Four years after the conflict in Darfur erupted, violence and hunger continue to ravage the western Sudanese region as the international community fails to impose its will on Khartoum.
”Four years is far too much … The fact that this goes on is a disgrace,” said United Nations peace envoy Jan Eliasson during a recent visit to Khartoum with his African Union (AU) counterpart, Salim Ahmed Salim.
The human cost of what some observers describe as the first genocide of the 21st century has been huge. At least 200 000 people have been killed, more than two million displaced and violence has spread to neighbouring countries.
The United Nations and other aid agencies are running the world’s largest relief operation in Darfur, with a budget of $1-billion and around 130 000 workers operating in an increasingly dangerous environment.
Most experts say the war officially started on February 26 2003 when rebels attacked a garrison in North Darfur.
Government forces backed by Janjaweed militia responded with a fierce scorched-earth campaign.
Violence has never ebbed since. An ill-equipped, cash-strapped contingent of AU observers has failed to make an impact in more than two years and a peace deal signed last May in Abuja has never really been implemented.
At a November meeting in Addis Ababa, the United Nations decided to work with the AU on two main points: reviving the political process and clinching Khartoum’s okay for a UN peacekeeping deployment.
Washington has described the Khartoum-engineered repression in Darfur as genocide and threatened sanctions, Hollywood stars such as George Clooney got involved and an international divestment campaign is gaining momentum.
The International Criminal Court is also expected to further turn up the heat on President Omar al-Bashir’s regime next week by issuing arrest warrants against some of its senior members for crimes against humanity.
But Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 coup, has consistently resisted pressure, and has warned the world that Darfur would become a graveyard for all Western troops who ventured there.
At the French-African summit in Cannes earlier this month, he gave no indication he would comply with international demands and support a UN troop presence to support the embattled African contingent.
”It is clear that the African Union troops have the peacekeeping role,” he said. ”The United Nations is there to provide logistical, financial and technical support so that the African Union can do its work.”
The UN wants to dispatch more than 2 300 peacekeepers to Darfur, paving the way for a 20 000-strong ”hybrid” force of AU and UN troops.
The May 2006 Abuja peace deal was signed under intense international pressure by the Sudanese government but with only one rebel faction. There are now at least 10 rebel groups and splinters.
But Khartoum insists that the Abuja document -‒ which specifies that peacekeeping operations should be undertaken by the AU — cannot be amended.
Yet the AU, which launched its first-ever peacekeeping operation in Darfur in April 2004, is crippled by ”dire financial difficulties”, said its Khartoum-based spokesperson Nureddin Mezni, adding that salaries had not been paid for months.
”The December and January salaries should be paid soon,” he told Agence France-Presse, stressing that incidents such as the theft of 90 AU vehicles in 30 months also contributed to the Pan-African mission’s bankruptcy.
The African force survives on a drip feed of Western funds, with the Canadians providing helicopters, the Americans offering supplies, the British paying salaries and Scandinavian financing police stations in refugee camps.
Meanwhile Arab financing has not been forthcoming. That fact was highlighted at an Arab League meeting in Khartoum a week ago when the body, whose members include oil-rich Gulf countries, admitted that only 10% of a $150-million pledge made a year ago had been paid out.
”We need to see Arab League countries that haven’t paid their contribution finally fulfill their promises,” Mezni said. ”This will help our force accomplish its task on the ground in better conditions.”
The lack of regional support for the AU force comes even as many Arab countries are opposed to the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur. – Sapa-AFP