Conflict in Darfur, Sudan - The Mega Thread

[Canadian Sig]

Canada has the Grizzly  AVGP's over here till Dec 2008, repair parts have been held up by Sudan at points of entry every time they get mad at the UN.

I was not aware that it was a finite deployment, I thought we had given them away. Anyone know what is supposed to happen to the Grizzlies after Dec?

 

[George Wallace]

I was not aware that it was a finite deployment, I thought we had given them away. Anyone know what is supposed to happen to the Grizzlies after Dec?

If you go back and look at the original statements on their being sent there, I am sure that you will find that it was a "loan".

 

[Canadian Sig]

If you go back and look at the original statements on their being sent there, I am sure that you will find that it was a "loan".

True. I guess I just assumed it would be one of those "loans" where we never saw them again.. ;D

Seems to me that the ANA could have made better use of them than their current task.....but that's a different subject all together.

 

[TCBF]

... It's the "killing to save lives" bit that the activist community has a hard time swallowing. It seems like there are two sorts of people in the world: those that think that under certain conditions the use of force is a means to a solution, and those that think unequivocally that it is NEVER a solution. The two are irreconcilable. 

- Never a solution until it is THEIR arse on the line.  Different rules apply then.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Is the EU Chad Mission a Camouflage for French Interests?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,531792,00.html

EU foreign ministers have finally agreed to help victims of the violence in Darfur by sending a peacekeeping force to states neighboring the troubled region. German commentator are skeptical of the true purpose of the mission, pointing to French interests in the country.

After months of delay, the European Union finally agreed Monday to deploy a 3,700-strong peacekeeping force to Chad and the Central Africa Republic to help humanitarian aid workers and refugees seeking to escape the chaos in the neighboring Darfur region of Sudan.

The mission was originally meant to deploy in October but faced delays attributed to shortfalls in crucial equipment, especially helicopters. Some governments have blamed the shortage on military commitments elsewhere, especially Afghanistan and Kosovo.

The force, which has a 12-month mandate, is scheduled to begin deploying in the coming weeks. Timing is of the essence now, but EU foreign policy chief Javiar Solana has said that the troops will "be on the ground before the rainy season."

French soldiers will make up more than half of the force. Thirteen other countries -- though not Germany -- have also pledged to contribute troops...

German commentators seem skeptical of the ministers' claim, believing that France's historical ties to its former colony and its interests in the region make its intentions more than just humanitarian...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Kirkhill]

Oh for Pete's sake.

If it was the Americans intervening it would be them that were being hung out to dry because their motives weren't pure.  If we want purity better send for Gabriel. 

If we want somebody to tidy up a mess, that is available, that knows the turf and has a reason to be there then the French run a close second.

Even Canadians, it seems, are limited in their desire to be doing good for altruistic reasons.  They'll throw a nickel in the plate.  They may even by a meal, but standing with strangers in foreign lands or inviting them into our own land........maybe not so much.

 

[ModlrMike]

Article Link

Chinese enter Darfur
By The Associated Press

DUREIJ, Sudan (AP) -- Their clocks are set on Beijing time, they use state-of-the-art equipment and -- most of all -- they are welcome by the Sudanese government. In just about everything, the Chinese peacekeeping contingent in Darfur is strikingly different from the rest of the U.N. mission here.

The 140 Chinese engineers and troops deployed in Darfur were among the first reinforcements sent by the United Nations, which took over peacekeeping in the western Sudanese region in January.

The Sudanese government quickly approved the Chinese contingent, even as it vetoed contributions from other countries because they were not African -- including a Scandinavian engineering corps.

-----------------------

The first comment in reply to this article invokes the memory of the Trojan Horse. I'm inclined to agree.

 

[MarkOttawa]

More travails for the "hybrid" force:

Sudan army rejects UK peacekeeper (Feb. 14)
http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnL14824859.html

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's army rejected the appointment of a British officer to an international peacekeeping force in Darfur on Thursday in a move that could strain relations with the U.N. and the UK, a major donor.

A spokesman said Sudan's Armed Forces would not accept Brigadier Patrick Davidson-Houston as chief of staff to the force commander of the U.N./African Union mission in Darfur.

"The force is African, so how can the chief of staff be British? None of the forces are British," he told Reuters.

