Lack of helicopters still holds up deployment Darfur force in Chad
November 19, 2007 (BRUSSELS, Belgium) — European Union defense ministers reiterated their commitment Monday to sending troops to help Darfur refugees, but a lack of helicopters was holding up deployment of a force that should have been on the ground by now.
“There were no indications or any offers” of the helicopters military commanders say are essential for the planned EU military mission, Portuguese Defense Minister Nuno Severiano Teixeira said after chairing a meeting on the subject.
However, he said ministers expressed hope a meeting of military planners scheduled for Wednesday would fill the shortfalls in the EU plan to send almost 4,000 troops to the borders of Chad and the Central African Republic, neighbors to Sudan’s Darfur.
“The council was unanimous on the need to launch this mission,” Severiano Teixeira told a news conference.
For weeks the EU has struggled to muster the dozen or so helicopters needed to move European soldiers quickly around the vast borderlands. In addition, problems have hit a planned United Nations-African Union force of 26,000 for Darfur itself. The UN-AU force is supposed to take control of Darfur by the end of the year, but a top U.N. official said last week it would not be ready unless Sudan quickly accepted units from outside Africa and contributing countries offered helicopters and other critical equipment.
David Mozersky, Horn of Africa program director with the International Crisis Group, said he expects the EU to resolve it problems relatively quickly. But he said more international pressure was needed on the Sudanese government and potential contributors to ensure the UN-AU force can move into Darfur.
“There is still very much a question mark over the deployment,” he said in a telephone interview from Washington.
The EU had initially hoped to start deploying troops by mid-November, but now aims to send the first units in December. Gen. Henri Bentegeat, the EU’s top solider, last week warned of further delays if it does not get the helicopters.
Bentegeat’s concerns were taken up by Irish Defense Minister Willie O’Dea who said it would impossible for his country to deploy and supply the 400 troops it has offered for the mission unless other nations come through with transport aircraft.
“We don’t have nearly enough air transport as yet,” O’Dea said adding that the force still needed commitments for fixed-wing airplanes and a field hospital as well as the helicopters.
Nations are often wary of making costly deployments of helicopters for such far-flung missions, and both NATO and the United Nations have had problems securing the aircraft for its missions in Afghanistan and Darfur, respectively.
The EU’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana appealed for nations to come forward to prevent further delays.
“We have to use all our efforts to launch this operation according to the timetable and finalize the generation of forces,” he told the meeting. “I’m appealing for contributions and for solidarity.”
Britain’s commitments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kosovo ruled out a deployment in Africa or British funding for the mission, Britain’s European Affairs Minister Jim Murphy told reporters. Murphy said he expected France to take on much of the transport effort.
The EU mission aims to deploy 3,700 soldiers to the border regions of Chad and the Central African Republic, with a 600-strong reserve based in Europe. About half of the troops would come from France.
Four years of bloodshed between ethnic African rebels and Arab militias allegedly backed by the Arab-dominated government of Sudan have left an estimated 200,000 dead and driven 2.5 million from their homes.
Many of the homeless have taken shelter in camps in Chad and Central African Republic, but the violence has followed them. U.N. officials estimate that around 3 million people have been uprooted by conflicts in the region, including the fighting in Darfur and unrelated rebellions in the neighboring countries.
(AP)