UN Support Package: Sudan buys time and diplomatic advantage

Khartoum’s Expedient Decision on a “UN Peace Support Package”
By giving nominal agreement to the so-called “heavy support
package” for a crumbling African Union force, the National Islamic
Front regime buys time and diplomatic advantage

Eric Reeves

April 18, 2007 — Seven and a half months after UN Security Council Resolution 1706
(August 31, 2006) authorized deployment of 22,500 UN troops and civilian
police to Darfur, with a robust mandate for civilian and humanitarian
protection, the international community has been reduced to celebrating
merely nominal agreement from the Khartoum regime to accept a package of
“heavy support” for the current African Union (AU) force. Such
celebration reveals both desperation and disingenuousness. For even
were Khartoum to abide by its nominal commitment to accept such a
support package, in the terms reported in various press accounts, the AU
mission in Darfur is too severely under-manned, under-equipped, and
under-funded. It barely functions in many locations, and morale is
abysmal. The AU mission simply cannot, in any reasonable time-frame, be
made into an effective source of security in Darfur, even with UN
support.

Indeed, amidst deteriorating security in Darfur, AU forces have endured
a sharply escalating loss of life. Their military resources have for
far too long been disgracefully inadequate, in no small measure because
Western nations have not provided nearly adequate equipment or funding.
In turn, poor military and political leadership on the part of the
AU—along with generally weak performance in the field—have made
potential funding nations wary, even as these nations are unwilling to
make any military commitments of their own.

Now, at the very moment that Khartoum has belatedly and expediently
signaled that it will accept a “support package” first broached five
months ago at a “High Level Consultation on Darfur” in Addis Ababa
(November 16, 2006), key contributing countries Senegal and Rwanda are
both threatening to withdraw from the AU mission, a development that
would deal a crippling blow to the highly limited efficacy of the
current force, particularly since any deployment of this new “support
package” will take months:

“Senegal honoured on Thursday [April 12, 2007] five of its soldiers
killed in Sudan’s Darfur region and said it could withdraw from an
overstretched African peacekeeping force there within weeks unless it
was given firm UN backing. The West African country, whose peacekeeping
troops are widely respected, made the warning as UN negotiators drew
close to persuading Sudan to allow 3,000 UN personnel to bolster the
African Union (AU) mission in Darfur. Senegal has 538 soldiers in the
7,000-strong AU contingent in Darfur.” [ ]

“‘Senegal believes that enough is enough,’ Foreign Minister Cheikh
Tidiane Gadio told a news conference. ‘If in the coming weeks we do
not move toward a solution, which for Senegal means transforming the AU
force into a UN mission, then we are going to withdraw our troops from
Darfur.’”

“The Senegalese warning followed a similar statement last month by
another contributor to the Darfur force, Rwanda, whose President Paul
Kagame demanded more resources for it.” (Reuters [dateline: Dakar,
Senegal], April 12, 2007)

18 AU soldiers have now been killed in Darfur, and another has been
kidnapped for months. Many others have been wounded, some critically.
The ability of the AU to move within Darfur has steadily diminished
since the signing of the ill-conceived Darfur Peace Agreement (May
2006), and the number of patrols and protective actions undertaken has
dropped precipitously. And yet because of Khartoum’s obdurate refusal
to accept the force authorized by the Security Council seven months ago,
the AU mission now faces months of further delay before it could receive
a substantial infusion of new resources and manpower.

Moreover, we can already see the ways in which Khartoum will renege
even on this limited agreement—limited because it doesn’t begin to
address the question of a still merely notional follow-on AU/UN force on
the ground, comprising some 20,000 troops and civilian police. For the
3,000 troops and support personnel discussed as part of the “heavy
support package” face yet another obstacle to deployment, even if UN
funding is secured and donors make appropriate commitments of forces and
resources (Associated Press reports from the UN [April 17, 2007] on
“what will likely be a months-long process to deploy the first
significant UN peacekeeping force in Darfur”). For Khartoum has yet
to accept explicitly the notion of non-African forces, even if under UN
auspices. As Foreign Minister Lam Akol declared several days ago:

