New Border Intelligence Forces? - Sudan gov't says Janjaweed are border guards

Are Janjaweed now wearing the dark green uniforms of Sudanese government troops? Dec 14 2006 Reuters report Darfur: Gov't Says Janjaweed Are Border Guards - excerpt:

Pekka Haavisto, the European Union special envoy to Sudan, said he complained about the Janjaweed activities in El Fasher to the government on Thursday.

"The government response was: they are not Janjaweed, we are not calling them Janjaweed, because they are government border guards," he said.

"And my response was that if you recognize (them) as being part of the government, you have even more responsibility for their behavior."

There was no comment from the government, but state-run media has referred to one of the groups involved in the clashes as the "Border Intelligence Forces."

Darfur: France unready to support no-fly zone

Dec 14 2006 Kuna news report (via CFD) France Unready to Support No-Fly Zone - excerpt:

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei remarked that his government had learned of the proposal through the press and that France was not approached by Britain on this subject.

U.S. envoy to fly from Sudan to Brussels after getting OK for forerunners of Darfur force

Dec 14 2006 AP report via International Herald Tribune - excerpt:

[US special envoy to Sudan] Andrew Natsios scrubbed planned visits to Chad, the country just west of Darfur where violence has migrated back and forth from Sudan, and London after he met for two hours with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Wednesday at the end of a four-day visit to Sudan.

During the discussions, al-Bashir told Natsios for the first time that Sudan would provide visas for UN logistical experts to join the 7,000 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, McCormack said.

"The Sudanese have previously agreed to these individuals coming in as part of the first step in the deployment of a force, but they had not yet issued the visas for them to come in," McCormack said. "That hurdle had been cleared."

Ali Karti, the Sudanese state minister for foreign affairs, said in Khartoum that al-Bashir had agreed to "technical assistance" for the AU troops.

The U.N. mission in Sudan said it was ready to send 105 military advisers, 33 police officers and 48 civilian staff.

An African Union spokesman, Noureddine Mezni, said the overextended and insufficiently armed AU troops need help urgently, "both financially and in personnel."

McCormack said Natsios would arrive in Brussels on Friday and would meet with technical experts from the European Union as well as Solana and de Hoop Scheffer.

UK Blair tells US Bush they have to deal with Bashir in next 2-3 months

Dec 12 2006 Financial Times Blair backs no-fly zone over Darfur - excerpt:

Mr Blair declared his support for a no-fly zone for the first time during his visit last week to Washington. He told President George W Bush that they had to deal with Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, in the next two to three months.

"If rapid progress is not made, we will need to consider alternative approaches, with international partners," Mr Blair warned on returning to London.

Planning has moved ahead, according to one official, who added: "The Americans mean business."

Bet Khartoum thinks UK is bluffing. Doubt it's now a bluff. Lately, Khartoum's sounding too cocky. When's Bashir retiring?

Sudan despises threats of no-fly zone over Darfur by U.S.,Britain

Dec 15 2006 China's Xinhua - news report excerpt:

Financial Times reported on Wednesday that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had backed setting up a no-fly zone over Darfur while U.S. military planners were also developing plans for air strikes and a naval blockade to pressure Khartoum to stop the violence.

Sudanese Envoy to UK Dismisses "No Fly Zone Over Darfur Reports"

BBC Monitoring report via RedOrbit - Text of report by Sudanese radio on 14 December:

The media adviser for Sudanese embassy in London, Mr Sadiq Bakhit, has dismissed media reports which said that the USA and Britain were planning to impose [designate] no fly zone over Darfur airspace if Sudanese government does not accept deployment of UN troops in the region.

In an interview with the Radio Omdurman he said these media reports were denied by both the British and US governments, and up to now it is a mere media leakage.

Bakhit said there were several foreign organizations targeting Sudan, and providing baseless propaganda to Western media outlets, which level false allegations and accusation against Sudan, particularly on issues concerning humanitarian affairs in Darfur.

(c) 2006 BBC Monitoring Middle East. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Source: BBC Monitoring Middle East

Daily Kos links on Darfur

See Dec 14 2006 Daily Kos Background and Resources: Genocide in Darfur (Just the facts baby).

Plan B for Darfur - Neglected Abbala nomad group in N Darfur

Dec 11 2006 Reuters AlertNet - Plan B for Darfur (Nina Brenjo):

Flint argues that the Arab camel nomad group called Abbala in northern Darfur have been consistently neglected as a community and it's no wonder it's so easy to recruit them into the ranks of the janjaweed. They need the job in order to survive, and this one comes with a monthly wage. Instead, Flint argues, woo them with development projects and livelihood strategies.

