Norm Dixon
Sudan's Islamist military government has agreed to the deployment of an extra 3500 African Union (AU) troops in the devastated Darfur region, in the country's west. According to UN officials, the expanded force will not have peacekeeping powers, but will be restricted to patrolling refugee camps and other concentrations of displaced people in order to discourage attacks by state-sponsored janjaweed militia.
Khartoum unleashed the Arab-chauvinist janjaweed gangs — backed by Sudan air force bombers and helicopter gunships — when Darfur's majority non-Arabic speaking farming communities rebelled in February 2003. Since that time, up to 80,000 Darfuris have died as a consequence, and at least 1.6 million have been displaced. More than 2.2 million Darfuris remain at risk of death by disease and hunger. The janjaweed's terror tactics have included the systematic rape of Darfuri women and the mass murder of fighting-age men.
Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail announced the acceptance of the extra AU troops in an October 1 speech in New York. Ismail said his government had asked the AU to work with Khartoum's security forces in Darfur to "make sure that there is no violation of human rights, there is no killing, there is building of confidence", the October 2 New York Times reported. Ismail also assured US officials that a final peace agreement in the civil war in oil-rich southern Sudan was his government's top priority.
Radhia Achour, spokesperson for Jan Pronk, UN secretary general Kofi Annan's special representative on Sudan, welcomed the announcement as a "major step forward". "We do believe it will help a great deal in restoring the confidence between the population of Darfur and the government of Sudan and between Sudan and the international community", Achour told the October 2 New York Times.
Despite US Secretary of State Colin Powell's belated September 9 labelling of Khartoum's 20-month ethnic-cleansing campaign in Darfur as "genocide", Washington welcomed Sudan's decision and did not question the limited mandate of the AU force. In a bizarre exchange on October 6, Sudanese UN ambassador Elfatih Mohamed Erwa challenged the US to send troops to Sudan if it believed genocide was taking place. "If they want to do that, let them talk to us", Associated Press reported Erwa as saying. In response, Washington's UN ambassador, John Danworth, said: "It's a curious idea, but I don't think it has a future."
Britain's UN ambassador, Jones Perry, who took over the UN Security Council's presidency on October 8, told Associated Press on October 1: "There's an understanding... a spirit of: 'What [the Security Council wants] at the end of this is to help you guys. We're not after penalising you. We're not after sanctions. What we are after is seeing the government fulfill its responsibilities to its own people'."
On October 6, British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Khartoum waving a "carrot" in the form of a £100 million aid package. Sudanese President Omar Ahmed al Bashir assured Blair that he would allow in more AU troops, resume talks with the Darfur rebel groups and "finalise" the peace process in southern Sudan by December 31.
This confirms that, despite periodic sabre-rattling and tough talk about international sanctions, the US and British governments' approach towards Khartoum remains one of "constructive engagement" not "regime change". Washington's primary goal is to pressure Khartoum to restore "stability" in the oil-rich south, something the Darfur conflict indirectly threatens, so as to allow Washington to lift its sanctions imposed since 1997 and thus enable US corporate exploitation of Sudan's oil reserves.
However, Sudanese government attacks on Darfur's people continue. Aid agency staff reported on September 30 that 5000 new refugees arrived at the Besham refugee camp after attacks on 10 Darfur towns in that week. The World Health Organisation estimates that up to 10,000 people are dying every month in the refugee camps.
Despite this, there is little urgency in getting the larger AU force in place. UN officials told Associated Press on October 1 that the force would not be on the ground until at least November 1. The AU's Peace and Security Council will not even meet until mid-October to work out the final details of the force. If the time it took to deploy the existing force of 300 or so monitoring troops is any guide, this timetable is likely to blow out several more months.
The October 6 London Financial Times reported that the Nigerian commanding officer of the AU Mission in Sudan, Brigadier General Festus Okonkwo, put the price tag on the larger AU force at US$225 million a year. The AU cannot afford to deploy a larger force without funding from the West, as well as significant logistical assistance. So far, the US has promised just $27 million.
This should come as no surprise. Throughout the past three months, even as US and other Western powers were loudly threatening sanctions against Sudan's government if it did not cooperate with the existing AU force in Darfur, the force was all but paralysed by the failure of the West to offer sufficient support. As of October, fewer than 25 of Nigeria's 155 troops in Darfur have been deployed outside their main camp due to a lack of vehicles, uniforms and tents.
From Green Left Weekly, October 13, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.