Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

'Peacekeeping' a Struggle in Sudan

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • 'Peacekeeping' a Struggle in Sudan

    'Peacekeeping' a Struggle in Sudan

    By Rob Crilly, USA TODAY

    (Nov. 30) - African Union soldiers were only a few hundred yards away when Sudanese government troops swept through this small town, firing their weapons from pickups. Four villagers were killed.

    Because the AU soldiers - "peacekeepers" deployed to protect civilians - did nothing to prevent the killing, the surviving villagers ran for the nearby African Union base, where the soldiers had no choice but to protect them.

    Seven weeks after that attack, the village is deserted. Hundreds of families have moved into makeshift shelters huddled beneath the floodlights of the African Union base, a stark reminder of how the AU force is failing in its mission.

    "It is their duty to protect humanitarian operations and civilians in their immediate vicinity," said Jemera Rone, Sudan researcher with the group Human Rights Watch. "If they have a base at Tawilla, one would assume they would be out patrolling. And if they are seeing these things, they should immediately respond with reinforcements and deter people from attacking civilians and relief camps," she said.

    Rone said the soldiers often fail to intervene when civilians are attacked.

    Baba Kingibe, the African Union special representative in Sudan, confirmed the accounts of what happened in this village in the northern part of Sudan's conflict-racked Darfur region.

    He and other African Union leaders admit they are struggling to adequately protect Sudanese civilians, many of whom are caught in the crossfire of warring groups. Kingibe said the AU soldiers are doing the best they can but lack money and equipment. He also said his troops at times are outgunned by rebels and government forces.

    Violence Increasing

    Rebels from the farming tribes of Darfur took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated government more than two years ago. The Khartoum-based government responded by unleashing nomadic Arab militias known as Janjaweed on villages suspected of supporting the rebels. About 180,000 civilians have died, according to the United Nations.

    The African Union, an organization that includes nearly every nation on the continent, sent a peacekeeping force to Darfur last year. The troops' mandate allowed them to monitor a cease-fire agreed to by the rebels and the government and to protect humanitarian operations and civilians "under imminent threat and in the immediate vicinity, within resources and capability."

    The force was assembled and sent to Darfur partly in response to a United Nations call for Africa to come up with a solution to a problem on the continent without relying on outside forces.

    Today there are about 6,700 African Union troops in the region. But as violence intensifies, the AU soldiers find themselves increasingly the target of attacks. Last month, four Nigerian soldiers were killed in an ambush.

    Now Darfur is sliding further into bloodshed, said Rone of Human Rights Watch. The AU troops are having problems responding. "What people in the field - the soldiers and their immediate officers - haven't really been drilled in is what to do and how to cope in particular situations," Rone said. "They haven't been given clear instructions in how to deter and defeat forces that might attack civilians, and they need to be given clear and robust instructions to do everything that they have in their power to protect civilians."

    Many in Darfur, like those who live in Tawilla, have lost faith in the soldiers who are supposed to protect them.

    Ahmed Suileman Khatir said he and his family didn't think the African Union troops would protect them if they stayed in the village. He was among those who ran for the base on Sept. 29 and now he lives in the shadow of the AU compound.

    "Being near the AU keeps us safe," he said. "If the government tries to shoot at us, then they are shooting at the AU, and they will defend us. If we are not here, then there is little that they can do."

    A Refugees International report this month called for the African Union soldiers to be replaced by a United Nations force and expressed concern that donor governments were failing to support the African Union mission with promised money and equipment.

    Earlier this year, international donors, including the United States, pledged an additional $200 million to support the mission. The U.S. State Department says it has already contributed more than $165 million in cash and in-kind to support the African Union's Darfur mission during the past 1? years.

    Running Out of Fuel, Ammo

    The success of the African Union mission is critical to allowing aid agencies to help the 2 million people who have been forced into relief camps, said Nicki Bennett of the British charity Oxfam.


    Fewer than 7,000 soldiers are assigned to an area the size of Texas, she said, so more troops are needed. "But soldiers alone will not be enough to put an end to the ongoing violence and attacks. The peacekeepers also need to receive the proper equipment and logistical support to carry out their jobs," Bennett said. "AU helicopters and vehicles in Darfur routinely run out of fuel. Camps often take weeks to set up. And some soldiers barely have enough ammunition to defend themselves, never mind aid operations or civilians under threat."

    Kingibe said he hopes the situation will improve after the Sudanese government said this month that it will allow 105 armored personnel carriers donated by Canada to be deployed with the AU force. That decision followed a three-month delay.

    Kingibe said the African Union can achieve little while the warring parties flout the terms of the cease-fire signed in neighboring Chad last year.

    "The bottom line is really that there is nothing that we or the U.N. can achieve in Darfur without the willing cooperation of parties to the conflict," he said.

    For now the AU is pinning its hopes on peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, that resumed Tuesday. Both sides are under pressure to reach a deal by the end of the year so that the United Nations can take over the mission.

    "Our primary target is for the Abuja peace talks to be concluded as rapidly as possible," Kingibe said.
    To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway
Working...
X