Conflict in Darfur, Sudan - The Mega Thread

[tomahawk6]

This is an example of why peacekeepers dont go into places like Darfur unless peace has been agreed. You just end up in the middle shot at by both sides.

 

[geo]

Well, after this, guess the NDP will shut up about having Canadian troops going into a shooting war....
Wonder where they'll think of sending us next

 

[midget-boyd91]

Wonder where they'll think of sending us next

Unemployment offices?

 

[geo]

Oh ye of little faith!

 

[medaid]

It will look like another Medak if the stupids that are arguing for peacekeeping deployment to dDarfur (note to self thats DARFUR with a CAPITAL D) don't get their heads out of their donkeys...

 

[GK .Dundas]

It will look like another Medak if the stupids that are arguing for peacekeeping deployment to darfur don't get their heads out of their donkeys...

Those people you mention will either say you're exaceratting or Medak never happened at all.It's not they don't get it....they simply refuse to get it.Because that would require them to reexamine their corevalues  and that they will never do

 

[GAP]

Army-controlled Darfur town razed
Last Updated: Sunday, October 7, 2007 | 2:08 PM ET CBC News
Article Link

A Sudanese town that came under government control last week in the troubled Darfur region has been all but destroyed, the United Nations said Sunday.

Most of Haskanita has been burned down and its market looted, the UN mission in Sudan said.

The only buildings still standing are a mosque and a school, Reuters reported.

Sudanese government forces took control of the town last week after unidentified rebels attacked a nearby African Union base on Sept. 29, killing 10 peacekeepers.

A UN statement confirmed rebel reports issued Friday that the settlement had been razed but did not repeat accusations from rebels that the Sudanese army was responsible.

More than 7,000 residents of Haskanita were reported to have fled after their homes were torched. It was unclear if anyone was killed or injured.
More on link

 

[GAP]

Sudanese oil field attack threatens peace talks
Article Link

A Darfur rebel group accuses foreign oil companies of sponsoring violence and tries to force them out of Sudan.
By Arthur Bright
After launching a deadly attack on a Sudanese oil field earlier this week, a Darfur rebel group is promising to target oil fields across the country. The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), an Islamist rebel group in Darfur, hopes to drive out foreign oil companies, which the group says are funding government violence in Darfur. The raid and threat of ongoing violence may also damage peace talks scheduled to begin this Saturday in Libya.

JEM says its attack on the Defra oil field in Sudan on Tuesday is "only the beginning" of a campaign to drive foreign oil companies out of the country. The raid left 20 Sudanese soldiers dead and five oil workers were taken captive, reports Reuters.

"This is only the beginning," said Ahmed Tugud, the chief negotiator of the Justice and Equality Movement. "We will carry out attacks across Sudan and our main target will be oil fields." ... Tugud said the Defra attack was meant as a message to China, which JEM accuses of arming the Khartoum government. "All the weapons we took from the soldiers were Chinese. The Sudan government is using the oil money it gets from China to buy weapons to kill our people," Tugud said.

JEM commander Abdelaziz el-Nur Ashr told Agence France-Presse that the captives – two of whom of are foreigners – were "safe and in good condition." But he warned that the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, which operates the Defra oil field, would face further attacks if it did not leave within a week.

"We give them seven days from today (Thursday) to leave, we have the ability to stop their activities in the field," Ashr told AFP. He claimed that at least eight other nearby oil fields have already shut down fearing attacks. ... The JEM commander told AFP: "We want China, India and Malaysia to stop oil business because Khartoum is using the oil money to buy arms and kill the people in Darfur. This is our country and they must go."

The Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, AFP notes, is a consortium of largely foreign oil companies including China's CNPC, India's ONGC, and Malaysia's Petronas. The field is source of more than half of the 500,000 barrels of oil produced per day in Sudan, most of which go to China. In response to the attack, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said that China's oil workers in Sudan were safe, though he called on the Sudanese government to work to ensure that safety continues, writes Xinhua.

Meanwhile, a Sudanese military official told the Associated Press that while an attack on Defra did take place, it was not a rebel victory. "It was insignificant," he said. "From a military point of view, they have done nothing." The AP also reports that the Sudanese media described the foreign captives as a Canadian and an Iraqi, but a JEM commander gave their nationalities as Egyptian and Iraqi. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports that the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs is aware of the rebel group's claims, but could not confirm them.
More on link

 

[GAP]

Darfur mission may fail, warns UN
Article Link

The joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission to Darfur may fail unless countries can provide helicopters and lorries, a top UN official says.
Foot-dragging by Sudan over the make-up of the force could also threaten the mission, he warns.

