Ban Ki-Moon on Sudan’s response to UN force in Darfur: “Not satisfactory”

The UN Secretary-General is forced to confront the National Islamic
Front’s obdurate defiance; the regime refuses to accept the key
“Second Phase” of a UN/AU peace support operation

By Eric Reeves

March 16, 2007– Although entirely unsurprising, the National Islamic Front/National
Congress Party regime in Khartoum has again defiantly rejected essential
elements of the proposed UN/AU peace support operation to Darfur, this
in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon received last week.
Designed to replace the large and robustly mandated force specified in
UN Security Council Resolution 1706 (August 31, 2006), the UN/AU
“hybrid operation” negotiated in Addis Ababa (November 16, 2006)
has always been dogged by ambiguity and by Khartoum’s insistence that
a “hybrid operation” was quite different from a “hybrid force”;
the regime has repeatedly and adamantly rejected the latter for over
half a year.

There were three “phases” of the “hybrid operation” sketched in
Addis Ababa “Conclusions” document. Notably, this was not a signed
agreement, and several critical issues were left undecided. The evident
conviction last November was that Khartoum would eventually accept UN
terms of reference for each of these three phases: the “light support
package” for the existing AU mission (some equipment and approximately
180 personnel); the “heavy support package” for the AU (the
“phase” currently at issue); and ultimately (“phase three”) a
large force of some 20,000 troops and civilian police.

But subsequent discussions have never moved past “phase two” (the
“heavy support package” to the AU), and last week’s letter from
NIF President Omar al-Bashir made clear that international assumptions
about Khartoum’s willingness to see meaningful improvements in
security for civilians and humanitarians in Darfur are entirely
misguided. Although it was clear well before the letter from al-Bashir
that Khartoum had no intention of facilitating or even allowing for
significant changes in the current security dynamic in Darfur (see
below), it has proved expedient for various international actors to
profess surprise:

“‘I was stunned by the letter,’ [US Special Envoy for Sudan Andrew]
Natsios said.” (Reuters [Washington, DC], March 14, 2007)

But of course this is simply more of an increasingly familiar
disingenuousness on Natsios’ part. Only a week earlier, Natsios had
confessed in Khartoum that no agreement had been reached on moving
forward:

“After meeting President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Natsios said there
was still no agreement on allowing non-African peacekeeping troops to
assist a cash-strapped and inexperienced African Union mission in
Darfur.” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], March 8, 2007)

Natsios, we should recall, was posturing last December about a US
“Plan B” that would be deployed if a January 1, 2007 deadline for
various benchmarks were not met by Khartoum. Now it would seem that
Natsios is claiming “Plan B” is still in preparation:

“President George W. Bush’s special envoy for Darfur, Andrew Natsios,
meanwhile told several human rights groups in a conference call
Wednesday [March 14, 2007] that the administration was preparing its own
‘Plan B’ package of economic sanctions against Sudan, according to a
participant in the [conference] call [with Natsios and nongovernmental
organizations].” (Agence France-Presse [dateline: Washington], March
15, 2007)

And language from the US State Department suggests that whatever
“Plan B” is, it is not so much a plan for coercive US action as a
vague gesture toward “international levers”:

“Asked whether Natsios would present Bashir with a list of new
sanctions or other measures in a classified ‘plan B’ being
considered by Washington if Khartoum continues to resist a hybrid force,
[State Department spokesman Sean] McCormack said there were a number of
‘diplomatic levers’ available.”

“‘It is a tragedy what is happening in Darfur,’ he said. ‘That is
why we think it is so important for the international system to use
whatever levers are at its disposal to get the Sudanese government to
change its behavior and act to allow that UN/AU force in.’” (Reuters
[dateline: Washington, DC], March 5, 2007)

Suddenly “Plan B” isn’t a US plan but an effort to get “the
international system to use whatever levers are at its disposal.”
There is nothing more helpful from Mr. McCormack, although talk of
further US sanctions has been around for many weeks. As most recently
reported, such sanctions would oblige Sudan to convert all
dollar-denominated contracts, transactions, and business dealings to
other currencies (the Euro, perhaps even the Chinese yuan for oil
transactions):

“Natsios declined to provide the names of companies that might be
affected by new sanctions but international transactions involving US
dollars would be blocked. ‘This will shut all that down,’ he added,
without being more specific. He also did not name the three Sudanese who
would be sanctioned but said they were well-known. US financial
sanctions that restrict business in dollars potentially affect the
entire global financial system since most banks have dealings in the
United States, either through branches or correspondent banks.”
(Reuters [dateline: Washington, DC], March 14, 2007)

But if Sudan’s primary international export wealth derives from crude
oil, a highly valued and completely fungible international commodity,
it’s not clear why this is not more an inconvenience than a potent
threat that will have significant long-term effects, particularly given
the survivalist calculations on the part of the serial génocidaires who
make up the NIF regime and control all elements of the merely notional
Sudanese “Government of National Unity.” And if such sanctions are
a potent tool, why has the US waited so long to deploy them? We have
now entered the fifth year of a counter-insurgency war that early on
became genocidal in nature: if the US has such leverage, why wasn’t it
used hundreds of thousands of lives ago?

