Khartoum does not resume full-scale use of
its military aircraft to attack civilians, the international force in
Darfur should operate with a mandate that requires the regime to permit
an observer on all aircraft flying over Darfur. This must include
helicopter gunships, Antonov aircraft (whether designated for military
or humanitarian transport purposes), and jet fighters. Any aircraft
that are observed to attack civilian targets should be mechanically
disabled or destroyed on the ground.
[6] The key UN Security Council “demand” of Khartoum—that it disarm
the Janjaweed and bring its leaders to justice (UN Security Council
Resolution 1556, July 30, 2004)—must finally be enforced. This will
require initial geographic relocation and confinement of the Janjaweed
away from civilian concentrations, and the eventual stripping of heavier
weaponry. Former Janjaweed elements (often re-cycled into Khartoum’s
paramilitary Popular Defense Forces and police) must be identified and
removed from any security role. Those known to have committed serious
violations of international law must be arrested.
At the same time, the insurgency forces must be put on notice that any
efforts to take military advantage of the intervention will be met
forcefully if they in any way interfere with humanitarian operations or
civilian protection measures. Those insurgents known to have committed
serious violations of international law must also be arrested.
Khartoum’s continued flouting, over the course of more than nine
months, of the only significant “demand” made by the UN should give us
ample evidence that the regime has no intention of complying with this
demand—and that the UN has no intention of confessing its impotence or
addressing the consequences of that impotence. Of course the largest of
these consequences is to encourage Khartoum in its unchallenged belief
that it operates throughout Darfur amidst what various UN officials,
including UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, have
described for months as a “climate of impunity.”
These six measures all represent difficult challenges; and yet none can
be ignored if we are serious about human security and the “obligation to
protect” civilians and humanitarian operations in Darfur. We certainly
know the consequences of failing to accept these obligations: the
ongoing deterioration of security in Darfur with the prospect of
accelerating human suffering and destruction.
Current monthly mortality is approximately 10,000-15,000 in the greater
Darfur humanitarian theater (see April 30, 2005 morality assessment by
this writer at:
http://www.sudanreeves.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=51&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0).
Jan Egeland has predicted that as many as 100,000 people might die every
month if insecurity forces humanitarian organizations to suspend
operations (Financial Times, December 15, 2004). There continues to be
a stream of news from the humanitarian theater in Darfur that suggests
just how difficult the coming rainy season will be. Moreover,
insecurity ensures that Darfur will again not see a significant spring
planting (this is the major planting season in the agricultural
calendar), and thus there will be no major harvest until fall of 2006,
at the earliest At the height of the impending rainy season, the UN is
currently planning for 3.5 million aid recipients (UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks, April 27, 2005); Egeland has indicated
the number could exceed 4 million.
These numbers will overwhelm current humanitarian capacity unless there
is a major improvement in security as well as transport resources.
Humanitarian logisticians calculate that 17,000 metric tons (MT) of food
are required per million persons per month. Ideally, the food will be a
mixture of cereal (approximately 90%), pulses (leguminous foods), and
oil. (This ideal has been very far from consistently realized to date,
and a major break in the pulses food pipe-line was only very narrowly
averted by the US Agency for International Development emergency
re-designation of a food delivery already in transit.) 3.5 million
people requiring food assistance would dictate that there be 60,000 MT
of capacity—for food alone. This does not include the significant
monthly tonnage for critical non-food items (medical supplies, shelter,
water purification and supply equipment, sanitary equipment,
disinfectants, etc.).
If we are to judge by present efforts and deliveries (on the part of
the UN’s World Food Program, its implementing partners, and other
humanitarian organizations), current capacity is approximately
25,000-30,000 MT/month. This capacity has seen no significant recent
increases, nor has the pre-positioning of food (in anticipation of the
rainy season) been nearly adequate. With current resources, it is quite
impossible to see where an additional 30,000+ MT of capacity will come
from without humanitarian intervention that also provides significant
transport and logistical capacity.
