[Sreekar]

A bad idea is about to deploy in Darfur
(source:Welcome to StarNet)

For the last several years, international efforts to end the war in Darfur have focused on the deployment of a 26,000-man peacekeeping force which Darfurians have come to believe will "save" them. In the words of one of the force's strongest supporters: "Activists have pressed relentlessly for the deployment of a UN-led force to protect civilians in Darfur, and we are almost there."


The truth is that we are nowhere near there - and most probably never will be. With less than a month to go before the force is due to deploy, senior United Nations officials say the best-case scenario is for 6,500 troops to be in Darfur by January 1, 2008, the date of the official transition from the present 7,000-man African Union force to a "hybrid" UN-AU force (UNAMID). Of the 24 helicopters that are needed, not one has been forthcoming. The Sudanese regime is throwing up obstacle after obstacle, as it promised it would. Unless these issues are resolved, Jean-Marie Guehenno, the UN undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations, has warned, "it means the mission in 2008 will not be able to make the difference that the world wants to it to make - and that it may become a failure."

No matter what UN officials say publicly, many in the organization believe that the biggest problem with UNAMID is UNAMID itself. It is, they say, "the world's worst peacekeeping operation" - too big, too top-heavy, too disorganized and with no strategic plan. Just how does the force plan to "protect" almost 2.5 million displaced people, even if, miraculously, it reaches full strength and does not confine itself to base at the first hint of trouble? And what about the millions more who are not displaced but who will be at risk as long as the conflict continues? Will it do so by creating safe zones (in the absence of a peace agreement and functioning cease-fire)? By patrolling roads (in a region the size of Texas)? By escorting humanitarian workers (who don't want their neutrality compromised by armed escorts)?

Just how does UNAMID plan to neutralize tens of thousands of Janjaweed, rebels and bandits in a region that is transitioning from genocidal fury to anarchy and chaos?

Crucially, how can the hybrid force safeguard camps whose security is threatened not only by the Janjaweed, but by internal tribal wars, rampant criminality and the presence of arms galore? UNAMID can patrol the perimeters of camps, but does not have powers of arrest and detention and cannot provide security within the camps. Many believe it could not stop the government if it decided to break up the camps.

Those directly concerned with the $2-billion-a-year force are not the only ones worried. Many relief workers in Darfur have major concerns about the potential impact of UNAMID on humanitarian action in Darfur. There are already signs of a brain drain from humanitarian organizations to UNAMID and its UN-size inducements. Any blurring of boundaries between peacekeeping and humanitarian action risks putting humanitarians at greater risk than they already are.
And then there is the environmental factor, with UNAMID compounding the problems of a humanitarian-driven construction boom that has already had major environmental effects. The demands on natural resources of one international peacekeeper are many times that of a single Darfurian. It is estimated that each peacekeeper will use 40 times more water than a Sudanese, for example. There will inevitably be greatly increased demand for precious construction materials - timber and bricks. And so on.

"No one thinks UNAMID is a good idea," says one of those who attended a recent brainstorming session in Khartoum. "They are all going into it knowing it is going to be a nightmare," says another. "They are playing up to public opinion. It is absolutely disgraceful."

It is, of course, pressure from rights groups and activists, especially in the United States, that made UNAMID the centerpiece of international policy on Darfur. Often run by ill-informed religious groups, "Save Darfur" campaigns kept the region on the agenda at a time when many just wanted it to disappear. But the unchanging narrative of "genocide" and "slaughter," the inflation of death tolls, and the reduction of a complex conflict to a simple morality tale created mass hysteria which limited the ability of decision-makers to pursue legitimate policy options and craft solutions relevant to the facts on the ground.

And so, in December 2007, the international community is implementing a plan that almost everyone involved in it or affected by it acknowledges is the wrong plan at the wrong time. It would have made more sense in 2003-2004, at the height of the conflict. It is not the solution in 2008.

