Darfur stalemate for UN (David Blair)

Telegraph Blogs: David Blair: 16 Nov 2006: Darfur stalemate for UN. Excerpt:

Today in Addis Ababa, the five permanent members of the Security Council and a multitude of officials and representatives of Sudan's regime have gathered for a big conference.

They are trying to agree on a "hybrid" peacekeeping force which would probably combine elements of the UN and of the African Union. Its mandate, deployment timetable and everything else are up for negotiation.

In other words, Resolution 1706 is being renegotiated at this moment. I know that plenty of UN resolutions have not been implemented. But 1706 was only passed 10 weeks ago and it's already being pulled to pieces.

British officials say they must be realistic and flexible. Sudan has vetoed a UN force. That's the reality of the situation. So everyone needs to find a formula for a peacekeeping force that's acceptable to Khartoum. We can't just walk away and leave Darfur to suffer. Fair enough.

But we always knew that Sudan would veto a UN force. So why pass the Resolution if you know it's got no chance of being implemented?

I wish David Blair would interview Col Gaddafi to find out what he thinks.

New offensive in North Darfur

Associated Press report via Times Online 20 Nov 2006:

KHARTOUM A large force of Sudanese soldiers backed by Janjawid militias is sweeping through the towns and villages of North Darfur in spite of a ceasefire, international observers and rebels in Darfur said.

At least four civilians were killed near the northern town of Birmaza yesterday, according to Youssouf Mussabal, a rebel leader in the area. Speaking by telephone from North Darfur, he said that about 200 pro-government janjawid fighters riding camels had moved into the zone, backed by mobile army units and the Sudanese air force. He added: "The janjawid are still in the town, we're worried for the population."

A United Nations official said: "The campaign is ongoing, and we are being given very limited access to investigate or treat casualties."

Sudan rejects French proposal for UN force on Chad, CAR border

Lam Akol affirmed that there was no decision regarding the deployment of international forces along the borders of the three countries, however, he said "on the basis of principal a country can refuse these forces if it affected its sovereignty". - ST 20 Nov 2006.

UN Sudan Bulletin 19 Nov 2006

Excerpt from report by UN Country Team in Sudan:

Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol told reporters on 18 November that Sudan "did not agree to the deployment of hybrid UN-AU forces in Darfur" during Thursday's consultation in Addis Ababa. Local media say that Akol claimed Sudan agreed only to a UN "hybrid operation". Local Akol said Sudan had rejected proposals for combined AU-UN command as well as the proposed number of troops. According to Akol, the outcome of the meeting was that UN Resolution 1706 "has been overtaken".

One of the leaders of the NRF, Ahmed Ibrahim Direij said in a press statement issued in Cairo on 18 November that talks between GNU and DPA non-signatories will be held in Asmara on 30 November.

According to local media, the Government of Sudan signed an addendum to the DPA with a SLM faction led by Commander Abo Al Qassim Imam. Reportedly, a signing ceremony was held in Tripoli on 18 November, attended by AU representative Nour Al Din Al Mezni, Mustafa Tirab of the SLM, Professor Abdel Rahman Musa of SLM Free Will and Dr Majzoub Al Khalifa reporting to the Government.

On 18 November, President Al-Bashir held meetings with FVP Kiir and the GoSS Cabinet in Juba. He stressed the need for better co-ordination on security issues, oil production and investment, in the South. He noted that GoSS should attract more foreign investment and meet development needs of the South. On the Abyei issue, the President commented that the NCP-SPLM Joint Leadership Committee is discussing the matter and it should be resolved on the basis of the relevant CPA protocol.

On 17 November, WFP welcomed a US government contribution of $90.5 million for people in Sudan. The pledge brings total American contributions for Sudan in 2006 to $400 million.

US envoy meets rebel leader Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nur in Paris, urges Darfur SLM reunification

US President special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, Saturday 18 November, held a meeting with Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nur in Paris. He urged the rebel leader to work seriously for the reunification of the SLM factions, Sudan Tribune reported (Paris 19 Nov 2006). Excerpt:

The US official informed the rebel leader of the UN-AU meeting in Addis Ababa and its conclusion. He expected that the coming peace negotiations to be held in one of three towns: Abuja, Dakar or Johannesburg.

According to UN-AU meeting held in Addis Ababa on Thursday 16 November, the mediation of the coming Darfur peace talks should be under AU and UN leadership.

Al-Nur who is in European tour visiting several capitals to explain his position on the future peace talks with the Sudanese government.

Al-Nur met in Paris with French officials at the Foreign Ministry where he explained his vision for the peace negotiations. He expected more dynamic role for the French authorities in the coming talks.

