Darfur – Wanted: UN Troops

By Eric Reeves, The New Republic on-line

November 28, 2007 — Darfuri camps housing some 2.5 million displaced persons are poised to
explode in violence. Insecurity throughout the region is threatening
further reductions in humanitarian efforts. Major combatants are edging
closer to an all-out fight. And yet, Khartoum’s president and
génocidaire-in-chief Omar al-Bashir continues to block the deployment
of a United Nations-authorized peacekeeping force to protect civilians
and humanitarians in Darfur.

Selected after months of deliberation by the UN and African Union, these
troops and specialists were to be part of a protection force authorized
this past July–four long months ago–by UN Security Council Resolution
1769. But cleaving to the notion that only troops from African nations
would be allowed into Darfur, al-Bashir peremptorily rejected personnel
from Nepal, Norway, Sweden, India, and Thailand, announcing this
weekend, “When they [the UN and AU] told us that they wanted to bring
other troops from other countries, we rejected them. Even if there is a
shortage of troops from the African continent, we are not going to
accept those people. Because we were not consulted about it.”

The notion that al-Bashir and his National Islamic Front regime “were
not consulted” about force composition is a preposterous lie. Indeed, a
deferential series of negotiations, extending back to November 2006, has
included Khartoum at every step. What al-Bashir is attempting to do is
convert the privilege of consultation into the right of rejection, a
danger that should have been foreseen and decisively forestalled in the
language of a long string of documents. But even excessive UN and AU
deference has not prevented unambiguous stipulations from being set.
Resolution 1769 specifies that the UN/AU “hybrid” operation “should have
a predominantly African character and the troops should, as far as
possible, be sourced from African countries.” But “predominantly African
in character” is not at all the same as “exclusively African.”

Indeed, a lengthy document that serves as the underpinning for
Resolution 1769 (“Report of the Secretary-General and the Chairperson of
the African Union on the hybrid operation in Darfur,” May 2007)
declares:

“[to] the extent that African troop- and police-contributing countries
are unable to meet the Force requirements, offers from other
contributing countries will be considered.”

The final choice on the specific, often technical needs of the force
lies with the UN and the AU; Khartoum is guaranteed only “due
consultation.” But the problem in Darfur hasn’t been too little
consultation; it’s been too much–and all this talking accounts for why
deployment has been delayed for months already, and may be for many more
still. Indeed just yesterday, the head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie
Guéhenno, declared that if Khartoum’s obstructionism persisted the
entire peacekeeping mission might have to be aborted.

For its part, Khartoum is well aware that time is on its side: as long
as genocide continues, its stranglehold on Sudanese national wealth and
power will only grow. The violence that was recently reported by the UN
and humanitarian organizations in some of the huge displaced persons
camps around Nyala (capital of South Darfur) involved the forcible
relocation of hundreds of women and children. Khartoum has long
envisioned a strategy of emptying the camps–leaving displaced persons
without land, livelihood, or security–and those around Nyala have
special priority in this broader campaign. Further such efforts could
lead to pitched battles between Khartoum’s forces and the increasingly
militant and militarized camp populations.

Thus, without a credible, well-trained, and well-protepolice force (Resolution 1769 contemplates over 6,000), there is no way
that security can be restored in the camps, either for civilians or for
the humanitarians upon whom a vast population now depends. (The UN
figure for conflict-affected persons in need of humanitarian assistance
stands at approximately 4.2 million–two-thirds of Darfur’s pre-war
population.) But trained civilian police are in particularly short
supply in African nations, a problem that has been highlighted in
various assessments of the current disastrous AU mission in Darfur.

For self-serving reasons, Khartoum has agreed to allow the military
forces of two non-African countries into Darfur: Islamic ally Pakistan
(which has stood unquestioningly by Khartoum during the entire Darfur
crisis) and, more notably, China. A range of sources in Washington,
Beijing, and New York, including a well-placed UN official, have told me
that in recent weeks Beijing has become more, not less, encouraging of
Khartoum’s obduracy. Al-Bashir’s weekend announcement reflects enormous
confidence, defying as it does the international community with such
spectacular prevarication.

Indeed, China seems to be the key international actor ensuring that
Khartoum feels safe in keeping non-African (and non-Pakistani and
non-Chinese) troops out of the country. But the international community
should see through this gambit, or at least call China to task for its
enabling role. As just one more indicator of the security crisis in
Darfur, many humanitarian organizations are now left with the
soul-destroying choice of staying, or of leaving before even more of
their humanitarian workers are killed. This is unacceptable. Fifteen
months after first passage of a UN Security Council Resolution to
protect civilians and humanitarians in Darfur, insecurity has deepened,
the death count has risen, and the obstacles to effective deployment of
a peace-support operation have grown dramatically. If the millions of
people who are suffering are to have any hope at all, security forces
under UN and AU auspices need to touch ground in Darfur, and at speed.

Eric Reeves is author of “A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the
Darfur Genocide”