Woman on AU police force builds trust in Darfur

Mar 17, 2006 (ARDAMATA CAMP, Darfur) — Rose Etim drives through Ardamata camp every day surrounded by Darfuris crying out ‘Mama Rosa’, stopping at every other home and greeting the people by name.

Her white African Union vehicle resembles U.N. cars but with one difference. Hers is overflowing with refugees and even police and army soldiers as she offers them lifts to the market.

Neither AU nor U.N. cars are allowed to carry non staff, but Etim said to create trust you had to be with the people.

“When my officer sees me he gets angry, but I don’t care,” she said, laughing.

Etim, a 46-year-old mother of two from across the continent in Cameroon, is one of more than a thousand AU police in Sudan’s violent west, trying to restore confidence the people of the region have lost in their own authorities after more than three years of rape, killing and looting.

The first contingent of AU police were all men but they were unable to help the women in Darfur who are so often the victims of sexual attack.

Etim, who has worked as a policewoman in West Africa for 25 years and is a trained nurse, was sent in later with a band of women to protect and comfort these traumatised civilians.

Etim heads up the AU police station, which has six other policewomen, maintaining a 24-hour presence at Ardamata Camp for the past six months. Since then, Janjaweed incursions have been reduced to once a week compared with multiple attacks each day.

While 18 months ago camp residents rejected the deployment of an AU force, saying they preferred U.N. or U.S. troops only, in Ardamata they have changed their tune.

“Slowly things are better than they were before,” said Yehia Sherif Ishaq. “Even the government police are better than before but not without the AU here,” he added.

FEAR, INSECURITY

One recent morning, wearing her dark blue police uniform, Etim was out looking for a young mother she had befriended, concerned about her safety.

When she found her, she discovered the mother was fine but one of her young babies had died.

Etim and the woman embraced each other and both of them cried.

Washington calls the violence genocide and blames the government and its allied Arab militias known as Janjaweed for targeting non-Arab tribes. Khartoum denies the charge.

But the 2 million Darfuris who fled marauding militias to miserable camps across the desert region have no trust in their own police to stop the almost daily attacks which continue even inside the camps.

In Ardamata, near Sudan’s border with Chad, at least 22,500 people live dependent on food aid and held hostage by militia attacks if they dare to venture more than one mile outside the camp perimeter.

“We cannot go out any further than those two trees there,” said elderly Khatir Adam Hassan, pointing to bushes less than a mile away.

“The Janjaweed come and attack us even inside the camp.”

AU soldiers try to monitor and uphold a shaky ceasefire between non-Arab rebels and the government, and unarmed AU police work to rebuild the broken bonds between the people and the police who are supposed to guard them against such attacks.

At first the police and army viewed the AU police with suspicion and obstructed their work.

ACCEPTANCE

AU policewoman Florence Antwi said, for example, when she asked questions about detainees she would be told they had been released, when they were in fact still sitting in jail.

“Once I disguised myself in Sudanese attire and followed the wife of a man into the jail to take him food because the police kept denying he was there,” Etim said. Eventually he was freed.

Antwi said the local police were untrained and instead of recording the complaints of people, they would beat and imprison them. “They were also afraid we were trying to take their jobs,” she said.

Etim, or “Mama Rosa” as the Darfuris call this plump woman with short-cropped hair, spent hours after she arrived sitting with police to gain their trust. She even bought material and paid a tailor to make them uniforms and gives them notebooks to record complaints in.

Now local police turn to her, calling her to give details of Janjaweed attacks.

When Etim walks through the dusty camp she is trailed by children running after her. She greets everyone by name, stopping to touch them in a gesture both loving and reassuring.

“Stay in Sudan, don’t ever go back to Cameroon,” said Ardamata resident Zeinab Abou, hugging Etim as if she never wanted to let go.

(Reuters)