Al-Nur's SLM/A is the most important rebel group that opposed the Darfur peace agreement. In last June the group refused to join the newly formed the National redemption Front.

Al-Nur experienced serious post-DPA internal opposition and his SLM/A faction lost many supporters from ethnic groups other than the Fur, negating his faction's claim to represent all Darfuri people.

Internal dissent reached such levels that Al-Nur's commanders replaced him on 31 July and appointed Ahmed Abdelshafi Bassey as the new political leader of Al-Nur's faction. They requested him to convene a new SLM/A-wide leadership conference.

West's oil greed behind UN Darfur push - Gaddafi

Routinely dismissed by Western commentators, Gaddafi's opinions are listened to in Africa because his advocacy of African unity, funding of African development projects and his oil wealth give Libya influence throughout the continent. - Reuters (Salah Sarrar) 20 Nov 2006.

Gadhafi: UN Darfur force is ruse to grab Sudan's oil

Via CNN.com - Gadhafi: U.N. Darfur force is ruse to grab Sudan's oil - excerpt:

TRIPOLI, Libya (Reuters) -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi Sunday accused the West of trying to grab Sudan's oil wealth with its plan to send U.N. troops to Darfur and urged Khartoum to reject them.

"Western countries and America are not busying themselves out of sympathy for the Sudanese people or for Africa but for oil and for the return of colonialism to the African continent," he said.

The comments by Gadhafi, a mediator in several African wars including Darfur, echo Sudanese government criticisms of a proposed U.N. deployment as a Western attempt at colonization.

"Reject any foreign intervention," he told a meeting of Sudanese officials and members of a Darfur rebel faction.

"To be occupied by the Sudanese army is better than to be occupied by U.N. forces, and the biggest disaster is if the Atlantic army came and positioned itself in Sudan," he said, referring to Western troops.

Gadhafi was speaking at a ceremony attended by Sudanese government officials and a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) rebels to celebrate their signing in Tripoli on Saturday of an agreement aimed at bringing peace to Darfur.

Routinely dismissed by Western commentators, Gadhafi's opinions are listened to in Africa because his advocacy of African unity, funding of African development projects and his oil wealth give Libya influence throughout the continent.

Gadhafi is a longstanding opponent of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which he has dismissed as a dispenser of victors' and colonizers' justice.

Gadhafi accused the West of wanting to defeat his plan to construct a single African federal government in a so-called United States of Africa to maintain its economic dominance.

"The West exploits tribalism, sectarianism and [skin] color to feed war, which leads to backwardness and Western intervention in a number of countries," he said on Sunday.

"All the conflicts in Africa are caused by colonialism, which does not want the rise of the United States of Africa and works for division and interference and for military coups."

Sudan 'begins new Darfur attacks' - BBC

The AU said in a statement that Birmaza, a much fought over village in Darfur, had been subject to ground and aerial assault. - BBC

Nov 18 2006 (Khartoum) Yesterday, Sudanese-backed militias and Sudanese warplanes were alleged to have staged fresh attacks in neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic, effectively widening the war even as high-level meetings were under way in Addis Ababa aimed at deploying capable peacekeepers into the region. - ST

Darfur: The Arabs Are Victims, Too (Julie Flint)

Julie Flint's latest commentary - The Arabs Are Victims, Too - washingtonpost.com - excerpt:

The incurious reporting that has reduced the war to a simple morality tale, an African "Lord of the Rings," equates Janjaweed with Arab, and especially Abbala. But only a minority of Darfur's 300,000 or so Abbala have joined the 20,000 to 30,000 Janjaweed. Most have refused to contribute soldiers, well aware that good relations with their non-Arab neighbors are more important than an alliance with an uncaring government hundreds of miles away.

Yet they have been collectively stigmatized for the crimes of the Janjaweed and their suffering has been ignored. Few journalists have written about them, or listened to them -- myself included.

We know next to nothing about the situation of the nomads despite the gravity -- and the consistency -- of their claims: that since the war began, 40 percent of their herds have been lost and 20 percent of their people have died because of rebel ambushes, massacres and sickness. Most of what we do know comes from the people fighting them.

[via CFD with thanks]

Addis Ababa meeting on Darfur "significant, successful" step - Moussa

Kuwait News Agency 19 Nov 2006 says Addis Ababa meeting on Darfur "significant, successful" step - Moussa:

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa has Saturday described the recent meeting in Addis Ababa on Darfur as "a significant and successful step" towards reaching an acceptable settlement.

Moussa told reporters that the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan had presented a significant work paper and proposals whose framework had been agreed upon.

He added that it had been agreed on the deployment of a joint African Union (AU) and United Nations force in the war-torn region of Darfur.

