Africa readies Darfur troops amid mandate confusion

By William Maclean

ADDIS ABABA, July 9 (Reuters) – The African Union (AU) scrambled on Friday to rush troops to Sudan’s Darfur region, shrugging off concern that confusion about their exact role could put the peace mission, and possibly lives, at risk.

Officials at the AU’s Ethiopian base were phoning around the continent to summon observers and troops to help stop Arab militias from attacking black Africans in Darfur, where the U.N. says the world’s worst humanitarian crisis is unfolding.

“This is our first major international operation. We cannot fail,” said one official working on the mission, a key test of the AU’s stated resolve to police the continent’s wars.

But some diplomats worry about the possibility of clashes between an AU force and troops of Sudan, a member state, which could provoke Khartoum into expelling all AU personnel and lead to the collapse of peace talks with Darfur rebel groups.

“The consequences of unilateral action — imagine a Nigerian or Rwandan soldier shooting a Janjaweed (militiaman) or a state security man — could be the immediate expulsion of the AU force,” one diplomat said.

U.S. officials have said the Arab militia are conducting ethnic cleansing against black Africans in Darfur, after years of tensions between nomadic Arab tribes and African farmers erupted into armed conflict.

Two groups rebelled last year, accusing Khartoum of neglecting the poor region and arming the Janjaweed, a charge Sudan’s Islamist government denies.

More than a million people have fled the fighting.

In three days of diplomatic arm-twisting, African leaders at an AU summit this week persuaded a reluctant Sudan to accept the deployment of 270 AU troops to protect a group of 60 AU ceasefire observers.

The monitors will try to patrol the overcrowded refugee camps and border areas between Sudan and Chad to check violations of a shaky ceasefire signed in April.

But the summit’s triumph — it will be the first foreign peace force on Sudanese soil — was rapidly overshadowed by confusion about an effort backed enthusiastically by Senegal in the closing stages of the gathering to expand the troops’ role.

AVOIDING PITFALLS

The confidential wording of the protection force’s current mandate stipulates that they protect only AU observers, Western and African officials in Addis Ababa say.

But AU chairman Olusegun Obasanjo and the AU’s top civil servant, AU Commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare, both said after the summit closed on Thursday that the protection force could not stand idly by if they saw civilians being attacked.

Konare’s spokesman maintained that position on Friday.

“The primary responsibility for protecting the displaced people rests with the Sudanese government, but in the event of attacks on the displaced, I doubt that the military protection force will remain inactive,” Adam Thiam told Reuters.

Sudan has challenged that interpretation, saying it alone is responsible for the security of Darfur’s people.

AU officials say they want to avoid two major pitfalls — ejection of the AU observers and protection force by hardliners in Khartoum, and rejection of peace talks by extremists both in Khartoum and among the Darfur rebels.

The officials say a key concern at their Addis Ababa planning sessions has been signs of political divisions in Khartoum and some evidence that President Omar Hassan al-Bashir may not be in firm control of the military in Darfur.

They say elements in the army and military intelligence are encouraging continued attacks by the Janjaweed in defiance of orders by the country’s political leadership.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who visited Darfur last week, said on Thursday that Sudan must immediately stop the militia attacks and speed delivery of aid or face unspecified “further measures” by the international community.

But Washington is facing considerable opposition from U.N. Security Council members in its quest to impose sanctions on the militias.

Opponents of the U.S. drafted-resolution argue it would be more helpful to get Khartoum’s cooperation than force it into a corner.

Khartoum has agreed to attend AU-mediated Darfur talks in Ethiopia next week, but the rebels say they will not negotiate unless Sudan disarms the militias and respects the truce.