“Sudan will take as many more African Union (AU) troops as needed to
stabilise Darfur but will not bow to international pressure to accept a
UN force in the troubled region, [Khartoum’s] foreign minister said on
Sunday [April 15, 2007]. Lam Akol reiterated Khartoum’s firm rejection
of international troops in Darfur as visiting US Deputy Secretary of
State John Negroponte pressed Sudanese officials to accept thousands of
UN peacekeepers to support the world’s biggest humanitarian effort
there.” (Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], April 15, 2007)

And while the regime has reportedly agreed to accept “3,000 UN
personnel,” there are countless ways for Khartoum to renege, as it has
so many times, with so many agreements in the past. Most notably,
Khartoum retains a veto over any final decision on numbers and character
of troops, which will be determined by a so-called “tripartite
mechanism,” consisting of the UN, the AU—and the Khartoum regime
itself: “we agreed to a technical group to go on the ground and be
assisted by the Sudanese government to arrive at the figure [for
deployed troops] they want,” Foreign Minister Lam Akol insisted
(Reuters [dateline: Khartoum], April 15, 2007).

By insisting further that any decision about force level must be
“determined on a professional basis,” Akol is making clear that any
force level Khartoum considers excessive will be deemed
“unprofessional.” Coupled with the denial of any role for
international UN troops, this amounts to a preservation of the status
quo—in effect, a grim genocide by attrition that will continue
indefinitely for lack of security. Levels of violence may be down over
the last month, but as UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs John
Holmes stressed in his recent briefing to the UN Security Council:

“Over the past six months, nearly a quarter of a million more
innocent civilians have been forced to abandon their homes, seeking
refuge mainly from Government [of Sudan]-supported militia attacks. [ ]
Well over a third of the population of Darfur is now displaced,” and
at the current rate of displacement, “the same could be true for over
half the population in another 18 months or so. This is a horrifying
prospect. Meanwhile, politicization and militarization of camps have
become a fact of life, creating a future time bomb just waiting to go
off.” (Statement to the UN Security Council, April 4, 2007)

Despite this extraordinarily dire warning, and the unsurpassably urgent
need for immediate improvements in security, there is understandably
widespread skepticism about the significance of Khartoum’s reported
agreement with the UN. Unsurprisingly, this skepticism comes most
bluntly from those without political disgrace to hide. Human Rights
Watch declared in an April 17, 2007 press release:

“‘Sudan’s green light for only part of the peacekeeping force is
too little, too late, and is aimed only at defusing international
pressure and heading off sanctions,’ said Peter Takirambudde, Africa
director at Human Rights Watch. ‘Governments should keep the focus on
the full international force, which could really help to protect
civilians in Darfur.’”

The German humanitarian organization Welthungerhilfe (German Agro
Action) declared forcefully:

“Welthungerhilfe (German Agro Action) is critical of Sudan’s
announcement that it has reached an agreement on the troubled Sudanese
region, Darfur. ‘The Sudanese government is just playing for time,’
says Hans-Joachim Preuss, Welthungerhilfe’s Secretary General. ‘In the
meantime conditions for refugees and the situation of the local
population in western Sudan are becoming critical.’ Even if the
Sudanese government did agree to a 20,000-strong peacekeeping force
combining African Union and United Nation troops, this would still
‘only be enough to protect the refugee camps,’ according to
Preuss. ‘At least twice the number of troops are necessary to secure
peace in the region.’” (Welthungerhilfe [German Agro Action] press
release [Bonn], April 16, 2007)

To be sure, even UN representatives of the US, the UK, and other
Western nations are expressing doubt about Khartoum’s intentions and
with good reason, given the regime’s exceedingly long and
comprehensive history of reneging on all agreements with the UN and
other international actors attempting to respond to the Darfur crisis.
In the end only UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been unqualified in
his optimism, but with little reason or experience to justify his
outlook. As Voice of America reports from the UN after the notional
“agreement” was reached (April 17, 2007):

“But no sooner had [Ban Ki-moon’s] optimistic words been spoken
than Sudan’s UN envoy appeared to contradict the terms of the agreement.
Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem suggested to reporters that Khartoum
had not agreed to allow blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers in Darfur. ‘The
issue of the UN is that, according to the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA),
there is no provision for the UN in any way,’ he said. ‘It is only
for the African Union to implement with the Sudanese Authorities and the
rebel groups the DPA.’”