He said that a consensus had been reached stressing the importance of supporting the AU force (AMIS) and the need to put all the technical and financial resources at their disposal.

Moussa pointed to two obstacles in this regard pertaining to the number and the nature of the troops command and means of controlling the force, praising the government's good intention in this respect.

The war in Darfur erupted in February 2003 when rebels from minority tribes took up arms to demand an equal share of national resources, prompting a heavy-handed crackdown from the government forces and a proxy militia called the Janjaweed.

The conflict left 200,000 people dead and displaced 2.5 million more, according to UN figures. Some sources give much higher figures. (end) mfm.ez.

Sudanese media downplays UN-AU meeting on Darfur - BBC

BBC Monitoring via ST 18 Nov 2006 - excerpt:

President Bashir's speech at the end of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) summit in Djibouti presented the Sudanese state media with a dilemma: how to present the president as a man committed to peace in Darfur when he remains vocal in opposing new UN initiatives to end the crisis. A 16 November report by the Suna web site cited President Bashir urging the international community to "support the African Union to complete its mission in Darfur and give a model for solving conflicts through the regional organizations". However, the same report has the president rejecting UN Security Council Resolution No 1706 saying it "poses [a] great obstacle before the peace process and violation to the country’s sovereignty". The president contradicts himself further in the same story when he says that his government was "working in close cooperation" with the UN and AU to "develop the plan of implementation of the support package proposed by UN to the African Union".

- - -

Nov 17 2006 ST report - Darfur peace mediation to be under UN-AU leadership:

The joint UN AU meeting held last Thursday in headquarter of the African body here agreed to maintain the Darfur peace talks under the African Union, and on the basis of May peace agreement.

The UN – AU meeting stressed in its conclusions that the Darfur Peace Agreement inked between Khartoum and SLM- Minawi on 5 Mai is the only basis for the expected peace talks. It also clearly indicated that the mediation should be under AU and UN leadership.

Sudan denies agreeing to mixed force in Darfur

"We did not agree to the deployment of hybrid United Nations-African Union forces in Darfur, as was declared by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan after the Addis Ababa consultative meeting," Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol told reporters Saturday.

"We agreed that the AU forces carry on with their mission and receive support from UN technical units," Akol said. "We also rejected a proposal for a combined AU-UN command, as well as the proposed number of troops."

Full story by AFP via ST 18 Nov 2006.

TEXT- Conclusions of UN-AU meeting on Darfur crisis

TEXT treats three points (1) to fix the rules of the expected Darfur peace talks (2) to strengthen the ceasefire (3) to deploy a peacekeeping force in Darfur. - via ST 18 Nov 2006.

A hollow 'breakthrough' (David Blair)

The new agreement signed in Addis Ababa for a Darfur peacekeeping force has been hailed as a "breakthrough" by Tony Blair, among others. I fear it is nothing of the sort. The full text of this deal is very illuminating.

Read more at Telegraph Blogs: David Blair: November 2006: A hollow 'breakthrough'

NGO's and UN's Egeland blocked in Darfur by government

Nov 17 2006 Reuters report via ST - excerpt:

Witnesses said the eight camps around el-Geneina town have been infiltrated by armed men terrorising residents who fled their homes three years ago to seek refuge from violence.

"There are NGOs here who have half their staff sitting in Khartoum ... they have no travel permit, they do not get a visa, they have to spend more of their time doing paperwork than helping the people," he [UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland] said.

"The Sudanese should help us help their people, not prevent us helping their people," he said.

Note, the report reminds us there are an estimated 2.5 million refugees in camps in Darfur and across the border in Chad.

Welthungerhilfe pulling staff out of Darfur

Nov 18 2006 via The Daily Star - Agencies report - excerpt:

The German relief organization Welthungerhilfe said on Friday it was pulling its staff out of Sudan's Darfur region for safety reasons as fighting flared along the country's border with Chad.

Eighteen aid workers have been running a feeding scheme for 300,000 refugees in Birmaza near the border. "Renewed cross-border fighting is threatening to destabilize the whole region," Joerg Heinrich, the organization's project leader for Sudan, said. "We can no longer leave our colleagues in this danger."

Sudan's UN ambassador: "There will be no UN peacekeepers in Darfur"

Nov 17 2006 AFP report Questions emerge about Sudan's stance on mixed Darfur force - excerpt:

Questions have emerged about UN chief Kofi Annan's announcement that Sudan had accepted in principle a hybrid African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission for its troubled Darfur region.

The late Thursday announcement here took many by surprise as Khartoum has repeatedly and vehemently rejected any UN role in Darfur and insisted that only the current AU force can operate there.