Here we might also reflect on previous sanctions per a March 2005 UN
Security Council Resolution, imposed a year and a half ago, without
discernible consequences, upon two rebel leaders, one Janjaweed leader,
and one mid-level member of the NIF regime. A UN embargo on arms to
Darfur has also proved completely meaningless, as has the demand that
Khartoum cease aerial military operations in Darfur.

A NO FLY ZONE FOR DARFUR?

Inevitably, tough talk by the US and especially the UK reverts to the
mooting of a “No-Fly Zone,” an aerial military effort to ground
Khartoum’s Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships. But rarely have
the difficulties in achieving this wholly desirable goal been considered
with any detail.

Paul Smyth, head of the Aerospace and Information Studies Programme, at
the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies,
begins a recent study by declaring:

“No Fly Zones seem to offer a power and low-risk means of halting
violence in Darfur. Under pressure to ‘do something’, politicians
and commentators have been drawn to the possibility of a NFZ. Political
leaders must not underestimate the scale of the challenge and secure an
appropriately robust mandate; otherwise, intervention will be unable to
meet unrealistic expectations.” (“No Fly Zones—Easy to Say,
Difficult to Implement,” March 13, 2007 at
http://www.rusi.org/publication/newsbrief/ref:A45F675ED3A8C7/)

Among the daunting challenges to enforcing a No Fly Zone over Darfur:

[1] Basing for enforcement, in-flight re-fueling, and reconnaissance
aircraft. If land-based, the French air-base at Abéché, eastern Chad,
offers the only promising possibility. But it would need to be expanded
and lengthened to accommodate some of the aircraft involved. Moreover,
it would require the assistance of the French, which has conspicuously
not been offered. It would also require the agreement of Chadian
President Idriss Déby. This now seems extremely unlikely in light of
Déby’s recent decision to deny access to an international
protection force to eastern Chad, after previously signaling that he
favored such deployment. Certainly Khartoum would hold Déby responsible
should a substantial air operation be based out of Chad.

The only alternative route that did not infringe upon the national
airspace of Egypt or Libya would require carrier-basing in the Red Sea
for combat aircraft. Flights would have to be through (hostile) Sudanese
airspace, and this would very significantly increase the following:

*Re-fueling needs for the rotating squadrons of military jets enforcing
the No Fly Zone and for the reconnaissance aircraft guiding these jets;

*Travel time to and from the site to be patrolled;

*Overall resources, including long-term deployment of at least one
aircraft carrier in waters near wary or even hostile countries in Africa
and the Arabian Peninsula. It is perhaps worth noting that the USS Cole
was attacked by al-Qaida operatives while in port in Yemen in 2000, and
that a federal judge yesterday (March 15, 2007) found Khartoum
significantly responsible for this event:

“Judge [Robert] Doumar said: ‘There is substantial evidence in this
case presented by the expert testimony that the government of Sudan
induced the particular bombing of the Cole by virtue of prior actions of
the government of Sudan.’” (The Guardian [dateline: Washington],
March 15, 2007)

Khartoum of course hosted Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida during their
formative years (1991-1996), and continued to support both, as well as
other international terrorist organizations, on a wide scale following
bin Laden’s decamping to Afghanistan.

[2] The key challenge in enforcing a No Fly Zone would be
distinguishing humanitarian aircraft from military aircraft. For
example, the Anonov cargo planes that do so much of the heavy lifting
for humanitarian organizations are indistinguishable from Antonovs that
drop bombs on innocent civilians. Khartoum has in the past painted its
military aircraft the white color of the AU and humanitarian
organizations; it would certainly do so again if confronting a No Fly
Zone. Moreover, the regime would certainly attempt to engineer a
mistake in identity so as to provoke the shooting down of a humanitarian
Antonov, perhaps by forcing a re-routing of humanitarian flight paths.

Low-flying helicopter gunships might or might not be picked up by the
required AWACS and JSTARS reconnaissance aircraft. Darfur is immense,
and Khartoum might deploy these aircraft in ways meant to evade or
confuse those attempting to track them. Gunships might, for example,
fly in the radar “shadow” of the many helicopters used by
humanitarians to reach remote locations to which there is no road
access. Helicopters of various sorts, including those used by the AU,
are constantly criss-crossing Darfur; and again we can be sure that
Khartoum would attempt to engineer the destruction of a humanitarian or
AU aircraft. It is quite conceivable that Khartoum would actually shoot
down a humanitarian helicopter, destroy any revealing evidence
subsequently, and blame the attack on those enforcing the No Fly Zone.