“Ambassador Abdalhaleem says Sudan sees the Darfur force as being
commanded and staffed by Africans. ‘It should be an African force,
African command with UN backstopping in techniques of control and
command,’ he said. ‘The command is fully for the African leader of
the African commander and African forces.’”

This is a reiteration of the very same language that has been used by
senior members of the National Islamic Front regime for months
now—before the putative “breakthrough” trumpeted by those more
interested in deflecting any incisive analysis of this development than
saving the people of Darfur. And according to Reuters, this language
found unambiguous support in recent comments from AU Chairman Alpha
Oumar Konaré in Addis Ababa:

“Konare, after talks with [NIF President Omar] al-Bashir on Saturday
[April 7, 2007], said there had been clear agreement in Addis Ababa on a
hybrid force consisting of African troops under AU command with
logistical, financial and administrative assistance from the United
Nations.” (Reuters [dateline: Addis Ababa], April 9, 2007)

What, then, has changed? What new role has been negotiated for UN
forces? Moreover, all talk of a “breakthrough” in securing
agreement for the “heavy support package” ignores the bluntest fact
about the current state of affairs: Khartoum hasn’t begun to discuss,
let alone accept, the “hybrid UN/AU force” of 20,000 troops and
civilian police that alone can begin to change the security dynamic on
the ground. Current discussions are simply of a substantial “support
package,” not the actual peacekeeping/peacemaking force. As
Associated Press reports from the UN (April 17, 2007):

“The heavy support package is the second phase of a UN plan. Ban and
Konare made clear they want it to be followed by deployment of the third
and final phase—a 20,000-strong ‘hybrid’ UN-AU force. Said
Djinnit, the AU’s commissioner for peace and security, said the
African Union had hoped the hybrid force would be deployed by the end of
June [2007], when the Security Council mandate for the AU force
ends.”

“But Djinnit said this will not be possible because the heavy support
package has to be deployed first—which a UN official estimated will
take months, not weeks—and there is still ‘a lot of work to do to
finalize the negotiations between the AU and the UN on the hybrid
operations, and then to consult with Sudan on that so that we reach a
common understanding.’”

This represents breathtaking understatement of the difficulties and
delays confronting an international community that has repeatedly
revealed itself to Khartoum as diffident, expedient, indecisive, and
disingenuous. And from all this the regime only gains confidence that
it can make agreements, grab an easy news headline, and subsequently
renege at its leisure, assured that there will be no serious
consequences for such continuing bad faith.

Thus emboldened, Khartoum has yet to move clearly and decisively away
from its previous insistence that the UN role in providing security in
Darfur involves only logistics, financing, technical and administrative
assistance, and support personnel. There has been no explicit
declaration that non-African Union or non-African troops would be
permitted to deploy to Darfur. This is critical not only because of
potential withdrawals by Rwanda and Senegal, but because there seems to
be little stomach anywhere else in Africa to deploy forces into a
conflict zone without an appropriate mandate. The burden of a
hopelessly inadequate mandate has long curtailed the effectiveness of
the current AU mission in Darfur, and this problem was not addressed in
any detail during the November 2006 “High Level Consultation on
Darfur” (Addis Ababa) that produced a “Conclusions” document (not
an agreement) that has served as a guide for all subsequent
negotiations.