While a press release today (May 7, 2005) from the UN’s World Food
Program offers welcome news of some prospective increase in capacity, it
is still far short of what is required and comes in the form of
exceedingly expensive airlift transport from Libya (see below plans for
airlifting humanitarian supplies to eastern Chad):
“The United Nations World Food Programme began airlifting food today
from a Libyan airport directly into western Sudan’s Darfur region,
pioneering a new route to move as much food aid as possible to nearly
two million people during the rainy season. Using this new air corridor,
WFP will be able to deliver an extra 5,000 metric tons of food each
month to Darfur over the next three months in preparation for the rainy
season—a period when many roads become impassable in Darfur and food
needs peak.” (News Release, UN World Food Program, May 7, 2005)
It is a scandal that 27 months after the outbreak of major violence,
and nine months after the international community identifies and demands
the disarmament of the key source of insecurity in Darfur, such
insecurity on the ground still requires international humanitarian
efforts to resort to such expensive airlift measures.
Certainly as the June start to the rainy season moves inexorably
closer, these multiple failings of the past should make clear that
anything other than the most urgent efforts in the present represents an
acquiescence before the genocidally destructive effects of Khartoum’s
engineered catastrophe. We should note in this context that the regime
has again begun to create significant bureaucratic obstacles for
humanitarian workers on the ground in Darfur, especially in the issuance
of visas [reports from many humanitarian organizations; see also The
Telegraph (dateline: Otash camp, South Darfur), April 27, 2005]).
CHOICES
The international community may chose to accept the African Union as
the sole guarantor of human security in Darfur, with a current
deployment of 2,300 personnel and no civilian protection mandate. It
may chose to indulge the fiction that the AU, even with NATO logistical
help, can address the essential civilian and humanitarian protection
tasks adumbrated above, if only its numbers rise to 7,500 by August. It
may chose to indulge the comparable fiction that a time-frame that
includes spring 2006 as a target for yet further deployment is somehow
adequate as response to current, ongoing genocidal destruction.
Some countries may chose to believe that small-scale, largely symbolic
deployments of non-AU personnel from their military ranks will provide
absolution from responsibility for inaction to date (Canada’s evident
strategy with today’s report that 150 Canadian military personnel will
deploy to Darfur). And other countries may chose to diminish the crisis
altogether—the recent US strategy evident in various statements by
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State Robert
Zoellick, as well as in President Bush’s continuing silence on what he
had previously described as genocide in Darfur—what he early in his
first term had declared would “never occur on my watch.”
But all of these represent, most essentially, choices not to confront
the real challenges of providing the security that Darfur so desperately
needs if additional hundreds of thousands of lives are not to be lost in
coming months and years.
CONTEXT FOR CHOICE
The deepening security crisis in Darfur is everywhere evident, despite
the recent reduction in major conflict. In particular, there are
military build-ups in several areas that portend renewed violence on a
large scale. The May 4, 2005 UN Sudan “sit rep” reports:
“The build-up of militias south of Thur and in Abu Jabra/Tege (west and
east Jebel Marra, respectively, South Darfur), and especially the
increased aggressive behavior of [Arab] militias in Abu Jabra/Tege is
disconcerting. Rumors of an attack on the Jebel continue, and fears of
violence, fueled by past incidents are keeping agencies from accessing
these areas.”
“Reports indicate that a military build-up appears to be taking place
in the Wadi Seleh (West Darfur) locality with increased military
patrolling, movement and tension in the communities. In Mukjar, trenches
are being constructed and military presence has increased. In the same
locality, nomads are moving closer to the village of Dambar, displaying
aggressive attitudes despite the deployment of Government of Sudan
police in the area.” (UN Sudan “sit rep,” May 4, 2005):
Moreover, despite a diminished level of armed conflict, there is still
a great deal of fighting, with direct implications for civilians. With
a dateline of Iriba, Darfur, the BBC reports:
“Fighting around the rebel stronghold in the Marra mountain is intense
with almost daily clashes. There are tens of thousands of refugees in
the area but it is too dangerous for the UN to work in the area.” (BBC,
April 22, 2005)
Within the camps and the urban areas to which they are frequently
adjacent, insecurity continues to be a matter of life and death for too
many civilians. The Sudan Organization Against Torture (SOAT) has
provided a continuous stream of highly authoritative reports on torture,
abduction, extra-judicial execution, and other human rights abuses.