[3] A No Fly Zone is extremely resource-consumptive. A much better
allocation of resources would focus first on the best troops presently
deployed in Darfur under the auspices of the AU, those from Rwanda.
Instead, there is a growing likelihood that Rwanda will pull its troops
out of Darfur for lack of financing and the dismal performance of the AU
overall in responding to the security crisis. Recent reports deserve
urgent consideration:

“Rwanda, which has about 2,000 troops in Darfur, threatened Tuesday
[March 13, 2007] to withdraw its troops unless more resources were
committed to the AU force, saying its soldiers had seen ‘no results’
from their mission.” (Reuters [dateline: Washington, DC], March 13,
2007)

The East African (Kenya) reports in considerably more detail (March 5,
2007):

“Rwanda may be forced to recall its troops from the Darfur region of
Sudan if the African Union does not soon reimburse it for what it has
spent on keeping its troops there. Apparently, Kigali’s spending on
the peacekeeping troops it has sent to the conflict area has disrupted
its military budget, and it is now experiencing difficulties in keeping
within the expenditure limits it agreed with the International Monetary
Fund. Rwanda has a ‘poverty reduction and growth facility’ loan with
the IMF that obliges it to implement specific macroeconomic reforms.
According to a new IMF country report, Darfur is beginning to exert too
much pressure on the country’s military spending.” [ ]

“‘While we would be willing to continue our efforts, we are
concerned that the ensuing financial burden would hamper our own
development and will thus review the situation by January 2007,’ says
Finance and Economic Planning Minister James Musomi in a report to the
Fund. Kigali has also said that in order to monitor the costs
associated with peacekeeping, the Auditor General will conduct an audit
of the spending in 2006 and the information will be published by
end-March 2007. Expenditure reduction is a key plank of Rwanda’s
programme with the IMF.”

For all the shortcomings of the AU, the Rwandan contingent has
consistently proved the most effective, indeed the backbone of the AU
force. Withdrawal by Rwanda would be devastating to the already
exceedingly limited effectiveness of the AU force. It makes no sense to
devote resources to a No Fly Zone when already effective “boots on the
ground” may withdraw for lack of funding. Indeed, so cash-strapped is
the AU that its interpreters have gone on strike for lack of payment,
exacerbating already tense relations between the AU and the people they
are supposed to protect:

“Interpreters working for African Union (AU) troops in the troubled
Sudanese region of Darfur have gone on strike over unpaid wages. Some
150 Sudanese interpreters who translate between AU troops and
non-Arabic-speaking refugees say they have not been paid for three
months.” (BBC, March 10, 2007)

Security in the near-term will be enhanced much more by a full
complement of translators than a No Fly Zone that might not be
effectively deployed for months. The ambitions of a No Fly Zone are
again entirely commendable. But the practicability of a NFZ, as well as
its required resources, deserves careful consideration, of a sort not
often in evidence.

GENOCIDE BY ATTRITION CONTINUES IN THE ABSENCE OF SECURITY

There is an abundance of evidence that international actions to date
have done nothing to halt the continuing deterioration of security
throughout Darfur, with ever greater risks both to civilians and to the
humanitarians upon whom they grow increasingly dependent. Khartoum has
shown nothing but contempt for UN Security Council resolutions, for the
findings of the International Criminal Court, and for yet another
damning human rights report. The latter (“Report of the High-Level
Mission on the Situation of Human Rights in Darfur,” March 7, 2007)
appears to have been consigned to oblivion in Geneva, where it is very
unlikely to be accepted by the new and already corrupted UN Human Rights
Council. Opposition from Sudan’s allies in the Organization of the
Islamic Conference, the Arab League, as well as Russia and China, seems
to ensure that this report will have no more impact than its many
authoritative predecessors. Even so, the most important conclusions of
this 35-page report deserve to be noted:

“The situation in Darfur is characterized by gross and systematic
violations of human rights and grave breaches of international
humanitarian law. War crimes and crimes against humanity continue across
the region. [ ] The principal pattern is one of a violent
counterinsurgency campaign waged by the Government of the Sudan in
concert with Janjaweed/militia, and targeting mostly civilians. Rebel
forces are also guilty of serious abuses of human rights and violations
of humanitarian law.”

In the face of this, and given decreasing humanitarian access, the news
stories from Darfur are all too predictable. Opheera McDoom of Reuters,
who was recently and deservedly awarded the news organization’s
highest award, yet again offers the most acute insight into the terrible
existence endured by the people of this tortured land (“More Darfuris
flee, begging for UN troops to help,” March 10, 2007 [dateline:
Ardamata Camp, West Darfur]):

“Four years after the Darfur conflict erupted, new refugees continue
to pour into growing makeshift camps telling of murder, pillage and
rape. In Ardamata in West Darfur, thousands have only torn plastic
sheeting propped up by sticks as shelter from dust and searing sun,
after militia attacks drove them from their homes.”