But the issue of what mandate will guide any newly deploying forces to
Darfur is critical, even as the Addis “Conclusions” document speaks
only in the vaguest of terms: the mission of the force in Darfur
“should be capable of contributing to the restoration of security
and protection of civilians in Darfur through the implementation of
security aspects of the Darfur Peace Agreement” (Paragraph 29). As
Africa specialist John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group
notes, potential troop contributions from African nations are,

“highly conditional. Because the forces currently deployed in Darfur
are not being properly supported, some existing troop contributors are
thinking about pulling out. As a consequence, a new deployment may
begin without even existing numbers of forces. Very few countries in
Africa have excess forces that they are willing to put into a [UN
Charter] Chapter 7 [peacemaking] environment with a Chapter 6
[peacekeeping] mandate, and no support. [If these nations] had
resources and support, thousands more could be cobbled together. But
with the status quo, no one will come.” (email to the writer, April
16, 2007)

And Khartoum is aware of precisely this reluctance and has done
everything in its power to encourage such caution. The regime has
continually obstructed the AU, imposing gratuitous curfews, bureaucratic
obstructions—and most significantly, has denied the AU a reliable
supply of fuel, especially for AU aircraft. Indeed, through last year
journalists from the New York Times and Washington Post reported on
Khartoum’s commandeering of aviation fuel for its own military
aircraft.

To be sure, any augmentation of the currently collapsing AU force must
begin somewhere; there is no “silver bullet” or short-term military
solution that could garner any meaningful international support,
particularly since past inaction has permitted the security environment
in Darfur to become steadily more chaotic, and thus much more
threatening to both humanitarians and civilians. Foolish confidence in
the “security provisions” of the disastrously misconceived Darfur
Peace Agreement (May 2006)—insistently invoked by Khartoum in every
document the regime “commits” to—is symptomatic of an
international refusal to accept the difficult but necessary challenges
in protecting civilians in Darfur. Rebel groups have fractured even
more dangerously since the signing of the DPA, and represent a much
greater threat to both civilians and humanitarians. Warlordism and
banditry are thriving in an environment that reflects the grim realities
of four years of genocidal counter-insurgency warfare orchestrated by
Khartoum. And the consequences of a continuing climate of nearly total
impunity are everywhere in evidence.

But despite these many challenges, or more likely because of them,
nothing that has been “agreed” to in recent days suggests any of the
urgency appropriate to the security crisis in Darfur. Nothing that has
been reported represents a determination to provide in the near term the
security desperately required by humanitarians in both Darfur and
eastern Chad.

KHARTOUM’S BAD FAITH ON CONSPICUOUS DISPLAY

What we have seen instead are the findings of a new report by the UN
Panel of Experts on Darfur, leaked to the New York Times on April 17,
2007 and now available from the New York Times website. As the Times
itself reports:

“An unpublished United Nations report says the government of Sudan is
flying arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur in violation of
Security Council resolutions and painting Sudanese military planes white
to disguise them as United Nations or African Union aircraft. In one
case, which the report illustrates with close-up pictures, the letters
‘UN’ have been stenciled onto the wing of a white-washed Sudanese
armed forces plane that is parked on a military apron at a Darfur
airport. Bombs guarded by uniformed soldiers are laid out in rows by its
side.”

“The report says that contrary to Sudanese government denials, the
freshly white planes are being operated out of all three of Darfur’s
principal airports and used for aerial surveillance and bombardments of
villages in addition to cargo transport. The report was compiled by a
five-person panel responsible for assisting the sanctions committee of
the Security Council in monitoring compliance with resolutions on
Darfur. It was made available by a diplomat from one of the 15 Security
Council nations, which believes the findings should be made public.”
(New York Times [dateline: UN/New York], April 17, 2007)

The New York Times further reported:

“The report said the Sudanese government was shipping small arms,
heavy weapons, artillery pieces, ammunition and other military equipment
into Darfur on cargo planes, using airports at El Geneina, Nyala and El
Fasher. It reported that one of the planes crash-landed on February 24,
2007 during a trip from Khartoum to El Geneina, and Sudanese army
officials guarded it on the ground for a week while soldiers unloaded
howitzers and up to 50 wooden boxes painted in olive drab that were
suspected of containing arms and ammunition.”

“Commenting on the painting of the planes, the report said, ‘The
panel believes the use of white aircraft by the government of the Sudan
constitutes a deliberate attempt to conceal the identity of these
aircraft such that from a moderate distance they resemble United Nations
or AMIS Mi-8 helicopters used in Darfur.’ The African Mission in Sudan
is referred to by its initials.”