Several releases appeared this week, all too well represented by the
following:
“On 20 April 2005, armed men in military uniform stopped a passenger
bus travelling from Belail Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp to
Nyala and boarded the bus. The armed men selected three male passengers
belonging to the Zaghawa tribe and ordered them off the bus. According
to eyewitness accounts, the armed men beat the three passengers with the
butt of their guns before taking them away in a Land Rover. The Omda
(Mayor) of the Zaghawa group has visited the police stations and
security offices in Nyala but the whereabouts of the three men are
unknown.” (SOAT Press Release, May 3, 2005)
A recent UN report notes very high levels of tension between Khartoum’s
security forces in the camps and displaced persons, especially the huge
Kalma camp near Nyala. The report notes in particular that:
“One camp resident was shot dead at close range when he was stopped at
a police checkpoint and fuel demanded from him on April 21, [2005].
[The report] outlined another incident where police first fired over the
camp, causing people to flee for their lives, and said police began
firing directly into the camp on April 23, [2005].” (Reuters, April 27,
2005)
The brutality of the camps is difficult to render, but an interview
with Wendy Chamberlin, UN High Commissioner for Refugees gives us a
shockingly revealing example of what she encountered during her recent
tour of Darfur and eastern Chad: “[Chamberlin] described the case on an
eight-year-old Internally Displaced girl in one camp near El Geneina,
Darfur. ‘This girl had been repeatedly raped, night after night'” (Press
Release, UN High Commission for Refugees, April 25, 2005).
What does this obscene example say of our willingness to provide “human
security”? of our willingness to undertake the “responsibility to
protect”? If we consider the reality of an eight-year-old girl living
without protection and subject to serial rape by the Janjaweed—a
trauma beyond comprehension or adequate treatment—we have the
distilled measure of our failure in Darfur.
Still, those within the camps have been given good reason for not
leaving. A statement by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Chamberlin
offers a bleak view of the violence and hostility that still reign
unchecked:
“UNHCR is alarmed by the fact that abandoned villages in West Darfur
are once again being burned to discourage the people who once lived
there from returning home. At the end of last week, a resident of Seraf
Village (12 kms south of Masteri, which itself is 50 kms south of El
Geneina, capital of West Darfur) took our staff inspect the village,
which he said had been burned the previous Monday (April 18). This man
told us the 200 families of Seraf had fled attacks by Janjaweed militias
a year ago. Then on Monday last week, they saw smoke and feared their
village was being burned. All that remains now are broken grain storage
jars and blackened mud-brick shells of houses, the thatching having
turned to ashes.”
“This gratuitous act is clearly a message to the former residents not
to return home. We are concerned because acts like this—on top of the
displacement of some 2 million people from their homes—threaten to
change the social and demographic structure of Darfur irrevocably.” (UN
High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], in a statement designated for
attribution to UNCHR Chamberlin; April 26, 2005)
Just as significant are recent reports of closed overland corridors and
delivery routes. There are continuous reports now of attacks on
humanitarian convoys, hired drivers, and aid personnel, both national
and expatriate. A recent “security” note in the UN Joint Logistics
Center Bulletin #56 (April 27, 2005) reports ominously:
“Security concerns continue to hinder transport in South Darfur,
closing three of the most frequently travelled corridors out of Nyala
(Zalingei, Menawashi/el-Fasher, and Ed Daen).”
The following Bulletin (#57, May 3, 2005) again reported:
“Security concerns in South Darfur continue to hinder transport in the
state. Due to sporadic outbreaks of fighting and attacks on
humanitarian vehicles, three of the most frequently travelled corridors
out of Nyala (Zalingei, Menawashi/el-Fasher, and Ed Daen) remained
closed to UN traffic.”
This represents a major constriction of transport ability in the
greater Darfur theater: Nyala is the capital of South Darfur and a major
crossroads for all of Darfur. And such constriction will not end until
the Janjaweed are disarmed, until the international community finds a
way to make good on the “demand” of UN Security Council Resolution 1556
(July 30, 2004).