“Tired aid workers battle on in the world’s largest humanitarian
operation to provide food and healthcare to those who are fleeing
attacks on their villages and on the roads. Those who have suffered for
years are also tired of waiting for UN forces. An African Union (AU)
force mandated to protect civilians, they say, does nothing to help and
its troops are usually too scared themselves to leave their camp. ‘The
only way to solve this problem is for the United Nations to come here to
protect us,’ said Abdallah Hamad, whose village was attacked in
December [2006], forcing him to seek a haven in Ardamata, near the state
capital el-Geneina.”

“He said the AU troops were incapable of fighting the militia, known
as Janjaweed. ‘The African Union are useless. They themselves need UN
protection,’ he said. He added that when armed militia entered the
camp a few days earlier, the AU troops fled.” [ ]

“The stories from those newly arriving at Ardamata are the same
painful testimonies heard all over Darfur in hundreds of camps in all
the region’s three states over the past four years. ‘The Janjaweed
came on horses, shot two men, hit another old woman in the chest and
looted many houses,’ said Asil Ibrahim from Deleiba village in West
Darfur. ‘They were shouting “you are blacks, you are tora bora
(rebels),” and threatening people with their guns.’”

“Mariam Ishaq Adam, 80, was too weak to rise from her bed while armed
militia looted her house and beat her daughters in front of her. It took
her 10 days to walk to Ardamata camp, drinking dirty water on the
road.”

“While Darfuris suffer, politicians in Khartoum, at UN headquarters
in New York and at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa talk. Delegation after
delegation is sent, and statement after statement written. But for
Darfuris who fled with only the clothes on their back to squat in
miserable camps, little has changed.”

“The future of those in the camps looks bleak. ‘If they don’t bring
the UN forces here then we are going to leave this country,’ said Adam
Abdel Rahman, another new arrival in Ardamata.”

But leaving for Chad no longer provides any greater security. The UN
High Commission for Refugees estimates that there are already 232,000
refugees in a dozen camps near the Chad/Darfur border, in addition to
more than 120,000 Chadian Internally Displaced Persons. But the number
of Darfuri refugees is certainly much greater, and we catch a glimpse of
their existence in a dispatch from the UN Integrated Regional
Information Networks (March 11, 2007):

“Driving through the arid dustbowl around Birak in eastern Chad, just
a few kilometres from the western border of war-torn Sudan, you could
easily miss the influxes of refugees. Hidden away from the naked eye,
only local people can point to where the thousands are gathering in
scattered groups. A wall of thorny branches marks out a family’s
territory, cooking pots and bowls hang from the trees, a brightly
coloured piece of clothing flaps in the wind, a dusty child sits playing
in the dirt: through the scattered foliage and thicket, isolated signs
of life become discernible.”

“Spread out across 600 km of desiccated desert, protected only by
trees and bush, and foraging to survive in the scrub, are up to 135,000
people from the Darfur region of western Sudan. Hidden from the outside
world, and extremely hard to find for aid workers trying to assist them,
refugees in Kourbileke (about 2 km from the border) told IRIN they had
fled for their lives from Sudanese bombs on 16 January.”

“‘The bombing was in the surrounding villages, then it came to our
village [Habilah],’ said Abd al-Karim Abbakar Anaw, who described
himself as a Sudanese chief. ‘They are [still] bombing every day. We
heard it today at 7:00 a.m. this morning.’” (UN IRIN, [dateline:
Kourbileke, eastern Chad], March 11, 2007)

The dateline of this IRIN dispatch—March 11, 2007—and the
observation by Darfuri refugee Abd al-Karim Abbakar Anaw—“They are
[still] bombing every day. We heard it today at 7:00 a.m. this
morning”—are both worth noting.

For they are of particular of significance in the context of recent
comments on this subject made by the UN Secretary-General’s special
representative for Darfur, Jan Eliasson, in which he asserted that
Khartoum has halted “aerial bombings of rebel positions since February
11, 2007” (Agence France-Presse [dateline: UN/New York], March 6,
2007). What are we to make of this claim? Khartoum continues to bomb
both rebel and civilian positions in Darfur, and to use the Antonovs as
weapons of terror by lingering over villages to force flight by
civilians. This could be easily confirmed by Eliasson if he were really
interested in the truth about Darfur’s realities.

The IRIN dispatch, confirming Khartoum’s continuing Antonov bombing
in mid-March, continues:

“First the army came in tanks with militias on horseback, then they
stole the villagers’ cattle from near the well, [Abd al-Karim Abbakar
Anaw] said. The next day a plane dropped bombs on the village, killing
eight people and forcing the entire population—about 1,750—to flee.
In the chaos, seven people—four men and three women—were abducted,
he added. ‘The goal is to drive away the villagers so they can take
over… They burn all the houses, steal everything, and the population
flees because they don’t have anything left.’”

“A teacher, Muhammad Husayn Ali, told IRIN that between 40 and 50
army vehicles had arrived in Habilah that day, accompanied by 500
militiamen, followed by ‘intense aerial bombardments’ by Antonov
bombers. Ten women were raped, five of whom were carried off to Junaynah
[also el-Geneina] in western Darfur, added a young woman with four
children, Samirah Hasan Salih.”