Perhaps most strikingly, the New York Times reports:

“The panel said the Sudanese government was refusing to give advance
word, as it was directed to do by the Security Council, of any
introduction of weapons and related equipment into Darfur. When
challenged to explain its action, the government said ‘it does not
feel obliged to request permission in advance from the Security
Council,’ the report said.”

The blatant flouting of UN Security Council directives is of course
entirely consistent with Khartoum’s behavior in the past. UN Security
Council Resolution 1556 (July 30, 2004) “demanded” that the regime
disarm the Janjaweed militia and bring its leaders to justice. Instead,
this same UN Panel of Experts found last August,

“credible information that the Government of the Sudan continues to
support the Janjaweed through the provision of weapons and vehicles. The
Janjaweed/armed militias appear to have upgraded their modus operandi
from horses, camels and AK-47s to land cruisers, pickup trucks and
rocket-propelled grenades. Reliable sources indicate that the Janjaweed
continue to be subsumed into the Popular Defence Force in greater
numbers than those indicated in the previous reports of the Panel. Their
continued access to ammunition and weapons is evident in their ability
to coordinate with the Sudanese armed forces in perpetrating attacks on
villages and to engage in armed conflict with rebel groups.” (Report
of the UN Panel of Experts, August 31, 2006, paragraph 76)

What conceivable reason could there be, other than political
expediency, for accepting Khartoum’s word about “agreeing” to a
“heavy support package” to the African Union, a “package”
that the regime has been strenuously resisting for five months?

So telling are the findings of the current report from the UN Panel of
Experts that they bear fuller reproduction. Certainly the diplomat who
leaked the document to the New York Times was right in his/her judgment:

“[The report] was made available by a diplomat from one of the 15
Security Council nations, which believes the findings should be made
public.”

The report begins with an Executive Summary that makes unambiguously
clear violations by Khartoum of its obligations under UN Security
Council Resolution 1591 (March 2005):

“In spite of the clear understanding of its obligation under Security
Council resolution 1591 (2005), at the time of writing the present
report, the Government of the Sudan had not submitted any requests for
approval to the Security Council Committee established pursuant to
resolution 1591 (2005) to move weapons, ammunition or other military
equipment into Darfur, thereby knowingly violating the provisions of the
resolution.” (Executive Summary)

Deliberate obstructionism is clearly reflected in various actions by
Khartoum:

“The closure by the Government of the Sudan of all airports in Darfur
to non-military operators during hours of darkness and on occasions at
times during daylight precludes the possibility of the Panel attempting
to verify suspicious aircraft cargo loads.” (Paragraph 31)

And most revealingly, the Panel reports on the use of white aircraft by
Khartoum, a deliberate effort to disguise the identify of military
aircraft:

“The Panel observed that the Government of the Sudan, contrary to its
statements to the Panel and its official responses to the reports of the
Panel, continues to operate white aircraft from the three primary
airports in Darfur. The lack of identifying insignia could result in
possible confusion over the recognition of these aircraft. Specifically,
the Panel believes that the use of white aircraft by the Government of
the Sudan, as previously reported (see S/2006/795), is a violation of
article 24 (i) the Darfur Peace Agreement, which prohibits, ‘any
attempt by a Party to disguise its equipment, personnel or activities as
those of [the African Union mission], United Nations agencies, the
International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent or any other similar
organization.’”

“The Panel believes that the use of white aircraft by the Government
of the Sudan constitutes a deliberate attempt to conceal the identity of
these aircraft such that from a moderate distance they resemble United
Nations or [African Union] Mi-8 helicopters used in Darfur. The Panel
has received reports from two independent sources of military
reconnaissance overflights by white Antonov aircraft and white
helicopters, believed to be those operated by the Government of the
Sudan, in the area of Jebel Moon, Western Darfur.” (Paragraphs 93 and
95)

Nothing could be more revealing of the character of the regime than
these actions, and we must wonder at the motives of those who would wish
this report kept confidential when so decisively relevant to any
assessment of current actions and commitments by the Khartoum regime.