"I am sure the hybrid UN-AU mission in Darfur has enabled all those watching the Darfur tragedy helplessly all these years to claim a victory of sorts," says Timur Goksel, a 24-year veteran of UN peacekeeping in South Lebanon. "But will it work? I am afraid it won't. The UN is hardly capable of running its own complex peacekeeping operations. How it will ever manage an operation that is to be effectively commanded by an inexperienced, under-resourced and relatively new regional organization that has more than a few teething problems is beyond comprehension."
A senior Western officer in Sudan agrees: "The best we can probably hope for is that UNAMID will be no worse than [the African Union force]. But it is going to happen, and we have to try to make it work."
So, for those who love bullet points, here are three for this already benighted peacekeeping operation, whose failure is being forecast even before it hits the ground: First, give priority to deploying the civil affairs officers who will be a small but absolutely vital component of the force. One savvy civil affairs officer focused on community peacekeeping, conflict prevention and intelligence-gathering is worth a battalion.

Second, give priority to confidence-building - especially with Arab groups, who are still shamefully neglected by international and humanitarian workers. The few NGOs that have reached out to Darfur's Arabs have found that they have relatively safe access to parts of Darfur that other NGOs have been unable to reach.
And third, be prepared for a sharp change in the popular mood when Darfurians realize that it will be many, many months, at best, before UNAMID can begin, perhaps, to make a change to their lives. Inflated expectations suggest that the honeymoon will be short.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

Additional information on darfur crisis can be viewed at the below link:
http://www.indianofficer.com/forums/...-our-time.html

[Sreekar]

Why does Sudan reject non-African troops in Darfur?
(source:SudanTribune : plural news and views information source on Sudan...)

Darfur crisis is considered the First genocidal rampage of the 21st century 10 years after the Rwandan holocaust. Government of Sudan (GOS) and its proxy militias committed gross human rights abuses and impunity was the rule. Nevertheless the shamelessly Government of Sudan (GOS) continues to orchestrate its rejection of non-African troops in the combined United Nations/African Union 26,000 "hybrid" peacekeepers who are supposed to start operating in Darfur as from January 2008 to bring about security to its civilian people after more than 4-1/2 years of ordeal.

Swedish and Norwegian troops are not acceptable to GOS. Sudan rejected Canadian military offer from the Prime Minister who announced an additional $170 million dollars in aid for Darfur. Canada also pledged to send 100 military advisers which would include military intelligence officers, strategic planners and logistics experts to help African Union peacekeepers in the war-ravaged region of western Sudan. Faiza Hassan Taha, the Sudanese ambassador, said Ottawa didn’t consult her country about the offer. She is reported as saying that Khartoum doesn’t want any non-African troops in the country. The Canadian Prime Minister’s Office reported that their PM advised the Sudanese president of his plan before he announced it. Furthermore, troops from Thailand are not welcome either by the regime’s president even if there is a shortage of troops from the African continent. The 135 Chinese military engineers and Pakistani technical units are the only forces Marshal Omer Hassan Ahmed Al-basher is ready to accept as he reserves the right to reject.

Al-Samani al-Wasila, a GOS minister Foreign Affairs is reported as saying that the UN charter does not allow for sending of troops to a country without the approval of this country”! The regime’s minister tries to overlook the reality that the UN Security Council Resolutions about the crisis in Darfur have been passed under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter that sets out the UN Security Council’s powers to maintain peace and authorises the use of Military Force against pariah governments like the one he is a member to "restore international peace and security. This is more pertinent while the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), under the command and leadership of President (Lt. Gen.) Omer al-Bashir, continue to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur since mid-2003. These forces have overseen and directly participated in massacres, summary executions of civilians, indiscriminately burnings of towns and villages, and the forcible depopulation of wide swathes of land long-inhabited by native ethnic tribal groups.

No wonder that observers kept trying to identify the reasons behind the refusal of the National Congress Party (NCP) government in Khartoum to allow deployment of non-African peacekeeping troops in Darfur. Mr. Pagan Amum the Secretary General of the SPLM was quoted as said that troops from Nigeria, Rwanda and other countries in the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) are already there on the Darfur soil; are they not foreign troops or they are Sudanese forces?! One writer believes that some elements in the Khartoum regime will try to find a way of dropping the ICC stick by using it as a trade off for agreeing peace, disarmament and reconciliation using local traditions and customs!

Rejection of non-African troops in the AU-UN Hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur by the NCP government is a political gimmick and flawed. Non-African Western Troops are present in the south of Sudan, Nuba Mountains and in Khartoum, why not acceptable in Darfur?

