Names obstructionists in the Darfur tragedy

...Not content simply to allow Khartoum's génocidaires to accomplish their ghastly task, the African Union, the Arab League, the Non-Aligned Movement, key Security Council members China and Russia, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference have all offered the National Islamic Front regime essential diplomatic and political support—now in the face of formal charges of genocide by the International Criminal Court (July 14, 2008...

...But the NIF regime seized on this language to block troop, police, and engineering contributions from a range of countries outside Africa...

...and the trademark features of the Janjaweed (travel by horseback, wearing khaki similar to that of Khartoum's regular military forces...

...Logistical, engineering, and equipment bottlenecks ensured that fewer than 10,000 of the 26,000 authorized military personnel and civilian police were deployed by August 2008...

...Food rations were cut nearly in half in May and have yet to be restored because UN World Food Program convoys are so regularly attacked by a wide range of combatants, including the Janjaweed and other regime-backed elements...

...But a year after being authorized, UNAMID itself is little more than a "re-hatted" AM IS...

...And yet again, this extraordinary assault on blue-helmeted peacekeepers received only verbal censure, and little of this took account of the evidence of responsibility provided by Guehenno in his briefing...

...And yet humanitarian organizations, both UN agencies and international NGOs, face conditions that have left them on the brink of withdrawal...

...The Parliament of the European Union, for example, voted 566 to 6 in September 2004 to declare what was happening in Darfur to be "tantamount to genocide," a phrase that managed to invoke the "g-word" without quite saying it...

...Indeed, China continues to provide military equipment that facilitates ethnically targeted destruction, as well as the critical commercial and capital investment that underwrites a booming economy in Khartoum and a small surrounding portion of the Nile River valley...

...Even the African Union (all those killed and wounded were African) could only condemn the attack in the most general of terms...

...22 n DISSENT / Fall 2008 some have been significant...

...Infighting among the groups, as well as rebel attacks on humanitarian personnel and convoys, have helped to create a maelstrom of violence in which UNAMID troops and civilian police— again, fewer than 10,000 in early August 2008—can barely protect themselves, let alone civilians...

...The regime put unreasonable conditions on the construction of helicopter maintenance hangars, making deployment of these aircraft even more unlikely...

...Gadio's prescription was as apt, then and now, as it was politically unpalatable: The UN Security Council, the European Union, the African Union, the United States—we should all come together in a new way of dealing with the suffering of the people of Darfur . . . . We have to do something...

...And yet France, while contributing nothing of note to the political resolution of the Darfur crisis, has been outspoken on the significance of the ICC indictment, apparently disinclined to suspend further ICC actions (Article 16 of the Rome Statute gives the Security Council the power to suspend ICC investigations and prosecutions in the interest of "international peace and security...

...The longest, best reported, most unctuously protested genocide of the past century continues unabated...

...Western democracies have long known that genocide and massive crimes against humanity were occurring in Darfur, but have not wished to incur obligations under Article 1 of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide...

...As a result, the voices in Africa speaking out against ongoing genocide in Darfur are far too few, a fact not lost on the NIF leadership...

...monetary sanctions—would bring unsustainable pressure to bear on the Khartoum-dominated economy...

...This reflects a persistent refusal on the part of the AU to condemn the leadership of any African country—a version of the phenomenon that insulates the brutal Robert Mugabe from meaningful censure or pressure...

...AMIS had no meaningful civilian protection mandate, was ineffective in all ways, and was widely despised by Darfuris as siding with the Khartoum regime...

...But militarily capable nations have also been scandalously laggard or tightfisted in providing the key equipment needed to bolster UNAMID, which increased by only about five hundred personnel during its first six months following the official takeover from AMIS (January 1, 2008...

...moral and diplomatic capital have been dramatically depleted by the Iraq War...

...Such chaos is genocidal counterinsurgency on the cheap, and explains not only Khartoum's obstruction of UNAMID but its war of attrition against humanitarian operations...

...Lack of political and military unity among rebel groups provides Khartoum a ready-made excuse for not engaging in substantive talks to fashion a cease-fire and restart a moribund peace process...