A recent BBC interview with an AU officer provides a current view from
the ground in Darfur:
“Colonel Anthony Mwandobi from Zambia, sector commander for the
Zalingei area, said his forces are ‘understrength.’ ‘I need to have
enough troops, I need to have communications equipment, I need to have
transport–they are all in short supply,’ he said. More than two years
after the conflict began in Sudan’s Darfur region, there are still only
about 2,000 peacekeeping troops with a limited mandate, trying to keep
tabs on an area the size of France.”
Colonel Mwandobi went on in the interview to say it is “very clear”
that Khartoum continues to support the Janjaweed:
“He said that Janjaweed fighters wore military uniforms, which they
said had been given to them by the Sudanese army. The Janjaweed also say
they have been trained by the army. ‘The training is done for one month
and thereafter, they are let go,’ Colonel Mwandobi said. He said there
are frequent clashes in his sector, which includes the Marra mountains,
where the Sudan Liberation Army rebels have bases.”
Colonel Mwandobi’s most ominous report comes last:
“‘There has been a sudden influx of [pro-government] Arab militias
attacking civilians this month,’ he said, adding that aid workers in the
region have also been targeted.” (BBC, April 28, 2005)
Various highly alarming security incidents punctuate UN “sit reps”:
“On 25 April [2005], four commercial trucks were stopped by suspected
Arab militia near the village of Juruf; two were used to barricade the
Nyala-El Fasher route while two trucks escaped to Duma alerting the
[Government of Sudan] police. When a World Vision [humanitarian
organization] vehicle travelling from Manawashi to Duma arrived at the
scene it was fired while reversing to escape the road-block.” (UN Sudan
sit-rep, April 27, 2005)
For those human rights groups that argued a UN referral of crimes to
the International Criminal Court would produce security in Darfur, that
it would have a deterrent effect on Khartoum’s genocidaires and its
Janjaweed proxies, the evidence continues to mount that such arguments
were so much tendentiousness:
“[The UN’s referral to the ICC] has added to the insecurity in the
region and is blamed for an upsurge of attacks on food convoys and aid
workers. ‘The ICC list has increased insecurity in that people, local
Janjaweed and even government officials, are frightened of being picked
up. They make no distinction between aid workers and UN international
staff. It has increased hostility towards us all,’ a senior UN official
said.” (The Times of London [dateline: Darfur], April 23, 2005)
While the ICC referral was just and appropriate as a response to
genocide in Darfur, and to the massive “crimes against humanity” found
by the UN’s Commission of Inquiry, there should have been no glib (or
disingenuous) assumption that this would somehow increase security in
Darfur. As Refugees International reported in March 2005:
“Sudanese officials greet the ICC recommendation [by the UN Commission
of Inquiry] with a combination of annoyance and arrogance. Foreign
Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail recently threatened the 800 to 1,000
international humanitarian workers in Darfur by warning that referrals
to a criminal court could lead to ‘a direct threat to the foreign
presence… Darfur may become another Iraq in terms of arrests and
abductions.’ A [paramilitary Popular Defense Force] official told
Refugees International that ‘if the wanted on the list are penalized, it
will not solve the problem. It will start war again.’ His colleague
added, ‘There will be an explosion.'” (Refugees International, “Sudan: A
Climate of Impunity in Darfur,” March 2, 2005)
Ismail’s threat was very recently reiterated:
“Mustapha Osman Ismail, Sudan’s foreign minister, has already hinted of
what could follow [an ICC referral]. ‘A foreign trial will lead to
devastating effects on the security front in Darfur,’ he said. ‘This may
cause us to face some disturbing scenarios, such as the abduction of
non-Sudanese workers.'” (The Telegraph (UK), [dateline: Otash camp,
outside Nyala, South Darfur] April 27, 2005)
HUMANITARIAN OVERVIEW
Humanitarian conditions are perhaps best summarized in a recent release
by Oxfam International: “the humanitarian crisis in Darfur is set to
continue until late 2006,” and though “the huge international
humanitarian response has already saved many lives, it falls far short
of what is needed” (Press Release [Boston], May 2, 2005).
