The former commander of the failed United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda on Sunday warned the newly appointed head of a similar force in Darfur that he faced ”long odds” against success and predicted he would be betrayed by the very officials and governments meant to be backing the mission.
In an open letter Roméo Dallaire, now a Canadian senator, advised Martin Agwai, the Nigerian general given the task of stopping the bloodshed in Darfur, to demand a clear chain of command, a broad mandate, proper resources and a rapid deployment. He also cautioned him to watch his back.
”You can anticipate being let down by everyone on whom you depend for support, be that troops, funding, logistics or political engagement,” Dallaire wrote. ”Bear in mind that whoever fails you will, in the end, be the most active in blaming you for whatever goes wrong.”
The outspoken letter was delivered on a Global Day for Darfur, involving protests in 30 countries focusing attention on the crisis in the west Sudanese province where an estimated 200 000 people have been killed and 2,5-million have been forced from their homes.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday promised technical support for the mission of General Agwai, who leads the 26 000-strong joint UN and African Union force, Unamid, set up following a Security Council resolution in July. Brown told the BBC he wanted Unamid to be in Darfur before the end of the year, or earlier.
On Sunday China announced it planned to send 315 personnel to help prepare for Unamid’s arrival. African states have said they will provide the bulk of the 20 000 soldiers and 6 000 police but there is still considerable uncertainty over which countries will provide equipment and infrastructure.
Deployment of the full force is expected to run into next year.
Calling the Darfur crisis ”one of the great tragedies of our time” Brown said that if the Sudanese government failed to play its role in bringing peace to the region, and in allowing the Unamid deployment, it would face further sanctions. Peace talks with Darfur rebels are planned for late October in Tripoli. The Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, has pledged that the government will observe a ceasefire during negotiations.
The Unamid force is an experimental hybrid, and the division of responsibilities between the UN and AU is as yet vague.
Dallaire’s first piece of advice for General Agwai is that he should insist his political bosses in the UN and the AU sort out the chain of command; he will also need to ”prevent intervention from Khartoum”, predicted to try to dilute Unamid’s powers to protect civilians. ”This is a daunting mandate, and you enter into this mission facing long odds,” Dallaire said. ”The intentions of the regime in Khartoum toward an effective, impartial implementation of the Unamid mandate are deeply uncertain.”
But the retired general’s sharpest words question the political resolve of the UN and AU, which he says should be held to account for any lack of support when the new force is deployed. ”Only by shining a spotlight on those failures in every possible way can you mobilise the attention necessary to get the action you need,” is the advice he offers General Agwai.
Dallaire’s warnings are relevant given his experience in Rwanda in 1994. His calls for reinforcements to help his UN force stop the genocide there were rejected by the Security Council. He was discharged from the Canadian army in 2000 suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. He tried to take his life several times but recovered and became a prominent human rights advocate. – Guardian Unlimited Â