...AMIS merely recorded attacks on ciDISSENT / Fall 2008 n 23 POLITICS ABROAD vilians, doing nothing to stop them...

...Obstruction has been made easier by the fractious nature of the Darfur rebels, most of whom can lay little claim to representing the wishes or aspirations of people trapped in the camps or living in terror in rural areas...

...Additionally, the rains make many roads impassable, as dry river beds (wadis) become raging torrents and block all overland transport...

...France, for example, has a significant industrial and commercial presence in Sudan, and oil giant TotalFinaElf controls the largest and perhaps most lucrative oil concession in southern Sudan...

...Water tables are also running dangerously low in several large camps, and there is extreme concern over supplies of potable water during the rainy season, which creates a sea of mud and standing water that provide perfect conditions for diarrheal diseases, malaria, and other health risks...

...UN and NGO officials fear large-scale human destruction...

...Crucially, none of the eighteen transport and six tactical helicopters required had been offered...

...A year ago Guehenno asked a question that answered itself: Do we move ahead with the deployment of a force that will not make a difference, that will not have the capability to defend itself and that carries the risk of humiliation of the Security Council and the United Nations and tragic failure for the people of Darfur...

...The United Kingdom, another veto-wielding member of the Security Council, has for years contented itself with robust rhetoric and no real efforts to confront Khartoum...

...The ICC indictment of al-Bashir for genocide— which follows earlier indictments of a lower-level government official and a leader of the Arab militias (the Janjaweed)—should provide potent diplomatic leverage, given Khartoum's obvious fear of the Court...

...Given European and Canadian support for the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), there has been an awkward discomfort with the unambiguous indictments brought by Argentine prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, who found in the course of a threeyear investigation strong evidence that Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad alPOLITICS ABROAD Bashir "bears criminal responsibility for the crime of genocide under Article 6(a) of the Rome Statute...

...Moreover, once on the ground, UNAMID was subject to a range of bureaucratic impediments, restrictions of movement, denial of required land and water for deploying forces, and the impounding of arriving equipment in Port Sudan (two weeks away by overland transport from Darfur...

...If Darfuris turn against UNAMID, or if the mission starts to contract rather than expand its capabilities, failure is inevitable...

...Three times as many airframes are required for the continuous operation of twentyfour helicopters in the extremely harsh environment of Darfur...

...0 VER A YEAR ago the international community congratulated itself on the UN Security Council's unanimous passage of Resolution 1769 (July 31, 2007...

...There is deep concern on the part of senior NIF officials that the indictments diminish the legitimacy of the regime and that the fate of Radovan Karadzic may yet await them...

...the sophistication of the weapons (which were not in the arsenal of any rebel group...

...And now the UN/AU force, despite its unambiguous mandate, is doing almost nothing to protect Darfuris and humanitarian aid workers...

...THE EXTENT to which Khartoum is willing to go in sustaining the genocidal status quo was particularly evident in a July 8, 2008, attack on a convoy of more than sixty UNAMID troops, civilian police, and military 24 n DISSENT / Fall 2008 POLITICS ABROAD observers returning from an investigation of violence against civilians in North Darfur...

...UNAMID faces a range of obstacles, including its unprecedented "hybrid" nature, a command-and-control disaster in the view of military experts and officials at the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (the international community foolishly yielded to Khartoum's well-calculated demand for a "hybrid" force...

...Conditions in camps housing some 2.5 million displaced persons are grim...

...And the list goes on and on...

...He posed this question again before retiring at the end of July, and again it answered itself...

...But the UN, the AU, the EU, and the United States have done nothing of consequence by way of accepting the so-called "responsibility to protect" its civilians from crimes committed by their own government...

...The United States, which under the Bush administration has been vehemently opposed to the ICC, may be most inclined to consider Article 16 as a point of leverage, no doubt because the United States has no further economic means of pressuring Khartoum, and because U.S...

...There has been a huge increase in areas that are now inaccessible, and NGOs estimated privately in early summer that they had access to only about 40 percent of this highly distressed population...

...But absent unified and urgent action, nowhere in evidence at this writing in late summer, it is unlikely that any Article 16 suspension will be fashioned to extract significant and verifiable concessions from the NIF regime...