The 26,000-strong force is aiming to bring security to the region after more than four years of conflict.

The deployment is scheduled to begin in six weeks, but could be delayed if the necessary equipment is not received.

Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of the UN peacekeeping department, told reporters the force needed six attack helicopters and 18 transport helicopters.

Ticking clock

He also expressed concern that the Sudanese government had yet to authorise the make-up of the deployment.
More on link

 

[mckee19]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060507/layton_darfur_060507/20060508/
I've done a bit of reading on this topic recently, i am wondering what you guys think about some of Laytons comments on the topic in this article IE.

"Our view is that this is exactly the kind of peacekeeping role that Canadians have always supported,'' Layton said Sunday. "Canada invented the concept of UN-led peacekeeping forces under (then diplomat Lester) Pearson'' in the 1950s.

and further down the link Dawn Black Black said that once Canada fulfils its commitment in Afghanistan in February, "we may want to look at returning to a more traditional kind of work that we could do and do very well in Darfur.''

those type of comments make me think they see our military as nothing more than humanitarian aid workers with rifles. To me the military is combat orientated and does humanitarian aid when needed, not the other way around.

 

[geo]

"bull_hockey"
To have a formula for peacekeeping, you need to have both parties interested in having peace.
The Sudanese government, the government of a sovereign country, does not want us there, else they would have asked the UN. For Canada to show up on their doorstep with a military / police force would be tantamount to an invasion - which the Sudanese gov't would be in it's rights to oppose with force.

For Canada to drop Afghanistan (where the democraticalt elected Afghan gov't invited us in) in order to go to the Sudan (where the non-democratic government certainly has not invited us in) makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

 

[tomahawk6]

Pretty sad when the nations of the EU cant come up with a dozen helos for this mission. Doesnt bode well for the success of the EU as a whole.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/15/europe/EU-GEN-EU-Chad-Darfur-Spillover.php

BRUSSELS, Belgium: The launch of a European Union peacekeeping mission to help refugees from Sudan's Darfur could be delayed unless governments come up with helicopters, the EU's top soldier said Thursday.

"What could happen if we don't get them right now is some delay in the action," said Gen. Henri Bentegeat ahead of meetings next week to fill gaps in the force. The EU mission will aim to improve security and make it easier for aid groups to do their work in refugee camps in the unstable regions where Darfur meets Chad and the Central African Republic.

An Irish general will command the force, and a large contingent is expected to come from France, which already has troops in the region under cooperation agreements with its former colonies.

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday that the first EU troops would arrive in December but most would be deployed in January — weeks later than originally hoped.

"Today we can still envisage the deployment of the force in early December, on condition of course that certain essential, crucial elements are provided," Bentegeat, chairman of the EU's military committee, told a news conference Thursday.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Failure Looms for Darfur Peacekeepers
Spiegel Online, Nov. 23
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,519330,00.html

...at the end of July, the United Nations Security Council decided  to boost the AU mission with 12,500 soldiers, 6,400 police and a mandate with teeth. UNAMID, the hybrid UN-African Union mission in Darfur, came into being; at $3.5 billion for the first year alone, the most expensive UN mission ever. Germany, too, wants to participate, and the parliament in Berlin decided to send 250 Bundeswehr soldiers to Darfur. Even the Sudanese government agreed to the mission, with the condition that the overwhelming majority of the international troops in Darfur had to come from Africa [emphasis added].

But since then, Khartoum has done everything in its power to hinder the mission. It has gotten so bad that Jean-Marie Guéhenno, UN Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, warned last week in New York that the UN mission to Darfur may be facing failure before it has even begun.

[...]

The Islamist government of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has shown extreme reluctance to allow non-African soldiers into his country. The UN, though, is insisting. There are no African units, it points out, that can do the jobs assigned to those soldiers waiting to enter Sudan: special forces from Nepal, engineers from Norway and infantry from Thailand [emphasis added].

Sudan's calculation is clear: Only a streamlined, efficient fighting force could earn enough respect in the region to put a halt to the fighting and disarm the Janjaweed. But Khartoum has no interest in seeing the war end. The African countries attached to UNAMID have already shown that they have little interest in confronting Sudan directly. The first soldiers sent -- a 22-person unit -- weren't even able to get enough fuel for their reconnaissance airplane. The mini-force hardly left Fashir, the capital of northern Darfur, and operated out of an office that suffered from frequent power outages.