Even for those who reach the camps, either in Darfur or Chad,
insecurity has grown intolerable. Indeed, the impressively intrepid
Alfred de Montesquiou of Associated Press reports form Anka, North
Darfur:

“With violence high in Darfur’s refugee camps, some of those driven
from their homes are choosing to stay away, living in rebel-controlled
areas in constant fear of government or militia attack. They struggle to
stay alive with little access to outside humanitarian aid. Jabr Ali is
one of them. On a recent day, the farmer crouched next to a pile of
thorns and carefully lifted one branch, pointing to an unexploded bomb
that lay stuck in the sand near his mud hut home. He had put the pile
of thorns around the shell to prevent his 10 children from getting near,
and to avoid losing more cattle. More than a dozen cattle had died
during the air raid when the bomb was dropped a few weeks earlier. Ali
blamed government airplanes.”

“The mud huts where he and his family live are near to Anka, a
once-busy regional center in Darfur’s vast northern expanse, but now a
ghost town. Ali wants to leave the region—in what would be his third
relocation since violence erupted in Darfur in 2003, when ethnic African
rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central Sudanese
government in Khartoum.”

“But Ali said he didn’t have the money to pay for the trip of several
hundred miles to Darfur refugee camps in neighboring Chad. And, closer
refugee camps in Darfur aren’t an option either, Ali said, because they
lay in zones controlled by Sudan’s central government. Ali, 45, said
that because his tribe is strongly associated with the Darfur rebels, he
feared government forces would kill him if he went to a Darfur refugee
camp.” [ ]

“‘Of course, it’s harder to stay here than to go in a refugee
camp,’ said Yaya Moussa, a rebel who, like his brothers, is usually
away fighting or attending cattle in the desert. ‘But this is our
land,’ he said, ‘we know that if we leave it, we’ll never get it
back.’ Increasingly, Darfur civilians outside the refugee camps also
face violence from a former rebel group that signed a peace deal with
the government last fall and are now part of the government, the UN
says. Some rebels charge that the former rebels now act as a proxy for
the government, doing its work just as the janjaweed do.”

“More than 15,000 of the 78,500 who fled their homes in Darfur in
January and February were trying to escape attacks from the former
rebels, according to a UN report released Wednesday [March 16, 2007]. Of
those who fled, another 34,000 said they were fleeing either the
government or the janjaweed, the UN said.” (Associated Press
[dateline: Anka, North Darfur], March 14, 2007)

The “former rebels” referred to here are primarily those of the
brutal SLA/Minni Minawi faction, and they have been explicitly named in
several recent reports:

“In the tense southern city of Gereida, two peacekeepers were shot
dead and a third critically wounded last week. Sources said the troops
were killed by members of the Sudan Liberation Army faction of Minni
Minnawi—the only rebel leader to sign on to the 5 May [2006] Darfur
Peace Agreement (DPA) with the government.” (UN IRIN [dateline:
el-Fasher, North Darfur], March 13, 2007)

SLA/Minni Minawi rebels control the area around the huge Gereida IDP
camp, which presently holds some 130,000 displaced persons—the largest
such camp in Darfur, indeed the world. AU and humanitarian officials
both blame SLA/Minni Minawi forces for the terrible attack on aid
workers this past December 18th, which targeted the compounds of Action
Against Hunger and Oxfam International:

“In addition to the rape [of an international aid worker], foreign
workers were subjected to mock executions. Despite SLA denials, AU and
aid workers say it would be impossible for bandits to escape with a
dozen SUVs and not be stopped or noticed by SLA[/Minni Minawi]
checkpoints. The day after the attack, more than 70 international aid
workers left Gereida. Their work is now handled by fewer than a dozen
Red Cross employees. ‘The attack in Gereida was a new level,’ said a
representative for an aid group that has pulled out of the camp.
Humanitarian groups say they will not return until SLA forces can
guarantee their safety and arrange for the return of their vehicles.”

“Gereida is not alone. Aid workers have also evacuated other hot
zones in Darfur, including Kutum, about 200 miles northwest of here.
Some aid groups have restricted staff to the three provincial capitals
in the Darfur region. Citing the rising risk, the French organization
Doctors of the World terminated operations in Darfur in January, and
others have threatened to follow suit.”
(Los Angeles Times [dateline: Gereida], March 13, 2007)

“NOT SATISFACTORY”—UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on
Khartoum’s response to key elements of the UN/AU security force for
Darfur

Given such realities, and the all too conspicuous unwillingness on
Khartoum’s part to allow for any meaningful response to the security
crisis in Darfur, what will the international community do? What
follows from the regime’s defiant refusal to accept even a
re-negotiated UN/AU “hybrid force”? There is a discernible rise in
the rhetorical temperature, but as actual actions draw closer, there are
few responses that seem encouraging. Britain—whose senior military
official, General Sir Mike Jackson, offered in summer 2004 to deploy a
brigade (5,000 troops) to Darfur—has been reduced to assigning the
task of military response with troops to others:

“British Prime Minister Tony Blair overnight urged the world to get
tough with Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, saying troops should
be sent into the country to stop chaos in Darfur from spreading.
Defending Britain’s role in the US-led war in Iraq, Mr Blair said global
leaders had to be prepared to intervene wherever they thought security
was being threatened. ‘I would today take a far tougher line on
Sudan,’ he said in an interview with Sky television.”