With respect to the disarming of the Janjaweed, the UN Panel of Experts
found yet more bad faith and reneging on the part of Khartoum:

“The Government of the Sudan has failed to fulfill its
obligations—clearly outlined in the Protocol on the Enhancement of the
Security Situation in Darfur (2004), relevant Security Council
resolutions, in particular resolution 1556 (2004) (para. 6), the
communiqué issued jointly by the Government of the Sudan and the
Secretary-General on 3 July 2004 (S/2004/635, annex) and the Darfur
Peace Agreement of 5 May 2006—to identify, neutralize and disarm armed
militia groups under its control or influence. The Panel has previously
reported on demonstrated instances of support, collusion and military
coordination between various entities within the armed forces of the
Government of the Sudan and militia groups commonly referred to as
Janjaweed.”

“Reports received by the Panel indicate that the Janjaweed/armed
militias continue to carry out attacks in the Darfur region. [ ] The
Government of the Sudan is under obligation to ensure that these
militias refrain from all attacks, harassment or intimidation. The
Darfur Peace Agreement provides for the implementation of the
disarmament and neutralization plan in a phased and timely manner. Under
the Darfur Peace Agreement, the Government of the Sudan was to submit a
comprehensive plan for disarming the Janjaweed/armed militias including
information on their locations and areas of encampment within 37 days of
the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement.” [ ]

“The Panel has been informed that no disarmament of Janjaweed/armed
militias has been carried out by the Government of the Sudan since the
submission of the previous report of the Panel (S/2006/795) [August 31,
2006].” (Paragraphs 70-73)

This is the regime that has been entrusted by the world with the lives
of some 4.5 million human beings in the greater humanitarian theater of
Darfur and eastern Chad, aided only by a crumbling AU force. This is
the regime that has orchestrated genocidal violence for four years, both
by means of its Janjaweed proxies and its own regular military forces,
ground and aerial. The character of this genocidal violence, which has
diminished only because of the massive scale of human destruction and
displacement, has been amply detailed by countless human rights reports,
investigations by the UN, and journalists traveling to all regions of
Darfur and eastern Chad.

It has not been a case of ignorance by the world community; it has been
a relentless willingness to acquiesce before massive,
ethnically-targeted human displacement and destruction in this remote
region. Inevitably, the nature of violence has become less well
defined; some rebel elements are committing unspeakable atrocities and
threatening humanitarian relief to the very people they claim to
represent; Arab tribal groups that have desperately sought to stay out
of the conflict have seen their lives and livelihoods shattered by the
chaos of war and the anger of mindless retribution. The génocidaires in
Khartoum are the only ones profiting without cost from a genocidal
counter-insurgency war that has served to preserve their ruthless
control of national wealth and political power.

EASTERN CHAD

Moreover, the National Islamic Front (expediently and innocuously
renamed the National Congress Party) has had no compunctions about
exporting ethnic violence to eastern Chad (see my many previous accounts
of this growing catastrophe, at www.sudanreeves.org, search “eastern
Chad”). Here again the situation has become exceedingly complex, as
both President Idriss Déby of Chad and Khartoum have been fighting one
another by means of brutal proxy wars. Déby’s government has long
supplied the Darfur rebels with weapons, even as the Khartoum regime has
both armed Chadian rebel groups seeking to topple Déby, and have loosed
the Janjaweed on the non-Arab or African tribal groups of Darfur. As
Human Rights Watch has demonstrated, Khartoum’s regular forces have
also been militarily active inside Chad.

Now within eastern Chad, and spreading westward, are new signs of
dangerous ethnic violence, clearly the spill-over from Darfur. Arab
militia groups include both Sudanese Janjaweed as well as Chadian
militias (the demographics and land of eastern Chad are very similar to
those of western Darfur). A series of recent reports from the UN High
Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and journalists in the region make clear
that the civilian population of eastern Chad, as well as humanitarian
operations, are facing rapidly escalating insecurity:

“Janjaweed militiamen killed up to 400 people in the volatile eastern
border region near Sudan, leaving an ‘apocalyptic’ scene of mass
graves and destruction, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday [April 10,
2007]. The attacks took place March 31 [2007] in the border villages of
Tiero and Marena, some 550 miles from the capital, N’djamena. Chadian
officials initially said 65 people had died, but added that the toll was
sure to rise.”