Perhaps same could be said of all the outlaws and bandits roaming Sudan. How to quell anarchy?

Sudanese Knights: Aid worker in Sudan

Sudanese Knights' blog entry (claims to be authored by an aid worker in Sudan) entitled Who's calling who a janjaweed? (hat tip Global Voices - Sudan: Janjaweed identity) - excerpt:

Many of those who have moved into the IDP camps go back to their fields in the daytime, on donkeys (they only have donkeys and goats now as their horses and camels have been rustled by janjaweed). At night they return to the safety of the camps. Last week I was out in the villages trying to organise training sessions with the few people who have stayed in the villages, but most people were too busy and worried about bringing in the harvest quickly before the cattle came to eat the crops. I saw fields being eaten up by herds of cows, the remaining wheat stalks still standing taller than the cattle as they munched their way through. Later I saw a group of men in dark green uniforms, (hell, let's be rash and just call them janjaweed), relaxing in the long grass with their guns propped up next to them, as their camels had a good square meal in somebody else's field.

Why be rash and call them janjaweed? See Werner's blog entry from Darfur on Answers to Questions and this excerpt:

Question: How can you tell who is a janjaweed and who is a government soldier?

Answer: Usually the GoS wear distinctive green camouflage uniforms and the Janjaweed do not. Otherwise I would not be able to tell the difference.

Ban Ki-Moon urges UN to work with AU and Sudan govt to tackle Darfur crisis

Dec 14 2006 Ban Ki-Moon Calls Darfur Tragedy "Unacceptable":

During his swearing ceremony as the eighth U.N. secretary-general, Ban called the suffering of people in Darfur "simply unacceptable," but reiterated that there was "no military solution to the crisis," and instead urged the U.N. to work closely with the African Union and the Sudan government to tackle the crisis.

Sudan dismisses Blair threats, welcomes UN mission

Note a 'UN sanctioned' Plan B. SudanTribune article : Sudan dismisses Blair threats, welcomes UN mission - excerpt:

A spokesman for the British prime minister, citing comments made by Blair last week, said on Wednesday Britain would agree to a no-fly zone over the war-ravaged region as part of a United Nations-sanctioned "Plan B" to halt the violence there.

"Statements like this ... do not enhance peace," said Al-Samani al-Wasiyla, the Sudanese state minister for foreign relations. "They prolong the crisis," he told Reuters.

"We do not deal with media statements ... and we do not need threats to deal with the international community," he said.

Sudan gov't minister says 'a million soldiers' could not pacify region

Dec 14 2006 AFP report (via CFD) excerpt:

"Even if you sent a million soldiers to Darfur, that would not solve the problem," Sudan's minister for international cooperation, Al Tigani Salih Fedail, told journalists Thursday.

"That's not the issue. You only have to look at the examples of Afghanistan and Iraq," he said.

"The problem is political. We have to totally respect the agreement and stop those who seek to sabotage it," the minister said.

"Without the implementation of the (peace) agreement, it is very difficult to disarm people," he said.

The minister was in Geneva for the launch of the UN Work Plan for Sudan for 2007, which is targeting 1.8 billion dollars (1.4 billion euros) to fund humanitarian, recovery and development projects in the country.

This represents nearly half of the total 3.7 billion dollars requested by the Secretary General for humanitarian assistance worldwide in 2007, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

Sudan's Darfur death toll 134,000 not 400,000? Death estimates for Darfur inaccurate - US study

Cartoon by Gerald Scarfe courtesy The Sunday Times 10 Dec 2006 (hat tip The Sudanese Thinker originally via Sudan Fairytale)

Death estimates for Darfur inaccurate - US study

Reuters report here below leads us to believe about 134 000 people died in Darfur and eastern Chad from September 2003 to January 2005. It does not say if the deaths were due to disease, lack of food, etc.

The population of Darfur is estimated at around 6.5 million. Darfur is the size of France. Nomads cross borders unchecked. Sudan is the size of Europe.

One wonders if the IDPs are better off in UN camps. Without security, money, land and rights, who would want to move away? Maybe the camps will develop into towns.

Not found any more news of NRC. Can't help wondering who is running Kalma camp, home of 93,000 IDPs.