- Analysts said that what the elements in the National Congress Party (NCP) government really fears is that the UN troops may be used to arrest officials in the regime and its allied militia likely to be indicted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

- Another reason may be attributable to the earlier report by Reuters Opheera McDoom, pointing out that Al-Qaeda’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahri criticised Khartoum and called the Sudanese government as "spineless" for allowing UN-AU assessment mission into Sudan. Sudan rejects the transition to U.N. forces in Darfur, painting the move as a Western invasion of an Islamic country that would attract militants.

The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in February 2007 issued a warrant for the arrest of former Sudanese interior minister, now humanitarian affairs minister, Ahmad Haroun and pro-government Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb charging them with masterminding murderous attacks between 2003 and 2004 which caused millions of people to flee their homes in Darfur.

The Sudanese government has refused to act on both warrants, saying there is no evidence against the pair and arguing Sudan, like the United States, is not an ICC signatory. Sudanese government has said repeatedly it will never hand over any of its citizens. This regime needs to understand that there will be no more impunity for these cases. The culprits in the Darfur atrocities will eventually face the predicaments of their actions as happened to Charles Taylor, the leader of Liberia who is being tried in The Hague for alleged war crimes in Sierra Leone and the former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic who died in custody during his trial for crimes against humanity in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Will the UN Security Council continues to be held hostage by Khartoum’s adamant rejection of non-African Peacekeeping Force in Darfur and for how ling? That is the question! Perhaps until the Khartoum government succeeds in completing the Darfur genocide!

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

Hi Folks,
Most of us know that Sudan's Darfur conflict is one of the great tragedies of our time. That said, the next step would be to think about how to stop this genocide? It looks like one of the NGO: Dream for Darfur in sudan is thinking on the right line. Here's an article that shed some light on their good efforts.

Good citizens speak out when they see injustice. Can good corporate citizens be expected to do the same?
(source:CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News)

That's the uncomfortable question being raised by a human rights group called Dream for Darfur, which is asking sponsors of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing to voice their opposition to China's support for the government of Sudan. The Sudanese government has been accused of waging a genocide against its own citizens in Darfur.

Recently, Dream for Darfur issued a lengthy report as part of its challenge to 19 Olympic sponsors, including such well-known global brands as Coca-Cola, General Electric, Kodak, Microsoft and Visa, to press China, Sudan's most important global ally, to use its influence to end the Darfur crisis. China buys oil from the Sudanese government, and sells weapons to the Khartoum regime. Since 2003, about 200,000 people have died and an estimated 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes in Darfur.

In a the report, Dream for Darfur asks: "Why are the major corporations sponsoring the Olympics - some of the most recognizable brands in the world - refusing to speak out against the world's most wrenching humanitarian crisis?" "Sponsors are supporting China's efforts to position itself in glowing terms on the world stage," said Jill Savitt, director of Dream for Darfur. "But they are silent about China's role in the Darfur genocide, and in their silence, they are complicit."
(If you want to better understand what's going on in Darfur, rent the DVD of an excellent 2007 documentary called "The Devil Came on Horseback." It tells the story of a former U.S. Marine captain name Brian Steidle who worked as a African Union monitor in Darfur, an experience that turned him into a passionate activist against the genocide.)

As it happens, some of the companies that are being criticized by Dream for Darfur have stepped in to help victims of the genocide. The GE Foundation says it made $2 million in humanitarian aid grants to CARE, UNICEF and International Medical Corps to did with food, shelter and medical treatment for refugees in the region. Coca-Cola has given $750,000 to the Red Cross and Red Crescent to provide humanitarian relief. Johnson & Johnson also reported giving $750,000 worth of humanitarian aid.

But despite the activists' high-level publicity and lobbying campaign, the companies aren't budging. They argue that the Olympics transcend politics: that it's not their role to lobby the Chinese government, and that resolving the crisis in Darfur is a job best left to the United Nations. "As an Olympic sponsor, we are guests at the 2008 Beijing Games," said Antonio M. Perez, the chairman and CEO of Kodak, in a letter to the group. "It is not our place to make political demands of the hosts of what is, at its root, an athletic event."