“‘Estimates of the number of dead have increased substantially and
now range between 200 and 400,’ the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
said. ‘Because most of the dead were buried where their bodies were
found—often in common graves owing to their numbers—we may never
know their exact number.’ The attackers encircled the villages and
opened fire, pursuing fleeing villagers, robbing women and shooting the
men, UNHCR said. Many who survived the initial attack died later from
exhaustion and dehydration, often while fleeing.” (Associated Press
[dateline: N’djamena, Chad], April 10, 2007)

Reuters reports (April 10, 2007) from UNHCR headquarters in Geneva:

“Survivors identified the attackers as a coalition of well-armed
Janjaweed militia ‘assisted by Chad rebels equipped with heavy weapons
and vehicles,’ [UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond] said. It would be one of
the most violent single incidents so far recorded on the volatile
Chadian-Sudanese border.”

“‘The number of survivors who have provided us with heartbreaking
testimony such as this is overwhelming. It paints a portrait perhaps
better described as a massacre than an attack,’ Redmond told
Reuters.”

“Better described as a massacre than an attack”: this tells us far
too much about the nature of violence in eastern Chad, and the danger of
Khartoum’s exporting uncontrolled Janjaweed violence. The vehicles
and weapons of the Chadian rebel groups were also certainly provided by
Khartoum.

Further details of the attacks come from a lengthy UNHCR dispatch
([dateline: Habile Camp, eastern Chad], April 10, 2007:

“Some 9,000 Chadians have arrived in UN refugee agency trucks and on
their own at the Habile site for internally displaced persons after
brutal attacks on two villages left houses torched and the ground strewn
with dead. A United Nations team headed by UNHCR reached the burnt out
villages of Tiero and Marena on Sunday, a week after the March 31 [2007]
attacks. Survivors blamed the attacks on janjaweed militiamen on horses
and camels, assisted by Chadian rebels with heavy weaponry and vehicles.
Decomposing bodies still lay on the ground and smoke hung in the air
from the last of the fires that had destroyed their houses.”

“Many who survived the attacks—particularly the elderly and young
children—died in subsequent days from exhaustion and dehydration,
often while fleeing. About 80 additional people were wounded. The
attacks on the villages 45 kilometres east of the UNHCR sub-office in
the village of Koukou-Angarana were far worse than initially thought. An
estimated 8,000 local residents and internally displaced persons (IDPs)
had been living in Tiero and Marena. Residents of other villages in the
area also fled.”

“More than 9,000 Chadians from 31 villages have now arrived at the
new Habile site for IDPs in UNHCR vehicles or by themselves. They joined
another 9,000 who had fled earlier attacks in the region, especially
last November and December when inter-communal violence left more than
200 dead and many wounded. Many new arrivals had already been displaced
several times in the past year.”

“Many of the wounded were collected along the roadside by the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and brought to the Goz
Amir refugee camp health centre. Twenty-eight IDP children were admitted
to the feeding centre, while 12 elderly Chadians are being treated,
especially for exhaustion. More serious cases were referred for
treatment in Goz Beida, a two-hour drive from the camp.” [ ]

“Hundreds upon hundreds of homes had been burned to the ground, and a
small fire was still burning in one section of Tiero village. An
overwhelming stench came from the rotting carcasses of domestic animals
that had been hit by stray bullets, consumed by fire or died of thirst,
as the owners had no time to untie them. Famished and frightened dogs
barked incessantly. People had little or no time to flee: many essential
household goods, food and domestic animals were left behind. Along the
route were strewn belongings abandoned by those who died on the way or
collapsed and were brought to Goz Amir camp health centre for
treatment.” (UNHCR press release [dateline: Habile Camp, eastern
Chad], April 10, 2007)

Another UNHCR spokesman, Matthew Conway, speaking from Abéché, eastern
Chad, declared to a reporter for The Guardian (UK):

“‘We’ve never seen an attack on this scale with this number of dead.
The goal here was to kill. The victims were pursued far outside the
village and shot down.’” (The Guardian [dateline: Abeche, eastern
Chad], April 14, 2007)

“The goal here was to kill”—not to raid, not to intimidate, not
to claim land: “the goal here was to kill.”