Capacity issues are still not receiving the attention and resources
they deserve, and over-dependence on exceedingly expensive air transport
during the impending rainy season is already clearly a reality (the
costs will of course diminish the ability of the UN to respond not only
in Darfur but other crisis areas in Africa and around the world):
“[UN High Commissioner for Refugees Wendy Chamberlin indicated during
her recent tour of Chad and Darfur that] the next major challenge will
come in six weeks time when the rainy season arrives. Unless the UN has
pre-positioned food and fuel to keep the camps running, 200,000 people
will be cut off with air drops left as the last resort for keeping them
supplied.” (BBC, April 22, 2005)
And the rainy season approaches inexorably.
KHARTOUM’S VIEW OF THE FUTURE
Though Khartoum is aware that Darfur has gained far more of an
international profile than the regime had thought at all likely, there
has been no change of strategy, merely tactics. We may expect to see as
a consequence many more contrived diplomatic gestures and factitious
efforts at “reconciliation.” The UN Sudan “sit rep” of April 30, 2005
gives us an especially good example:
“On 28 April 2005, the Civil Affairs team in El Fasher met with Fur,
Zaghawa, Tunjor and Berti tribal leaders in Abushouk IDP camp to
follow-up on reconciliation and return issues. The tribal leaders
stressed that current government reconciliation efforts are for
propaganda purposes only, and that tribal leaders who signed the
agreements are not representative. The tribal leaders reiterated that no
returns should take place unless the perpetrators of the crimes in
Darfur have been tried internationally, security is provided, and the
Janjaweed are disarmed, Furthermore, they requested that the AU role be
extended to the protection of IDP camps and villages.” (UN Sudan “sit
rep,” April 30, 2005)
Notably, the AU has still not been able to secure a date for
reconvening the parties at peace talks. This reflects poorly on the
insurgency movements in some respects, but Khartoum is certainly more
than content to allow diplomatic activities to be frozen, thus
preserving the current genocidal status quo. Indeed, in addition to
resuming its former practices of obstructing the entry and movement of
humanitarianaid workers, the regime remains committed to its policy of
forcibly returning civilians to areas too insecure for agriculture, or
to distant camps:
“According to the UN, on April 29, [2005] the Government of Sudan
transported 78 families, comprising 233 people, from Otash and Kalma
camps in South Darfur to Garsilla in West Darfur. The relocation was
not done with verification from International Organization for
Migration, and no assistance was available for the Internally Displaced
Persons upon arrival. Reportedly, 102 IDPs immediately departed
Garsilla, 82 returning to Nyala and the remainder going to villages
surrounding Garsilla.” (US Agency for International Development “sit
rep,” May 6, 2005)
This is a deportation, in effect, of almost 200 kilometers. There are
a great many other reports of Khartoum’s forced movements of displaced
persons.
Khartoum has also moved aggressively to forestall an expansion of the
mandate guiding AU deployment and augmentation. Foreign Minister
Mustapha Osman Ismail declared recently that:
“‘The UN Security Council asked the government of Sudan to be fully
responsible for the protection of civilians,’ Ismail said. If any AU
resolution contradicted this, ‘then definitely we need to remove this
contradiction.’ He added that any AU resolution giving full powers to
protect civilians would need to be backed up by a UN Security Council
resolution to be acceptable to Khartoum.” (Reuters, April 28, 2005)
In other words, the Khartoum regime expects to be allowed to preserve
full “responsibility” for civilian protection, even as its own militia
proxy (the Janjaweed) is the primary instrument of civilian destruction.
Even though the UN Security Council has “demanded” that the Janjaweed
be disarmed and brought to justice, Khartoum cleaves only to the UN
language of responsibility that offers the National Islamic Front full
prerogative to continues its genocidal ways, including deployment of the
Janjaweed. Confident that China will protect its key African proxy
state from any further UN Security Council resolutions, the regime is
equally confident that any humanitarian intervention will indeed be
defined both by AU lack of capacity and by the very lowest common
political denominator at the UN.
Without much more commitment than has yet to be demonstrated by the
various Western democracies, Khartoum will fully prevail in its
genocidal ambitions and the African peoples of Darfur will face ongoing
destruction.
– Eric Reeves
– Smith College
– Northampton, MA 01063
– Tel. 413-585-3326
– Email: [email protected]
– Website: www.sudanreeves.org