Bob Corcoran, vice president for corporate citizenship at GE , wrote, "Our experience tells us that public corporations must tread very carefully when affairs of state are involved." Perhaps hinting that GE had raised the issue in a private forum, he also wrote, "GE also appreciates the value of quiet diplomacy, away from the spotlight, as a means of constructive conflict resolution."

Microsoft, which has come under fire for permitting the Chinese to censor blogs on its Internet platform, had little to say about its role as the official software and support supplier for the Olympics. It was one of 13 companies that Dream for Darfur gave a grade of F for its failure to address the Darfur issue. GE, McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Johnson and Johnson scored C's and D's in the report.

The full report and an accompanying press release can be found at the Dream for Darfur website. The Darfur activists communicated with the sponsors for six months before issuing the report. Dream for Darfur is chaired by the actress Mia Farrow, who invited corporate executives to accompany her on a trip to refugee camps in Chad. All declined. Savitt, the director, is on leave from another activist group, called Human Rights First, to work on the campaign to link Darfur to the Olympics. "It is unacceptable for China to sponsor the Olympics at home and a genocide in Sudan," Savitt said. Critics say China has also provided diplomatic support for Sudan at the UN, stymieing efforts to get peacekeeping forces into the region.

For its part, the Chinese government says it isn't to blame for the problems in Darfur. China recently sent a small peace-keeping unit to Darfur, and it has promised about $5 million in aid to refugees. But the Chinese government has staked a tremendous amount on hosting the Olympics this year, and so far seems unwilling to bend to activists' wishes. So far, the corporate sponsors are in a similar camp.

Hope the situation gets better.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

Spielberg boycotts Beijing Olympics over Darfur
(source:The Times of India: Breaking news, views, reviews, cricket from across India.)

US film-maker Steven Spielberg has abandoned his role in the Beijing Olympics and a host of prominent figures accused China of not doing enough to press its ally Sudan to end devastating violence in Darfur.

"Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these ongoing crimes but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more to end the continuing human suffering," Spielberg said in a statement on Tuesday.

"I have decided to formally announce the end of my involvement as one of the overseas artistic advisers to the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games."

Separately, Nobel Prize winners and Olympic athletes urged China's President Hu Jintao to pressure Sudan to end atrocities in Darfur, as attention turns to this summer's games. "As the primary economic, military and political partner of the government of Sudan, and as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, China has both the opportunity and the responsibility to contribute to a just peace in Darfur," they said in a joint letter.

"Ongoing failure to rise to this responsibility amounts, in our view, to support for a government that continues to carry out atrocities against its own people," the letter read.

The 25 signatories included South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi, both Nobel Peace Prize winners, along with actresses Mia Farrow and Emma Thompson, African music legend Hugh Masekela, and athletes, writers, actors and political figures from around the world.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

Boycotting Beijing Olympics will send wrong message: UK
(source:The Times of India: Breaking news, views, reviews, cricket from across India.)

The minister in charge of preparing the London 2012 Olympics has said that boycotting this summer's Games in Beijing would be the "wrong response" to concerns over China's relationship with Sudan.

Her comments came in the wake of the announcement from Hollywood filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who said he was abandoning his role in the August 8-24 Games over China's stance toward Sudan.

"The world has known for the last seven years that Beijing would host the Olympics," Olympics minister Tessa Jowell was quoted as saying in early edition of The Times paper.

"Most progressive governments accept that there are wholly unacceptable aspects of Chinese policy but that did not stop the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarding them the Games.

"A call for a boycott doesn't serve any purpose and it would be a great pity. This doesn't mean, however, we should be distracted from the urgency of Darfur."

Spielberg announced on Tuesday he had abandoned his role in the Beijing Olympics, as a host of prominent figures accused China of not doing enough to press its ally Sudan to end devastating violence in Darfur.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

China presses Sudan over Darfur peacekeepers
(source:The top news headlines on current events from Yahoo! News)

China, under international pressure to help end conflict in Darfur, made a rare call on its Sudanese ally on Sunday to do more to allow foreign peacekeepers to deploy to the region.

