Actress Mia Farrow warns of chaos in Sudan’s Darfur
June 15, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s violent Darfur region could descend into chaos and warlordism unless the United Nations quickly supports struggling African Union troops there, Hollywood actress Mia Farrow said on Thursday.
After a 5-day trip to the remote west, where fighting has killed tens of thousands and forced 2.5 million from their homes, Farrow, an ambassador for the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF), said it had been “criminal” to send in AU troops without sufficient resources.
“There was a feeling from the … population that the AU was useless now and that was sad to hear,” she told Reuters in an interview. She said the world had let the AU down.
“It is shocking that the international community says ‘this is an AU job and they must be supported’ when in actual fact they are so underfunded that they cannot accomplish any kind of protection for anyone,” Farrow said.
Sudan opposes any U.N. takeover of the Darfur mission, saying it would attract militants in Iraq-like quagmire.
But Farrow said everyone she talked to was unanimous in their support for U.N. intervention.
“There is so much hope riding on that,” she said. “In all the camps I went … all were in favour of the U.N. coming in to foritfy or help or support the AU mission here.”
Analysts say Khartoum fears U.N. troops in Darfur may arrest officials likely to be indicted by the International Criminal Court investigating alleged war crimes there. The government also rejects the world court’s jurisdiction in Sudan.
Farrow warned divisions over the May 5 peace deal, signed by only one of three rebel factions at the AU-mediated peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja, could solidify into warlordism.
If the United Nations does garner Khartoum’s support for a mission, it says deployment will not be possible before 2007.
“Once you’re in the camps you realise this is not going to hold for six or seven months,” Farrow said. “There is a tragedy of immense proportions going on in the Darfur region.”
“The only hope lies with the U.N. (which) has to come and they have to come quickly,” she said. “There has to be a peace and order imposed on the area before it erupts into absolute chaos and falls into a kind of warlordism.”
Farrow, a mother of 14 children, several of them adopted, said all sides had to stop using child soldiers, after meeting boys as young as 14 years old carrying guns.
(Reuters)