Dec 12 2006 Reuters report (via Business Day) - excerpt:

Death toll statistics in Darfur vary widely, ranging from 70 000 to about the 400 000 estimated by the group Coalition for International Justice over a 26-month period.

The GAO report had most confidence in Belgium-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, which said about 134 000 people died in Darfur and eastern Chad from September 2003 to January 2005.

The State Department did not provide any updated death tolls for Darfur but US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last September "hundreds of thousands of men, women and children have been murdered" in the conflict.

"The United States has called this tragedy by the only name that captures its meaning, the only name it deserves - genocide," said Rice in a speech to the Africa Society.

A study published last September in the journal Science also said the US State Department's Darfur death toll underestimated the count by "hundreds of thousands" of lives.

That study by Northwestern University in Illinois, which was not examined by the GAO report, put the toll at 200 000 or more.

Estimating death tolls in hostile environments is a difficult and dangerous job and the GAO said there were numerous challenges in Darfur, including lack of access.

Limitations in estimates of Darfur's population before and during the crisis may also have led to over or underestimates of the death toll, said the report.

Another problem was the varying use of baseline mortality rates - the rate of deaths that would have occurred without the crisis - may have led to overly high or low estimates.

"To safeguard the US government’s credibility as a source of reliable death estimates, GAO recommends ensuring greater transparency regarding the data and methods used for such estimates," it said.

- - -

Note Nov 29 2004 Darfur population figures: 6 million, 6.5 million, or 6-7 million

Lifeline for Darfur in Chad

Dec 13 2006 Lifeline for Darfur - Comment - Times Online

This disaster can be salvaged only by new thinking. Bosnia gave the concept of "safe havens" a bad name, but havens are desperately needed. Create them not in Sudan, but in Chad.

Chad's Government wants the UN there, not least to warn Khartoum off destabilising Chad by supporting rebel groups there.

Chad already shelters thousands of Darfur refugees and will need to find room for more, as the murderers close in on the Darfur camps.

The responsibility to do what should now be done rests with the Security Council -- it must take a clear and coherent position against mass murder -- and so the onus (and the ultimate blame) is on Russia and China.

Nicely put.

UN Pronk felt let down by Security Council and worries Sudan govt thinks now it can get away with anything

AP report (via CFD) Pronk Says Security Council Failed to Support Him - excerpt:

"I think that I didn't get sufficient support from the side of the Security Council," Mr. Pronk told the Netherlands' state broadcaster NOS on Tuesday, in his first interview since returning from Sudan.

"My worry is that the [Sudanese] government thinks now that it can get away with anything," he said.

"If they [the Sudanese government] have gotten away with decapitating a [UN] mission without consequences, they'll go further," Mr. Pronk told the NOS. "We're seeing that happen already. And I have large worries about the possibilities left for the UN in that case."

SLA command denounces Bassey's move to hold conference

Dec 11, 2006 (PARIS) SudanTribune article : SLA command denounces Bassey's move to hold conference.

UNDP Sudan - Tokten Vacancies

From Black Kush, a blog from Darfur:

Are you a Sudanese living abroad? Do you want to go home and serve your country?

The UNDP TOKTEN programme is the best for you. Let us turn the brain drain to brain gain. Your country needs you!

AMIS vehicle hijacked + helicopter crew taken hostage and released

From Soldier of Africa: Nightime Observation in Darfur Dec 10 2006:

Tonight an AMIS vehicle was hijacked close to our house and the night has seen a moderate volume of gunfire. It has prompted us to rehearse our emergency plan and we are constantly observing. All fire has come from the East, South-East and North East. Unconfirmed reports has it that Al Junaynah, 304km to the West, is under threat of attack. An AMIS helicopter crew who were taken hostage yesterday were also released earlier this afternoon. Things are definitely escalating ... the question is, when and where will it peak and how bad will it be.

Best of luck.

Mark Fiore cartoon: Alliance of Wimpiness

New flash cartoon by Mark Fiore: Alliance of Wimpiness.

[hat tip Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth]

2 AU staff kidnapped in Sudan's Darfur

Dec 11 2006 Reuters report - excerpt:

Armed men kidnapped two African Union military personnel in Sudan, the AU said on Monday.

"The force commander of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) is utterly dismayed at the hijacking yesterday...of an AMIS vehicle together with two military personnel by unidentified armed men," the AU said in a statement.

The AU called on the kidnappers to release the two and their vehicle immediately and unconditionally.

No more details were immediately available.