“‘I don’t think we are able to send troops in but I certainly think
the international community should be.’” (Reuters [dateline:
London], March 16, 2007)

The US is still trying to figure out what “Plan B” really means,
and how to avoid the all too obvious inference that it was sheer
bluffing on the part of Special Envoy Natsios.

And China, though crafting its international responses to Darfur more
carefully, has made clear that its basic principle still governs:

“[British ambassador to the UN Emyr] Jones Parry expressed confidence
that China, a major consumer of Sudanese oil and previously opposed to
sanctions, would not stand in the way of additional UN measures. But a
senior Chinese diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said
China ‘never ever believes’ that sanctions will resolve the crisis
in Darfur. ‘Our sense is that we are moving closer towards having our
Sudanese friends consider and deploy’ that peacekeeping force.”
(Washington Post [dateline: UN/New York], March 14, 2007)

Given the contents of NIF President al-Bashir’s response to
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, it is difficult to see any but an
expedient basis for such “sensibility.”

There is no near-term prospect of Khartoum’s confronting a meaningful
set of sanctions, or coercive international military demands that
adequate security forces be allowed to deploy to Darfur. A withdrawal
by Rwandan forces seems the more likely event. In the absence of
adequate security, for both civilians and humanitarians, the
consequences of a fifth year of genocidal counter-insurgency warfare
will continue—as we see them, now, with searing and shameful clarity.

*****************

[excerpt from March 9, 2007 analysis
KHARTOUM CONTINUES TO STONEWALL ON INTERNATIONAL FORCES TO DARFUR

Even as the humanitarian situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate
rapidly because of insecurity, Khartoum refuses to accept any
significant augmentation of the desperately inadequate African Union
force. US Special Envoy Natsios was compelled by circumstances to offer
a blunt assessment following his much-heralded trip to Sudan and
Khartoum:

“After meeting President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Natsios said there
was still no agreement on allowing non-African peacekeeping troops to
assist a cash-strapped and inexperienced African Union mission in
Darfur.” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], March 8, 2007)

As of Secretary-General Ban’s February 26, 2007 Report to the
Security Council, the US and its allies within the world community had
succeeded in deploying a mere 81 technical experts to a badly
under-manned, under-equipped, and deeply demoralized AU force…a force
now on the verge of collapse.

The desperate weakness of the AU force is captured all too well in a
vignette from the outskirts of Kutum (North Darfur):

“On February 1, [2007] an unarmed African Union civilian police
officer was shot dead and his vehicle stolen while on a routine patrol
at Kassab IDP camp–home to 30,000 people. The AU immediately ceased
patrols to the camp, fearing for the lives of other unarmed officers.
Three weeks later, with the AU still unwilling to patrol, two Darfuri
girls, ages eight and 10, were collecting firewood when they were
abducted by three armed men who took them to an abandoned hut, made them
remove their clothes and raped them.” (Voice of America [dateline:
Kutum, North Darfur], March 7, 2007)

Attacks on the AU have recently increased sharply and there is clear
risk of dramatic attenuation rather than augmentation of this force:

“Two African Union peacekeepers were killed and one was seriously
wounded in Sudan’s violent west when former Darfur rebel troops opened
fire on them, an AU statement said on Tuesday [March 6, 2007]. The death
tally brought to 11 the number of AU personnel killed since it started
its mission in Darfur in 2004. ‘Two AU Protection Force soldiers were
abducted and subsequently killed. A third soldier was critically
injured,’ the statement said. ‘This deplorable and condemnable act
was perpetrated by gunmen believed to be elements belonging to SLM
(Minni [Minawi]), which is in full control of Gereida [South
Darfur].’” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], March 6, 2007)

[ ]

The lack of diplomatic progress, despite disingenuous words to the
contrary from UN officials, and the ongoing collapse of the African
Union as a minimal security presence in Darfur, portend even greater
catastrophe. The UN News Center reports (March 8, 2007) on what could
easily become the scenario for future massacres in camps for displaced
persons:

“Hundreds of Arab militia in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region
recently surrounded a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) after
abducting two civilians from inside the camp, forcing the temporary
suspension of humanitarian work there, the United Nations mission to the
impoverished country said today.”

“On Wednesday [March 7, 2007], Arab militiamen swept through Ardamata
IDP camp in West Darfur, capturing two civilians in connection with the
killing of one of their relatives, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said
in a press release, adding the two suspects had then been taken to the
Government police station but the militia refused to allow the officers
to investigate.”

