African Union mission to Sudan’s Darfur struggles with lack of resources

By Andrew England

NORTH DARFUR, Oct 6, 2004 (Financial Times) — Armed with pens and notepads, an African Union military observer team pulls off the sandy road and enters a village of mud and grass huts.

Their main task in Darfur, western Sudan, is to “Show AU presence,” the mission statement says.

But in Hashaba there is nobody to meet, just an eerie silence punctuated by chirping birds and the rumble of an armoured personnel carrier belonging to Rwandan soldiers who form part of an AU “protection force” providing security for the observers.

A few hundred yards down the road, the team encounters a dozen members of the Sudanese security forces speeding towards them in a pickup. The vehicles stop and AU men and the Sudanese forces greet each other with a hint of caution.

“Where are the people?” asks Captain Kambata Phillepus, the team leader. “They have gone to the camps,” replies the Sudanese commander, pointing in the direction of some of the more than 130 camps in Darfur 1.2m displaced people live in these camps after more than 18 months of violence.

“Why?” probes Capt. Phillepus, a slim, tall Namibian who served with the United Nations in Angola in the 1990s.

“I don’t know,” the Sudanese officer replies, his men standing clutching their weapons. The dialogue is awkward and the seven monitors finally get back into their vehicles and move on to the next village, Autash, where the picture becomes clearer.

“The government drove us from our villages, our animals and wealth are destroyed,” says an elderly woman, one of the few who has returned to the fields. “We have no food, we have no water, we are poor people; we eat this grass.”

The woman and a few others are the only civilians in sight for miles around. They direct the team to an unexploded fuse of a 57mm rocket fired from a helicopter gunship when the now deserted village was attacked.

The August 26 government attack on Hashaba, 27km southwest of north Darfur’s capital, al-Fasher, and surrounding villages, was deplored in the last UN resolution on Darfur.

The government is alleged to have backed and armed Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, who have terrorised Darfur’s African tribes.

The United States says the actions constitute genocide. But while UN and western diplomats condemn the violence, it has been left to the fledgling AU to put troops on the ground from 12 African nations, including Kenya, Egypt, South Africa and Ghana.

In Autash, Capt. Phillepus’s team take notes and try to explain their role, urging the frightened civilians to report attacks to the AU mission in Sudan ( AMIS), pointing to the AU armbands the observers wear on their national uniforms. But there is little more AMIS can do to ease the suffering, other than a so-called “confidence patrol” putting troops in the field, talking and listening, and showing the warring parties, as well as civilians, that somebody is watching.

AMIS’s 136 military observers are unarmed and its 300-strong protection has assault rifles, their responsibility is to protect the monitors, not civilians. The mission was set up after the government and two rebel groups signed a “humanitarian ceasefire” in April.

International interest in the violence was minimal at that time and the AU’s narrow mandate was simply to monitor the accord and attempt to build confidence between the belligerents.

Many of the reports of violence implicate the government and Janjaweed. But the AU must be seen to be neutral and relies on the co-operation and approval of the insurgents and government to carry out its mission.

“It can be emotional, but you have to be professional,” says one AU officer. But as the crisis has catapulted to the centre of world attention, so too has attention on the AU, with calls for it to be expanded and suggestions that its mandate should include civilian protection.

Yet the cash-strapped body has little experience in such missions and is struggling to conduct its current activities with a lack of resources and huge challenges. Brigadier General Festus Okonkwo, AMIS’s commanding officer, has proposed that the observers be increased to 500 with the protection force raised to suit. He also wants an AU police force deployed to train and monitor the Sudanese police.

This would raise AMIS’ budget from $45m per year to $225m, with the onus on western nations to provide the funds. The force’s mandate could also be “adjusted,” says Brig. Gen. Okonkwo, to allow the troops to intervene if they witness civilians being attacked and have the “capability” to save them. But civilian protection is “the responsibility of the government,” says the Nigerian, who led a west African peacekeeping force in Liberia last year.

Given the AU’s resources, the size of Darfur and the complexities of the conflict, most agree that any UN-type peacekeeping mission which would require tens of thousands of troops is unrealistic. An AU official said the body would be lying if it suggested it could protect civilians. Others say putting more armed men on the ground could create more problems by antagonising the Sudanese.