But there was no respite in the fighting and the United Nations said it feared for thousands of civilians after reports that Sudan's forces bombed a rebel-held area in western Darfur.

China's envoy to Darfur, in a departure from Beijing's usual public diplomatic vagueness, made an unusual rebuke to Khartoum during a visit there and urged Sudan to remove obstacles to full deployment of a joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force.

"Rolling out the hybrid peacekeeping operation and resolving the Darfur issue require the joint efforts of all sides," Liu Guijin told China's official Xinhua news agency.

"First, the Sudan government should cooperate better with the international community and demonstrate greater flexibility on some technical issues. Next, anti-government organizations in the Darfur region should return to the negotiating table."

China's role in Sudan has come under renewed attention since film director Steven Spielberg quit as an artistic director to the 2008 Beijing Olympic games, saying China had failed to use its sway in Khartoum to seek peace in Darfur.

China is a big investor in Sudan's oil industry and is its largest weapons supplier.

International experts estimate that 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million driven been from their homes since mostly non-Arab Darfur rebels took up arms five years ago.

Even as the Chinese envoy spoke, powerful Sudanese presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie rejected any notion of accepting non-African troops in the UNAMID peacekeeping force until all African soldiers have deployed to Darfur.

Western countries accuse Sudan of using conditions such as the composition of the force as delaying tactics. So far, just 9,000 of an eventual 26,000 peacekeepers are on the ground.
BOMBING REPORTS

The United Nations said on Sunday it had received reports of aerial bombing in the Jabel Moun area in western Darfur, a region where Sudan launched an offensive on February 8 to retake rebel-held areas.
"We are gravely concerned for the safety of thousands of civilians in this area," the U.N. statement said.

Residents say at least 114 people have been killed in the offensive, but the army says many of those were rebels in civilian clothing. Thousands of people have fled the fighting, some into neighboring Chad.

U.N. officials estimated some 20,000 people were in Jabel Moun. They said the bombing occurred in spite of assurances from Khartoum on Sunday that civilians would be allowed to leave the area. UNAMID was seeking similar assurances from the rebels.

"The risks at this stage to civilians are unacceptably high. The solution for Darfur's problems can never be a military one," the statement said.
The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), meanwhile, said it had downed a helicopter north of el-Geneina in West Darfur on Sunday. Sudan's army said engine trouble caused the aircraft to crash land. It said the pilot escaped unharmed.


"The pilot tried to go back to el-Geneina when the second engine failed and the helicopter crash landed," the spokesman said, ruling out any rebel involvement.

The delays to deploying the UNAMID force mean it is struggling to live up to the high expectations of Darfuris that it will be do better to secure western Sudan than the previous force, from only the African Union.

Scandinavian units were refused entry by Khartoum and a Thai battalion is ready but still waiting for permission to deploy.

"What we ask now is that any talk of non-African troops stops until after the African troops have all been deployed," presidential assistant Nafie told reporters in Khartoum.

"Any attempt to talk about Khartoum's obstruction to the hybrid force or any talk about a lack of ability of African troops to accomplish the task of UNAMID is an attempt to create another crisis between Sudan and the international community."

He declined to say why Khartoum did not want non-African troops, but Sudanese officials have said Africa should be able to resolve its own problems and expressed suspicions about the intentions of former African colonialists.
Darfur rebels, who say they began their fight because of neglect by Khartoum, have requested European and U.S. troops in Darfur. Sudan says the Western media has exaggerated the conflict and puts the death toll at 9,000.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

US wants 3,600 new troops in Darfur soon
(source:The top news headlines on current events from Yahoo! News)

The United States has urged the United Nations to get 3,600 new peacekeepers on the ground in conflict-wracked Darfur by June, according to a letter obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Ambassador Richard Williamson, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan, told Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the letter that additional troops are the best hope of increasing security in the Sudanese region.

A joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force took over in January from a beleaguered AU force to try to stem the violence. But it only has about 9,000 troops and police on the ground, out of a total of 26,000 that have been authorized.

"We believe that the deployment of 3,600 new African troops by June — a target number based on the U.N.'s planning schedule — will bring increased security and stability to the people of Darfur," Williamson wrote.