[...]

...even if the UN/Africa force gets the green light from Khartoum, it is not clear that it could ever be effective. The logistical hurdles are immense. Most of the equipment for the force -- including weapons, materiel and food -- is to be shipped in to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. From there, it is a 10 day journey to Darfur, in the western part of Sudan, Africa's biggest country by area. But the biggest problem is that of supplying the troops with water...

The skepticism, in short, is everywhere. Few are willing to put much faith in a group of 26,000 soldiers asked to control a vast area full of rebels, government-sponsored troops and common criminals...

UNAMID is set to begin implementing its mandated tasks no later than the end of this year. Ongoing resistance by Khartoum, however, make that timeline unlikely. But even if the full allotment of UN and African troops are allowed to take up their positions, it is unclear that the conflict in Darfur will come to an end anytime soon.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Failure looking more likely:

Sudan Continues to Obstruct Peacekeepers, U.N. Official Charges
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/AR2007112702656.html

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 27 -- Sudan's government has imposed a series of new bureaucratic obstacles that undermine the ability of a U.N.-backed peacekeeping mission in Darfur to protect civilians and its own troops there, according to the United Nations' top peacekeeping official.

Jean-Marie Gu¿henno, the U.N. undersecretary general for peacekeeping, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that Sudan has insisted that international troops provide Sudan the authority to "temporarily disable" the mission's communications network if Sudanese forces are engaged in a military operation and to provide advance notice of all the mission's troop movements [emphasis added].

The latest Sudanese restrictions came to light just five weeks before a joint U.N./African Union mission of 26,000 peacekeepers is scheduled to formally replace a smaller African Union force in the Darfur region. The moves threatened to derail a U.S.-backed diplomatic effort at the United Nations to restore calm in one of Africa's deadliest regions.

Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations, denied that his government was dragging its feet, saying that Gu¿henno was blowing out of proportion a "small technical" dispute. The ambassador said the U.N. peacekeeping department has developed a habit of blaming Sudan for its own failure to meet its schedule for deploying a force in Darfur.

Gu¿henno said Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is backtracking from his commitments to support an international mission in Darfur, and the undersecretary appealed to the Security Council and influential African governments to persuade Khartoum to cooperate more fully. "A strategic decision on the part of the government of Sudan is necessary if we are to achieve our common goal: peace and security in Darfur," he said...

In recent weeks, Sudan has engaged in bureaucratic delays that raise concern about its commitment to the new peacekeeping mission, Gu¿henno said. Khartoum has yet to grant the mission authority to conduct night flights in Darfur or to deploy six helicopters in an airfield close to its headquarters in El Fasher. The government has impounded U.N. communications equipment in the El Fasher airport for weeks, and has yet to grant land for encampments in the towns of El Geneina and Zalingei [emphasis added]. "If the government doesn't give us the land we need immediately, we will have to hold back some units," Gu¿henno said.

Khartoum refused to authorize the participation of non-African troops whose role is vital to the mission's success, according to Gu¿henno. The new Sudanese demands, he said, "would make it impossible for the mission to operate [emphasis added]."

Gu¿henno also raised concern about new reports that two Darfurian rebel factions have threatened an advance unit of Chinese military engineers. And he faulted the U.N. membership for failing to provide the mission with trucks, as well as transport and attack helicopters [emphasis added]. "Do we move ahead with the deployment of a force that will not make a difference," Gu¿henno asked, "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?"

Haven't seen anything about this in Canadian media.  No wonder our ideologically-blinded naifs think Canada should save Darfur (rather than Afstan).

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Greymatters]

The same old game we've seen in half a dozen countries previously.  Why do they do act that way?  Because they can.  Limp-wristed UN diplomacy at its best, all carrot and no stick. 

 

[MarkOttawa]

Meanwhile, next door:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL3061884420071130

N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Chadian anti-government rebels on Friday declared a "state of war" against French and foreign military forces in an apparent warning to a European Union peacekeeping force that plans to deploy soon in eastern Chad.

French troops and aircraft are stationed in Chad under a bilateral defence accord [emphasis added]. The EU force, around half of which will be French, is preparing to deploy near the eastern border with Sudan in coming weeks to protect refugees and aid workers.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy played down the threat by the Chadian rebel group Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD). He said it would not jeopardize the EU deployment in Chad, which is mandated by the United Nations.