What prevents deployment of a robust UN protection force, earlier
agreed to by Chadian President Déby? (Déby says now he will only accept
police forces in eastern Chad.) Much of the answer has to do with
Libya, which has been involved in wars back and forth across the
Chad/Darfur border for more than two decades. The captious machinations
of Libyan President Muamar Gadhafi have recently been highlighted by
several analysts in the region:

“‘Libya’s primary objective is to ensure an international
military force does not deploy,’ said Colin Thomas-Jensen, Africa
analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank [and currently in
Chad]. The stalling over the Chad UN force now mirrors the situation in
Sudan’s Darfur, where the Sudanese government has long been resisting
international pressure for UN peacekeepers to bolster a struggling
African Union military contingent. ‘Gadhafi wants no Western force in
his backyard,’ said another Chad expert, who declined to be named.”
(Reuters [dateline: Dakar], April 12, 2007)

But the perspective of humanitarians and human rights experts is
different:

“Humanitarian groups say the delay in getting UN blue helmets into
Chad and Sudan is costing lives by the day. ‘While the UN protection
force (for Chad) is being negotiated and debated, people are being
killed in their hundreds,’ David Buchbinder, a researcher with
US-based Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.”

“‘I say deploy something now,’ said Serge Male, head of UN refugee
agency UNHCR operations in Chad. ‘To do nothing is absolutely
unacceptable,’ he added.” (Reuters [dateline: Dakar], April 12,
2007)

“DOING NOTHING”

But of course “doing nothing” will almost certainly be the response
of the international community to the rapidly escalating security crisis
in eastern Chad, as it has been in Darfur for the past four years. And
for an explanation of this long-term diplomatic paralysis we must look
not only to the weakness and dishonesty of the US, the European Union,
the African Union, the Arab League, and the countries of the
Organization of the Islamic Conference, but to the institutionalized
paralysis of the UN. Here China—veto-wielding member of the Security
Council—comes relentlessly into focus, and Beijing’s longstanding
military, economic, and unstinting diplomatic support for Khartoum must
be seen as the most important source of insulation from international
pressure.

[For a larger overview of China/Sudan relations, see my testimony
before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, “China in
Sudan: Underwriting Genocide” (August 3, 2006, Russell Senate Office
Building, at http://www.sudanreeves.org/Page-10.html).]

The key to addressing the security crisis in Darfur, and eastern Chad,
is not more disingenuous claims of “progress” in the form of
meaningless “agreements.” It is full-on, unrelenting,
uncompromising pressure on Beijing to force immediate changes in the
behavior of the National Islamic Front regime.

Beijing must use its unrivalled leverage with the regime to work with
the international community in demanding—with clear and painful
consequences for non-compliance—

* an immediate cessation of all offensive military actions, including
aerial bombardments;

* rapid, effective, and verifiable disarmament of the Janjaweed;

* a decisive augmentation of AU forces on an emergency basis, with full
UN funding;

* immediate agreement to true UN participation in a large peace support
operation in Darfur, with an appropriate mandate for civilian and
humanitarian protection, of the sort specified in UN Security Council
Resolution 1706 (August 31, 2006)

[Notably, Resolution 1706 call for active monitoring of the borders
between Darfur and eastern Chad, as well as Central African Republic,
which also continues to suffer, if largely invisibly, from the bleeding
over of ethnic violence from Darfur.]

* an immediate end to Khartoum’s obstruction of and attacks upon
efforts by rebel groups to create a unified negotiating front; no
serious peace process can begin without such progress among the rebel
groups.

If China refuses, if Beijing continues to provide massive commercial
and capital investment in the Khartoum economy, and to supply military
weaponry and cooperation, and to offer unstinting and unqualified
diplomatic support for a genocidal regime, then pressure must be brought
to bear directly on China. Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Olympic
Games is unquestionably the point of greatest vulnerability, and it must
be exploited to the fullest and widest extent possible.

* 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