But there is a feeling among some officers that they could be doing more. “This is how to profit. If we had more soldiers we could be patrolling all the time. The problem is only logistics,” Capt. Phillepus says on his patrol. “If there were peacekeepers on the ground, they are automatically protecting civilians because they would be deployed in areas and would need the right to search all parties and have their own roadblocks.” But he acknowledged that it could only be done with the adequate resources it would also need the consent of Khartoum. At present, AMIS is short on communications equipment, vehicles and manpower.

A day before Capt. Phillepus’s patrol, six Rwandan AU soldiers armed with AK-47s set out from al-Fasher to escort a lorry ferrying equipment to another AU base with only a Thuraya satellite phone for communications.

When their vehicle bogged down in deep sand, the truck disappeared ahead in a cloud of dust as the AU troops dug the Toyota out with their hands. The Rwandans had no shovels, their vehicle had no winch, and they had no means to let the Sudanese lorry driver know of their predicament. Even if they could have spoken to him, there was no translator to bridge the language barrier.

“The intent is there, but the capacity is lacking,” said one officer in al-Fasher. Others say political pressure led to an overly hasty deployment of troops. Nigeria, for example, sent 155 soldiers to Darfur on August 30th to be part of the protection force, but only 24 have been deployed because camps outside al-Fasher are not ready. Despite the challenges, AMIS is one of the few forum where the insurgents and government work together.

Each observer team has representatives from the two rebels groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), as well as the government. The teams also include either an EU or US officer attached to the mission, as well as a representative from neighbouring Chad, a key mediator at peace talks and home to 200,000 refugees from Darfur.

As Capt. Phillepus’s patrol travel led through the arid terrain, rebel and government officers joke and chat as a cassette belonging to Major Fathi Elrahman, the government representative, plays Sudanese music. The conversation rarely strays on to the issue of what they had seen and heard. “We have all become friends,” adds Maj. Elrahman, who visited Darfur for the first time when he joined AMIS. “It’s good, we are all working for peace.”

“We cannot speak about the fighting or politics, we talk about anything else because we are members of the AU,” says Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hashim, the JEM representative. But when the team’s reports are compiled all the parties have to agree on their content. Around their camp in al-Fasher, it is occasionally possible to hear the men discussing reported violations – was it an attack or an isolated shooting? When the observers do get out the villagers are keen to speak to them, even if there is little understanding of what their mission entails.

Capt. Phillepus’s patrol drove 143kms in 11 hours, stopping at eight villages, mainly in rebel-controlled areas where young insurgents in shirts and sandals lounge around, rifles slung over their shoulders.

The team sip sweet coffee in a grass hut with villagers who speak of their fear of government attacks. They explain to rebel commanders how to report ceasefire violations. They asked government soldiers to walk away so civilians feel free to recite their tales of woe. They listened to desperate people living in makeshift camps who complain of having no food, water or medicine, promising to inform aid groups of their plight.

“We have to put in our report the IDPs (internally displaced people) are losing confidence in us,” Capt. Phillepus says, after explaining to men in one camp that AMIS was not responsible for delivering aid. “Every time they ask us for something, maybe the next time we come they will be throwing stones.”

The government officer attached to the AU listens intently, his hands in pockets or his arms folded, as villager after villager complains of government attacks. “Surely if this happened this is bad,” Maj. Elrahman says. “I’m not sure if it happened, but they say it happened.” The two rebel representatives were more comfortable, asking questions and scribbling notes.

The hope is that by deploying more teams in more areas their presence will deter further violence. But villagers will only feel truly secure if the rebels and government find a solution to their conflict. And that lies in the hands of politicians, not AU soldiers.

“It’s when the government does not attempt to stop such grievances, then it may develop into bigger issues like genocide,” says one Rwandan, who fought in 1994 to stop genocide in his country as the international community stood by and did nothing. “The genocide in Rwanda did not start in 1994, it started at the local level, people being killed just because they were Tutsis. I’ve been trying to find out more about this conflict. If the government does not sort out such issues, it escalates.”