"At this crucial moment, the deployment of new troops as quickly as possible is our best hope to change the course of this tragedy."
The U.N. believes that far more than 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict. Fighting has raged in Darfur since 2003, when ethnic African tribesman took up arms, complaining of decades of neglect and discrimination by the Sudanese Arab-dominated government. Khartoum has been accused of unleashing janjaweed militia forces to commit atrocities against ethnic African communities in the fight with rebel groups.

Williamson said the United States has committed $100 million to train and equip African peacekeepers pledged to deploy as part of the AU-U.N. force, "and we will work to assist troop contributing countries in meeting the U.N. deployment schedule."

The U.S. wants Egyptian, Ethiopian and Rwandan contingents in Darfur by June, Williamson said. He noted that the Ethiopians and Rwandans are already participating in U.S.-sponsored training prior to their deployment.

While the U.S. supports the U.N. objective of deploying the best-equipped troops possible, Williamson said, "it seems that some U.N. practices may hinder deployment."

He explained in a telephone interview that the United Nations normally requires that a peacekeeping battalion be able to sustain itself by having its own equipment, the ability to maintain it, and to maintain the camps for troops.

The United States will continue to help troops from contributing countries to become self-sustaining, Williamson said, but in the meantime the U.S. wants the U.N. to provide short-term maintenance and support for the peacekeepers.

"Our point is that they have $1.28 billion just for UNAMID, and they've spent only a fraction of it and the fiscal year is going to end" in June, Williamson said, using the initials of the AU-U.N. force.
"So 75 percent of the year's gone by and we're told they've spent just 25 percent. Yet, they don't have the capacity to absorb troops at the rate they can be made available," he said.

Williamson said the AU-U.N. force only added 290 peacekeepers since Jan. 1 "and that is just unacceptable for the people of Darfur who are suffering."

"Peacekeepers on the ground are one of the tangible ways we can change the dynamic in Darfur," he said.

If all African troops that have been pledged were deployed, there could be 18,000 troops in Darfur by the end of the year, he said.

At Sudan's insistence, the U.N. Security Council agreed that the force would be predominantly African.

Williamson said the Sudanese government also continues to raise impediments to deployment of the force. He said the U.S. and other countries that are "friends" of the AU-U.N. force are trying to deal with the government of Sudan to solve them.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

Australia offers officers for Darfur force

(source:Yahoo! News)


Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Saturday(march29th 2008) offered to provide up to nine military officers for the planned peace force for Darfur as he slammed Khartoum's lack of cooperation.

Speaking to reporters after a one-hour meeting with UN chief Ban Ki-moon here, he said he informed his host that Canberra would make available up to nine military officers to the joint UN-African Union force known as UNAMID.

"The government of Sudan generally has not welcomed any more substantial military commitments from Western powers," he noted. "I regard that as unfortunate but that is the reality."

Rudd also pledged an additional five million dollars in humanitarian assistance to the people of Darfur.

And he expressed to Ban "our concern and frustration together with that of other states about the continued obstruction ... by the government of Sudan."

Calling the festering conflict in Sudan's western region "a continuing humanitarian tragedy," he stressed that "the international community has a responsibility to act."

"Our government is of the view that these matters soon need to be brought back to the UN Security Council so that the government of Sudan can be held properly to account for its continuing obstruction."
Khartoum has been accused by Western powers of dragging its feet on allowing the full deployment of UNAMID which is tasked with providing assistance and protection for beleaguered Darfur civilians.

When fully deployed, UNAMID is to become the UN's largest peacekeeping operation with 20,000 troops and 6,000 police and civilian personnel.

But only around 9,000 troops and police are currently in place.
An estimated 200,000 people have died in Darfur from the combined effects of war, famine and diseases since 2003 and more than two million have been displaced, but the Khartoum government refutes these figures and puts the death toll at 9,000.

-Thanks much,
Sreekar

[Sreekar]

Make Sudan an Offer It Can’t Refuse
(source:NYtimes.com -Mark Helprin)

DESPITE almost 1.5 million bombing sorties flown against Germany during the Second World War, the United States and Britain failed for lack of trying to destroy the system of transport that fed the gas chambers and crematoria. Thirty-five years later, America did not, despite its unquestioned naval supremacy, protect the Vietnamese boat people. That we and our two allies capable of projecting power, France and Britain, are now distracted and divided by the wars in the Middle East is terribly unfortunate for the people of Darfur.