...Khartoum predictably refuses to provide the needed escorts for convoys making their way from neighboring Kordofan Province to Darfur, or within Darfur itself...

...Other countries either withdrew their offers or did not make them for fear of offending Khartoum...

...DISSENT / Fall 2008 • 25...

...Seven UN peacekeepers were killed, twenty-two injured (some critically...

...UNAMID was authorized to deploy as a force "predominantly," not exclusively, African in character...

...Shamed by an international "genocide Olympics" campaign, Beijing has made various gestures designed to show support for Darfur over the past year and a half...

...Well-trained and -equipped Thai and Nepalese battalions were refused as well...

...But neither the UK nor any other European nation has bothered even to propose such sanctions...

...But what we know is that a badly weakened civilian population is likely facing extraordinary mortality and morbidity risks this August and September...

...Reports of attacks were only sporadically released, and the mission's ability to investigate some of the worst atrocities was thoroughly compromised by Khartoum...

...Very little is reported publicly for fear of reprisal, but any close reading of news dispatches from the region confirms these grim truths...

...But there can be little doubt about the accuracy of a Human Rights Watch report on Darfur (September 2007): the various sources of violence creating such deadly insecurity for civilians and humanitarians are the result of a "Chaos by Design" strategy on Khartoum's part...

...What this means is that the already intolerable security conditions on the ground in Darfur will worsen...

...All gave clear evidence of the regime's calculated deployment of its militia proxy force...

...The now-retired head of UN peacekeeping, JeanMarie Guehenno, made clear in one of his last reports to the Security Council that this attack was orchestrated by Khartoum...

...Latin America and most of Asia have either ignored Darfur or, in the case of Islamic Pakistan, openly supported Khartoum...

...More than 4.3 million civilians are defined by the UN as "conflictaffected" and in need of humanitarian assistance...

...In dozens of conversations with aid workers, I find familiar accounts of brutal harassment, intimidation, denial of travel permits, visas, and exit visas—even physical assault...

...Moreover, as military experts point out, these figures massively understate the required number of helicopters, since repair time is so very great for these demanding aircraft...

...But the leverage provided by China's hosting of the Games ended in August, and there can be little doubt that Beijing will resume business as usual with Khartoum...

...indeed, so poor is the provision of equipment that often converted AMIS soldiers have simply spray-painted their AU green helmets "UN blue...

...In July 2005, Senegalese foreign minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio was almost alone in declaring, during a state visit by U.S...

...A highly trained Swedish/Norwegian engineering battalion was refused entry, thereby denying UNAMID critically needed skills and resources...

...As international and regional dithering substitute for meaningful action and resolve, we move closer than ever to the moment in which any peacekeeping operation in Darfur becomes completely untenable...

...Some of this discomfort derives from large business interests in Sudan...

...Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: Those militias [the Janjaweed], they're still very active . . . killing people, burning villages, raping women . . . . We are totally dissatisfied with the fact that the African Union . . . has asked the international community to allow it to be an African solution to an African problem— and unfortunately the logistics from our own governments did not follow...

...He pointed to the very carefully planned nature of the attack, in an area controlled by the regime...

...Amid this international lack of resolve, the critical north/ south peace agreement of January 2005 almost completely unraveled in June...

...But the real problem has been Khartoum's relentlessly effective and unopposed campaign of obstructionism...

...More than 200,000 civilians have been newly displaced by violence and the threat of violence this year...

...Hundreds of thousands more may die by the time the seventh year of the Darfur genocide begins in a few months...

...The resolution authorized the "UN/African Union ['hybrid'] Mission in Darfur" (UNAMID), which was supposed to take over from a weak, demoralized, understaffed, and underequipped African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS...

...ERIC REEVES is author of A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide...

...The force is daily losing the confidence of the very people it must persuade that UNAMID is a different and more effective operation...

...Whitehall knows, for example, that targeted European monetary sanctions—on the model of U.S...

...If UN peacekeepers are withdrawn from Darfur, if the peacekeeping mission fails, then humanitarian workers will have to evacuate or hunker down in a very few localities (in a region the size of France...