This explosive confrontation gives us a terrifying glimpse of horrors
that now seem inevitable, and which could propel rapid humanitarian
withdrawal.

[ ]

Why does the African Union remain, with full knowledge by the entire
world community, the only source of security on the ground in Darfur?
Why has no international force deployed to eastern Chad? There are
finally as many answers as there are international actors of
consequence, but all take final form in the unrelenting defiance on the
part of Khartoum’s génocidaires. And why should these moral
barbarians relent? They have felt no consequences for their actions,
and there are no consequences in prospect. Indeed, the regime’s
defiance, despite its conspicuous nature, is not honestly acknowledged:
an international charade persists in which Khartoum is simply not
credited for meaning what it says, even when those words are fully borne
out by actions.

Most conspicuously, various international actors pretend that Khartoum
has agreed to a UN/AU “hybrid force.” But at every turn since the
“High Level Consultation on Darfur” (November 16, 2006) convened
by the UN and AU in Addis Ababa, Khartoum has insisted that it agreed
only to a UN/AU “hybrid operation.” And the essential difference
between a “force” and an “operation” has been just as
insistently asserted: the latter, all that has been agreed to, does not
include international or non-AU troops, a point just reiterated to US
Special Envoy Natsios. The disconnect in basic assumptions is at times
so striking that it is impossible not to believe that a willful
ignorance is at work. The UN News Service (March 7, 2007) declares
that,

“[Secretary General] Ban has already written to Mr. Bashir on the
second phase, which includes the provision of additional personnel and
equipment, but has not yet received a reply. Ban’s Special Envoy for
Darfur Jan Eliasson noted to reporters yesterday that the Sudanese had
accepted in principle the hybrid force.”

But this is wishful thinking on the slippery Eliasson’s part, as is
Eliasson’s assertion that Khartoum has halted “aerial bombings of
rebel positions since February 11, 2007” (Agence France-Presse
[dateline: UN/New York], March 6, 2007). There has been no such
cessation, and an extremely reliable regional source reports to this
writer (March 8, 2007):

[edited for clarity] “Antonov was over the area of North Darfur on
March 6 and 7 [2007]. It was hovering over its targets—Berdi,
el-Hosh, Wadi Hawar, and el-Wakhaim—for two days. We reported this to
the UN Mission in el-Fasher, security department.”

There have been other highly credible reports of bombing subsequent to
Eliasson’s February 11, 2007 “cessation” date. [see above—ER,
March 16, 2007]

Of the supposed “agreement in principle” to a “hybrid force,”
Eliasson is simply in error. While Secretary-General Ban and Security
Council members continue their lengthy wait for a letter from Khartoum
concerning UN augmenting of the AU, one that Khartoum claims was signed
and sent by President al-Bashir many days ago, the Sudan Media Center,
represents the views of the regime fully explicitly:

“Presidency of the Republic confirms that implementation of the last
phase of three packages support for AU forces in Darfur should be
determined according to requirements of AU forces. Presidential press
advisor Mahjoub Fadul Badri told [the Sudan Media Center] that
government has agreed on hybrid operations with UN and AU in Darfur and
not hybrid forces. That means that there is possibility of international
technicians, experts and instructors without deployment of armed
troops.” (Sudan Media Center, March 4, 2007)

Precisely this claim has been made repeatedly, over many months now, by
a range of senior NIF officials. Majzoub al-Khalifa, who negotiated the
Darfur Peace Agreement for Khartoum, declared (January 29, 2007) that,
“‘We have agreed on a hybrid [AU/UN] operation not a hybrid
force’” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], January 29, 2007). The
February 1, 2007 UN Bulletin for Sudan reports that,

“On 31 January [2007], local media reported that Presidential
Assistant Nafie [Ali Nafie] reiterated Government of Sudan rejection of
any form of what he described as ‘evil’ colonization, saying that
the Government of Sudan will categorically refuse deployment of foreign
troops regardless of the helmet they wear. The statement was made during
his visit to Kabkabiya, North Darfur.”

These two comments, one for international the other for domestic
consumption, are entirely consistent with many other remarks coming from
the most senior members of the National Islamic Front for months now,
including from President al-Bashir. There has been no wavering, and
certainly nothing that amounts to what Eliasson calls an acceptance
“in principle [of] the hybrid force.” Almost as if to ensure
that such fabrication as Eliasson has offered is simply not credible,
Agence France-Presse reports on the words of Khartoum’s UN ambassador
concerning the long-awaited letter from al-Bashir:

“France’s UN Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere meanwhile
expressed disappointment that Beshir had not yet replied to a letter
from UN chief Ban Ki-moon on a proposed joint UN-AU peacekeeping
operation in Darfur. ‘I am disappointed that we have not yet received
the letter… We have been told for days that this letter was about to
come,’ he noted. ‘If it does not come, then we’ll have to see what
to do and there are some delegations on the council thinking about
taking measures (sanctions).’ [Meanwhile,] Sudan’s UN envoy
Abdalmahmood Mohamad indicated that the letter was on its way but
‘will not contain anything new.’” (AFP [dateline: UN/New York],
March 6, 2007)

