Darfur crisis intensifies
2006-04-09 22:24
New York - Efforts to stop
atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region are unravelling, with a new
peacekeeping force uncertain, relief aid under attack and UN
sanctions stymied, UN officials and analysts say.
"The situation is spiralling downward on the ground and
retreating backwards on a daily basis in New York, Washington
and Brussels," home of Nato, said John Prendergast of the
International Crisis Group think-tank.
"A fragile consensus has collapsed under the weight of the
Sudan government's artful diplomacy campaign," Prendergast told
Reuters.
"It played chicken with the broad international
community, and once again the international community drove off
the road."
The main bulwark against abuses is the cash-strapped
African Union which, under pressure from its Arab members who
often side with Khartoum, is hesitating to merge its 7 000
troops with a UN force.
AU Commission chair Alpha Oumar Konare recently
presented options to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Among
them was a UN peacekeeping mission.
But Konare also suggested
that the AU take command or at least work side by side with
UN troops.
Such solutions would doom a unified operation,
said a top UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
'Half measures'
Prendergast believes the Bush administration needs to send
a special envoy to Arab nations and AU members, from Egypt to
South Africa, to convince them the United Nations or Nato,
which has been suggested as augmenting a UN force, was not
trying to take over the country.
Sudan has not consented to an enlarged military operation,
refused a Darfur visit by the UN humanitarian co-ordinator,
Jan Egeland, a Norwegian, and then banned the Norwegian Refugee
Council that cared for 90 000 people driven from their homes.
"The situation continues to deteriorate," said Juan Mendez,
Annan's envoy for the prevention of genocide.
"We have engaged in half measures and those half measures
have not been sufficient to protect and show signs of
unravelling," Mendez, an Argentine human rights lawyer, told a
news conference.
He said Sudan had "played games", like refusing to give the
AU jet fuel, banning it from importing armoured personnel
carriers or allowing non-African trainers to join them.
The Darfur conflict erupted in early 2003 when mostly
non-Arab tribes took up arms accusing the Arab-dominated
Khartoum government of neglect.
The government retaliated by arming mainly Arab militia,
known as Janjaweed, who began a campaign of murder, rape, arson
and plunder that drove 2 million villagers into squalid camps.
Khartoum denies responsibility.
Meanwhile, rebel groups proliferated, spreading more
misery.
Mendez and others hope for an AU cease-fire deal that could
be verified and perhaps be signed by April 30.
Still, he says
the mandate of the AU has to be strengthened because people
often have to be "suffering right under the nose of the AU
forces before they can act".
Participation in genocide'
The United States is outspoken.
US Ambassador John Bolton
has said he believes "with a high degree of certainty that the
Sudan government has been involved in and indeed directing
things like gross abuses of human rights and participation in
the genocide".
But he said Washington had to check evidence before the
United States could agree to put any Sudanese government
official on a UN list of sanctions that include a travel ban
and an assets freeze.
Russia and China oppose all sanctions, even though the
Security Council called for them in a resolution a year ago.
But most agree that US or Nato troops cannot enter Darfur
as a unit without attracting Islamic militants.
However,
individual Nato members could help with logistics and air
cover.
Jan Pronk, the UN envoy for Sudan, warned that any
mention of Nato was a red flag to Muslims.
"Western diplomacy
is indeed extremely foolish at the moment," he said.
Prendergast agreed.
"What we (the US) have done, is
undertaken diplomacy through public assertions that tend to
alienate everyone," but without having a military strategy.
If all fails, Prendergast predicted, the United States will
blame the United Nations, the Europeans and the Africans while
Khartoum ensures "that none of the stated objectives of our
policy are actually implemented".