The genocide there is thus an unattended stepchild left to well-meaning groups and individuals who further sap the possibility of decisive action by directing attention to delicate measures of relief and equally fragile diplomacy. Blankets are necessary, but they will not stop the razing of villages. As Sudan brazenly defies, if not the world’s will, then, its wishes, and the death toll closes upon half a million, the pity is that the people of Darfur can in fact be saved. In concert with our allies or entirely alone, we have the military potential to accomplish this.

The multinational troops in Darfur have neither the training nor the mobility to defend the population adequately. Seventy-eight countries, each with its own rules of engagement, are represented in what is less a rescue mission than a camping trip to the Tower of Babel. A possibly influential force is developing in Chad, where the European Union, soon to be supplemented by Russian helicopters, will deploy weakly to defend a line drawn across largely empty desert. But why not cross that line? Violating sovereignty is a matter of immense consequence and gravity. Then again, so is genocide.

Although Darfur is part of Sudan, it is physically distant from the country’s heartland and sources of military power. Every inch of the 600 miles of barren territory between Khartoum and the killing grounds is an opportunity for a reprieve commanded by American air power — with not a boot on the ground. The Sudanese military in Darfur can be trapped there without sustenance, to wither or retreat as the bulk of Sudanese forces are kept out. And the janjaweed can be denied tangible support merely by severing the few extenuated routes of supply.

The first requirement of a cordon sanitaire, however, would be to cut all air links, which would require carrier-based air strikes to destroy the Sudanese air force’s 51 combat aircraft, 25 transports, and 44 helicopters (all figures from the International Institute for Strategic Studies); its fuel, munitions and maintenance facilities; and the few runways capable of supporting heavy transports and fighters. Were Chad to approve a small expeditionary force of America’s A-10 tactical-air-support planes, which it probably would, just a few of these could closely suppress remnant Sudanese armor and check any force of the janjaweed militia sufficiently concentrated to overcome local means of self-defense.

Moreover, none of this would prove necessary were the United States willing to go further and threaten or accomplish the destruction of the Sudanese regime’s means to power over a country that has been pulled apart centrifugally by multiple secessions. One needn’t be squeamish about such a proposition. It pertains to a government that has long massacred hundreds of thousands of its “own” people in its South and West, supported international terrorism and menaced most of its neighbors.

The precise targeting of a substantial portion of its 1,200 armored vehicles and 1,100 artillery pieces; its telecommunications exchanges and microwave towers; its dozen small naval vessels; its aircraft, runways, munitions, military headquarters, logistical stores, security ministries and presidential residences would be only a few days’ work for long-range bombers dispatched from remote bases, and the planes of two carrier task forces hastened to the Red Sea.

Which would the regime in Sudan prefer? To be annihilated, or to discontinue its campaign of mass murder in Darfur? Given Sudan’s record, very few nations would be willing to come to its aid with other than a pro forma whimper, and given the geography and the air and naval balance, no nation could. Though many a repressive dictatorship would protest, and Sudan’s patron, China, might determine to speed up the formation of the blue-water navy it is already building, little else would change except for the better.

This is especially so because only in the worst case would a military strike actually be necessary. One of the chief attractions of such an initiative is that, if properly directed, it could, one way or another, military strike or not, accomplish its aims. These are, first, to stop the mass killings and dislocations; and, second, to pressure Sudan into negotiating settlements in good faith (which it need not do as long as it retains its habitual option of simply murdering the populations it finds troublesome).

The threat itself would likely be enough. If not, then to carry it out in the present circumstances would be honorable, right and overdue. For these are human lives that in Darfur are senselessly extinguished. There is no soul anywhere more valuable than any of theirs, no child more worth saving than any of theirs. We are able to do so, as we can stand our carriers and pilots at the ready. And why would we not? A whole people, no matter how wretched or obscure, must certainly be worth three days of ammunition.

Mark Helprin, a fellow at the Claremont Institute, is the author of, among other books, “A Soldier of the Great War.”

-Thanks much,
Sreekar