UN’s inadequate action in Darfur
By The Irish Times
Mar 16, 2005 — Compared with what is required to return nearly two million refugees to their farms and homes in the Sudanese province of Darfur, and to prevent thousands of them dying each month in crowded camps, action by the United Nations has been pathetically inadequate.
A mere 2,000 ill-equipped and under-resourced African Union troops have been unable to give them adequate protection. In recent weeks attacks on the refugees have escalated once again. In an effort to raise international awareness of the issues, UN under-secretary Jan Egeland now says he reckons 180,000 people have died there over the last 18 months – more than double the previous estimates.
These shocking figures are disputed by the Sudanese government, but they are in line with independent reports. The UN Security Council is set to vote on a peacekeeping force to oversee the agreement bringing an end to the civil war between northern and southern Sudan which has been going on continuously for 21 years. The disaster in Darfur is regarded by many in the region as a sideshow compared to this longer conflict, which has pitted the Arab and Islamic peoples in the north against the African and predominantly Christian peoples in the south for all but 11 years since the country became independent of British rule in 1956. This means Darfur has not had the attention it deserves, nor the urgency it needs. It has fallen to international NGOs to maintain publicity, although evangelical Christians in the United States have also influenced their government to take action.
Geopolitics and special interests cut right across the immediate needs of the Darfur refugees and raise profound questions about whether the UN is politically equipped to take firm action to implement the Sudan peace agreement or protect and relieve the Darfur refugees. China has blocked effective action on Darfur at the Security Council because it now draws one tenth of its international oil supplies from there. Algeria, another Security Council member, is reluctant to line itself up against the Sudanese government. Along with these, Russia resists a motion proposed this week by the US to impose sanctions on Sudan over what Washington describes as a genocide in Darfur. There are widespread suspicions that it took this position because of its opposition to referring the war crimes involved to the International Criminal Court, which the Bush administration vehemently opposes. No other Security Council member supports the US plan for a special tribunal on Darfur.
Only sustained international pressure can break through this cynical diplomatic impasse and focus attention on the desperate plight of the 1.8 million refugees, the need to implement the overall peace agreement and the disgraceful contradiction between these imperatives and the UN’s incapacity to respond adequately to them. Mr Egeland is to be congratulated for his perseverance, as are the NGOs. This solidarity now needs to be matched by a determination to deliver on these objectives at the Security Council this week.