The letter “will not contain anything new”—i.e., it will contain
no further concessions on either the nature of the so-called “heavy
package” of UN support for the AU, or on the “third phase,” the
actual force that will provide security in Darfur. Associated Press had
four days earlier reported developments concerning the al-Bashir letter
from a slightly different perspective:

“Al-Bashir’s letter expresses his commitment but also raises
‘issues of operational, technical and legal aspects’ of the
proposal, Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem told The
Associated Press. He declined to elaborate on those concerns.”
(Associated Press [dateline: UN/New York], March 2, 2007)

But of course such “issues of operational, technical and legal
aspects” of the proposal have been retarding all progress on actual
deployment since the Addis Ababa “High Level Consultation on Darfur”
of November 16, 2006—almost four months ago. This is why several days
later Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem attempted to deflate
expectations by declaring that al-Bashir’s letter “will not contain
anything new.” In fact, there is every reason to believe that the
distance between professed UN and Western expectations and what Khartoum
intends to accede to is unbridgeably great. Associated Press reports
from the UN (March 7, 2007) that the “second phase” of UN assistance
to the AU will consist of the deployment of “more than 3,000 UN
military, police and civilian personnel, along with substantial aviation
and logistical assets.”

But this “second phase” is reported in very different, indeed
almost unrecognizable form by The Sudan Tribune ([dateline: Khartoum],
February 25, 2007):

“Sudan said that negotiations are going on with the African Union and
the UN to implement the second phase of the UN support to the African
troops in Darfur, the foreign ministry said that this phase includes
between 400 to 500 experts and technicians.”

“The spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs, Ali al-Sadiq,
said in press statements yesterday that the three sides would implement
the second package after it was approved. He said the second package
would cost 45m dollars which the UN had pledged to provide. Al-Sadiq
said the second package involved between 400 and 500 experts and
technicians and would take between two to three months to implement.”

Those wondering why the letter from Khartoum is taking so very long to
arrive at UN headquarters should reflect on these completely different
understandings of “phase two” of the UN assistance package to the
AU. And this leaves entirely aside the actual force, of approximately
20,000 total troops and civilian police, that the UN and Western
countries have been assuming. The issue is not yet to the point of
meaningful negotiation, even as this is a force that Khartoum has
adamantly insisted comprise only AU troops. Further, the size and
mandate of the force are still matters completely undecided,
particularly since Khartoum insists that the issues will be decided by
an assessment of security needs conducted by the “Tripartite
Commission” of which it is a member, and with what is in effect veto
power.

[This writer received at 3:30pm EST today (March 9, 2007) an unofficial
translation of the letter from al-Bashir to Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon, though not the 14-page technical annex to the letter.
Unsurprisingly, despite professed hopes by UN officials and Western
nations, this document is but another epistolary straight-arming of the
international community, of a piece with al-Bashir’s previous letter
(December 23, 2007) to then-Secretary General Kofi Annan. The present
letter declares that features of the second, “heavy” support package
to the AU “need to be clarified.” It continually, insistently
cleaves to the Darfur Peace Agreement as the only basis for discussion
of the crisis in Darfur. Indeed, the letter argues that “some
paragraphs of the Final Report [on the AU/UN Consultations on the UN
Proposed Heavy Support Package to the AU Mission in Darfur] contravene
many paragraphs of the DPA.” This leads to the inevitable and
paralyzing conclusion: “Therefore, proposals that tend to amend,
nullify or suspend any article of the Darfur Peace Agreement will not be
acceptable.”

Furthermore, al-Bashir insists that “our understanding of the UN
support packages is that the UN will provide technical, logistical,
financial expertise, and civil and military consultants with ranks below
that of the military commander appointed by the African Union. In phase
three, the AU forces implementing that phase, in terms of control or
command, must remain forces of the African Union, supported by the UN as
per the two [initial support] packages.”

This is no more than has been previously re-cycled by al-Bashir and
other National Islamic Front leaders over the past four months. It
creates ambiguity where there was to be clarity; it arrogates to
Khartoum’s génocidaires veto power through the “Tripartite
Mechanism” (invoked in the concluding paragraph of the letter). The
regime’s UN Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem is entirely accurate
in having declared that al-Bashir’s letter “will not contain
anything new.” Nothing new at all, and thus a preservation of the
genocidal status quo.

Al-Bashir also declares of humanitarian operations in Darfur: “My
government is committed to continue supporting the humanitarian efforts
and to extend all necessary and possible facilitations through an
energized fast track.”

This long-awaited letter is a nauseating exercise in mendacity and a
compelling exemplar of human evil.]

* Eric Reeves is a professor at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and has published extensively on Sudan. He can be reached at [email protected]; website : www.sudanreeves.org