The UFDD said in a statement that it now "considers itself to be in a state of war against the French army, or against any other foreign forces in the national territory".

UFDD fighters have been battling government forces loyal to President Idriss Deby in eastern Chad since the weekend in fierce clashes that have shattered a month-old peace accord between Deby's government and his main rebel foes.

Both sides have said hundreds of combatants have died.

The EU force for Chad, which will also send soldiers to the northeast of the Central African Republic, is intended to try to help contain a widening conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, which has pushed armed raiders and refugees across the border.

It will complement a bigger United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force planned for Darfur, where political and ethnic conflict triggered by a 2003 rebellion has killed at least 200,000 people, U.N. experts say...

France is providing around half of the up to 3,700 EU peacekeepers who are due to start arriving early next year in eastern Chad on a U.N. mission to protect camps housing more than 400,000 Chadian and Sudanese refugees...

More on the EU force:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/01/europe/EU-GEN-Ireland-EU-Darfur-Spillover.php

The European Union peacekeeping force supposed to protect refugees from the Darfur conflict could be delayed for two more months because it still lacks helicopters and hospital facilities, the Irish government and army announced.

The approximately 4,300-member force, under Irish command but drawn largely from France, was supposed to begin deploying next week in Chad and the Central African Republic along their borders with Sudan.

But Irish Defense Minister Willie O'Dea — who has been critical of EU colleagues' unwillingness to contribute air support — said the first EU troops would not arrive until January at the earliest. They would go only if other EU nations contribute approximately 15 helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft and field-hospital support, he said Friday.

"It would be foolhardy and reckless in the extreme to go in without proper logistical and air support," O'Dea said in an interview.

The chief spokesman for the Irish Defense Forces, Commandant Gavin Young, said most troops might not arrive until March [emphasis added]...

Confirmation of the delays followed two EU-level meetings this month that failed to secure commitments for the needed equipment. Helicopters would make it possible for the small EU force to cover a border region that stretches from the southern edge of the Sahara Desert into central African jungle.

O'Dea, who has previously criticized Germany and Italy for refusing to contribute helicopters [emphasis added], said the EU force must have them to function effectively and to have the ability "to get out of a dangerous spot quickly."..

France already has 1,100 troops in Chad, a former French colony [emphasis added--rasion d'état, what?]. It is expected to contribute about half of soldiers to the EU force, which is headquartered in Paris.

The EU force is supposed to complement a 26,000-member United Nations-African Union force destined for the Darfur region of Sudan itself. That largely African force also has yet to deploy, in part, because donor nations have not supplied sufficient equipment, including helicopters. Sudan also is refusing to accept U.N. soldiers from Western nations [emphasis added]...

Peacekeeping in Africa sure is a messy business.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

But I suppose those opposed to our Afstan mission think Canada can somehow "do something" militarily significant in Darfur:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/World/996841.html

European countries look unlikely to meet an urgent UN call to provide military helicopters for a peacekeeping force planned for Darfur, saying their armies are already stretched by missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo and other hot spots.
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/67913/post-645632.html#msg645632

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million uprooted from their homes in Sudan’s western Darfur region since a rebellion broke out in 2003, and many European governments have said they support deploying the peacekeeping force.

Despite the verbal support, no one has offered any of the 24 helicopters sought by UN officials.

"There’s something like 12,000 military helicopters in Europe, so it’s bizarre that not one has been found available so far to commit to this force," said Thomas Cargill, Africa program manager at Chatham House, an international affairs think tank in London.

He said European countries risk undermining their credibility "if they commit themselves to resolving a crisis but then can’t commit themselves to providing the necessary hardware."

The joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force of 26,000 soldiers is scheduled to take over from a smaller AU force in three weeks.

But UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that it is essential the force be equipped with 18 transport helicopters and six light attack helicopters. Without them, he said, the force will not be able to protect its own soldiers, let alone civilians...

Publicly, European government ministers have said they are doing everything they can to get the Darfur mission off the ground, along with a separate, 4,000-strong EU peacekeeping mission in Chad and Central African Republic, which border Sudan [emphasis added].
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/64763/post-642746.html#msg642746

But officials said Friday they cannot meet the UN request.

Poland said it is sending four transport helicopters and four attack helicopters — similar to those the UN wants for Darfur — to Afghanistan [emphasis added].