Diplomats and observers who attended the Annan-led talks that led to the apparent compromise said Khartoum's stance was not entirely clear, as Sudanese officials repeated that no UN peacekeepers would be allowed on the ground.

One diplomat said Sudan had succeeded in preventing the world body from playing a significant role by agreeing to UN logistical and technical support for the AU mission known as AMIS but ruling out all but African personnel.

"It was a victory for Sudan, which has won a commitment that the command of the peacekeeping force will never be with the UN," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "Sudan remains in a position of force."

"For the moment, there is no guarantee of any major progress, except that everyone, even the Chinese and the South Africans, support it," the diplomat said, referring to the "hybrid" force concept promoted by Annan.

"The whole question is what the Sudanese want: either they want peace and should accept this since we're no longer talking about a UN operation or they are stalling, hoping AMIS will leave and give them a military option," he said.

The compromise proposal is to be presented soon to the UN Security Council and will also be discussed at a summit of leaders from the 15 members of the AU Peace and Security Council set for November 24 in Congo-Brazzaville.

The three-phase plan aims to boost the cash-strapped and undermanned AMIS with major UN support while the third phase envisions merging the force with a UN mission that will be predominantly African, according to the agreement.

In his announcement, Annan made clear that Khartoum had agreed only "in principle" to phase three, "pending clarification of the size of the force."

Sudanese officials firmly insist that no UN peacekeepers will be deployed in Darfur, where some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced in three years of fighting between local rebels and government-backed militia.

"The whole approach is to support AMIS with logistic support," said Sudan's UN ambassador Abdulmahmoud Abduhaleem. "The UN is saying they want to deploy 17,000 troops, we say it should be less, and only African troops under an African command.

"There will be no UN peacekeepers in Darfur," he said.

One international observer who was at Thursday's meeting in Addis Ababa said the Sudanese would likely take a great deal of time in determining an acceptable force level, possibly waiting for Annan's year-end departure.

"The Sudanese have no interest in conceding knowing that Kofi Annan is about to leave," the observer said on condition of anonymity. "They are playing for show."

Still, AU Peace and Security Council commissioner Said Djinnit said the African Union was pleased that a potential solution to its mission's funding and manpower woes had been reached.

"All the parties fell into agreement on the compromise formula, except for Sudan on certain points," he said.

"Through this plan we will now be able to ensure lasting and appropriate financing for AMIS without which it would not have been able to work if we waited much longer," Djinnit said. "The credibility of Africa goes from there."

Sudan accepts UN 'help' in Darfur but no talk about a mixed force or UN taking command

Nov 17 2006 BBC report - excerpt:

Sudan says it welcomes the United Nations' support for the African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur but denies the UN will take command.

On Thursday, UN chief Kofi Annan had said a compromise had been reached for a hybrid UN-AU force, to break the deadlock over the Darfur mission.

President Omar al-Bashir told state TV: "The government of Sudan welcomes all financial, material, logistic or technical assistance from the UN in order to strengthen the AU mission in Darfur."

His Foreign Minister Lam Akol specified that "there should be no talk about a mixed force".

He told the BBC there would be no UN troops.

Following a meeting on Darfur in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Mr Annan had said: "The troops should be sourced from Africa as far as possible and the command and control structure would be provided by the UN."

UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland has cut short his trip to Darfur after Sudan's government told him it would be too dangerous for him to travel outside the region's major towns.

A further possible area of disagreement on the peacekeeping mission is the size of the new force.

The UN also wants a force of 17,000 troops, while Sudan says 12,000 would be enough.

There are currently some 7,000 AU troops in Darfur.

Note, 12,000 AU peacekeepers were always on the cards for next year.

A man holds a bow and machete

Photo and caption from Sudan Tribune article 17 Nov 2006 Darfur refugees in Chad risk water shortages.



A man holds a bow and a machete for defence after fleeing the conflict in the east, near Goz-Beida, on the border with Sudan.

Darfur to be "invaders' graveyard" - Sudan defence minister

Xinhua report via ST 17 Nov 2006 - excerpt:

While addressing officers and soldiers of the western military area in Niyala, south Darfur, Sudanese Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein said that "Darfur will be the invaders' graveyard if the (United Nations) Security Council thinks about implementing Resolution 1706," the official SUNA news agency reported.

The defense minister stressed the capability of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to impose the security and defend the nation and its citizens, adding that the slogan of the SAF in Darfur was to "wipe out the rebellion and spread the dignity of the country".

He said that Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir was confident of the command of the SAF and its ability to carry out its duties without making pretexts for foreign interference.

The Sudanese defense minister made the remarks on the same day that the African Union (AU) and the UN were holding a joint meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to reconsider the best way of terminating the bloody conflicts in Darfur.