"These helicopters were long ago tabbed for the Afghanistan mission," Foreign Ministry spokesman Piotr Paszkowski said. "We aren’t particularly rich in helicopters."

Mark
Ottawa

 

[tomahawk6]

Doesnt look like this UN/EU force wont  go as they are without helicopters - it shows the weakness of the EU. Rotary wing aviation isnt as critical on the continent but when you are going to the UW they are essential. To cut corners in a military sense helicopters lose out to fixed wing aviation due to tight defense budgets.

 

[MarkOttawa]

An opinion piece that sums things up well (usual copyright disclaimer):
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/09/opinion/edreeves.php

The brutal regime in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, has orchestrated genocidal counter-insurgency war in Darfur for five years and is now poised for victory in its ghastly assault on the region's African populations.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1769, adopted in July, authorized a force of 26,000 troops and civilian police to protect Darfur's civilians and the humanitarian groups serving some 4.2 million desperate people. Without protection, these groups will be forced to withdraw. But Khartoum has obstructed the force authorized by the UN, and final success in these efforts seems within grasp.

On Nov. 26, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the UN undersecretary for peacekeeping, raised the prospect that the UN-authorized force for Darfur may have to be aborted because of Khartoum's actions.

Guéhenno 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 unprecedented UN/African Union "hybrid" mission for Darfur (Unamid) has been badly hurt by the refusal of militarily capable nations to provide the two dozen helicopters required, at the least, for operations in Darfur. No NATO country has offered even one helicopter [emphasis added] - a sign that, despite fulsome rhetoric, these nations' real concern for Darfur is minimal.

But it is Khartoum's brazen obduracy that threatens to leave the people of Darfur without protection.

Months after Resolution 1769 authorized the present peace support operation to Darfur, and more than a year after a previous council resolution authorized a similar operation, Khartoum is still objecting to the roster of countries that are to provide troops, police and specialists.

Khartoum refuses to grant landing rights to heavy transport aircraft or allow night flights (critical for both civilian protection and medevac needs); refuses to grant adequate access to Port Sudan and refuses to grant adequate land or water rights in arid Darfur. Khartoum also demands the right to shut down Unamid communications during its own military operations - an unacceptable condition [emphasis added].

What will happen if the UN gives up on Unamid? Utter catastrophe. A weak, undermanned African Union mission currently serves as the only protection in Darfur. This demoralized force is barely functioning, simply trying to hold on until Dec. 31, when its mission is supposed to fold into Unamid.

But given Khartoum's obstructionism, this transfer will be at best symbolic: There may be UN sponsorship, but no meaningful deployment of UN troops or resources.

Once it is clear that a meaningful Unamid is not deploying, African nations will quickly withdraw their overmatched troops, which have already endured an unconscionable number of casualties.

With no international presence - by the UN, the AU, or aid organizations - nothing will constrain Khartoum, or the rebels, or various armed elements and bandits.

Confrontations between Khartoum's forces, including its Janjaweed militia allies, and increasingly militarized camps for displaced persons will escalate quickly. Khartoum is likely to use its bombers and helicopter gunships in such battles, ensuring massively disproportionate civilian casualties.

Unamid was badly conceived. Its command-and-control structure is ambiguous. It relies too much on African nations that cannot provide enough fully-equipped, self-sufficient troops and civilian police.

The "hybrid" nature of the mission was itself a poorly calculated concession to Khartoum. But this mission is now the only arrow in the quiver: There is no other force on the horizon, no other means for protecting civilians and humanitarians. If NATO nations aren't prepared to provide 24 helicopters, they are hardly likely to participate in any non-consensual deployment of force to Darfur [emphasis added].

Unamid must succeed. If it does not, how long it will be before Darfur slides into cataclysmic destruction, with no means of halting that slide?

This is the stark choice before the international community: Is it prepared to see the mission fail? Or will it rally the resources and exert the pressure on Khartoum, both of which are critical to the mission's success?

And this is interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/opinion/10mon1.html?ex=1197954000&en=34ed4febf7d06fc2&ei=5070

...
Khartoum is now refusing to accept some non-African peacekeeping units — including a Thai infantry battalion and a Nepalese special forces unit — in what is intended to be a joint United Nations-African Union force...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

A post at The Torch (note Foreign Minister Bernier's bit about possible CF commitment):

Canada and Darfur
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/12/canada-and-darfur.html

Mark
Ottawa