It was unclear how far the army's refusal was in line with the final stance of Sudan's government, but the armed forces are a substantial force in Sudanese politics and President Omar Hassan al-Bashir comes from a military background.

A spokesman from the international force, UNAMID, said officials were still hoping to get the appointment accepted.

"At the moment we are aware that concerns have been raised by the government," he said. "We are working to resolve these."

A final rejection by Sudan would be seen as a major snub to the UK, which has sent several high-level delegations to Sudan in recent months and gave 84 million pounds in humanitarian aid in 2006-7...

Sudan's armed forces spokesman said the full reasons for the rejection had been spelled out by Sudan's Major General Majdhub Rahama at a conference on Wednesday.

Sudanese daily Al-Sahafah on Thursday reported Rahama as saying a British chief of staff would provide an unwelcome "link" between UNAMID and European peacekeepers due to start work in neighbouring Chad.

Another reason was that the UK had no peacekeepers on the ground in Darfur, the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat reported. Khartoum has been increasingly sensitive about the involvement of non-African troops in the 26,000-strong peacekeeping force.

In November, Bashir said he would only accept Chinese and Pakistani technical units already committed, and he specifically rejected an offer of 400 army engineers from Sweden and Norway [emphasis added].

Many analysts have accused Khartoum of using the nationality of incoming UNAMID peacekeepers as an excuse to stall on the full implementation of the force. So far, only 9,000 peacekeepers have been deployed [emphasis added]...

As for the EU Chadforce:

EU resumes Chad peacekeeping deployment (Feb. 12)

The European Union resumed deployment Tuesday of a peacekeeping force to Chad, after suspending it at the start of the month when rebels stormed the capital Ndjamena, a military spokesman said.

"A Hercules C-130 transport aircraft landed at 2:00 pm (1300 GMT) in Abeche with equipment aboard," Lieutenant-Colonel Philippe de Cussac said from the force's headquarters near Paris.

The flight from an unspecified European country arrived in the main town in the arid east of the central African nation, where a 14-nation EUFOR mission of 3,700 troops to Chad and the Central African Republic will be partly based.

Deployment began in late January but was suspended from February 1 after an allied group of three rebel forces coming from the troubled east arrived at the gates of the capital on Chad's western border.

The Chadian army drove the rebels hostile to President Idriss Deby Itno out of Ndjamena after a weekend of heavy fighting on the city streets on February 2 and 3, and the attackers have since withdrawn towards southeast Chad...

EUFOR is commanded from France by Irish Major General Pat Nash and in Chad itself by French Brigadier General Jean-Philippe Ganascia, who has expressed hope of getting the force to operational capacity by the end of March [emphasis added].

EU diplomats in Brussels and the EUFOR commanders want the whole force to be in Chad by May and the start of the rainy season [emphasis added].

However, the delay caused by the rebel offensive came on top of difficulties among European countries on agreeing on the size of the mission and respective contingents. France will provide more than 2,000 of the troops...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CougarKing]

Article Link
The first comment in reply to this article invokes the memory of the Trojan Horse. I'm inclined to agree.

What comment are you talking about?  There's no comments at the bottom of the article at the link you provided; don't tell me I got to get a paid subscription for that site too?  :

"Mainland Chinese UN peacekeepers"? In the year 1953, that phrase would have been thought of as an OXYMORON.

The PRC really values the influence and the heightened status it has held since it gained UN membership and displaced the ROC/Taiwan in the 1970s as the entity that represents China in the UN, to the point that they are rubbing it in the Taipei govt.'s face with peacekeeping missions like this.  :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nya2QUMde4&feature=related

How Cold War-era pragmatism changed things; to think the ROC govt. now in Taiwan was an entity which contributed to the Allied effort to help defeat the Japanese in the Pacific/China-Burma-India Theater of WW2. The fact that the UN, influenced by China's veto on the security council and the PRC govt.'s efforts to continually thwart Taiwan's participation in the UN, can continually pretend that the island nation of 21-22 million people does not exist as a defacto independent nation-state can really irk anyone who pays attention to China and the Pacific Rim.

 

[Yrys]

China and Sudan: Natural partners?

There are times, wandering round Khartoum, when you might almost imagine yourself to be in China. Construction is going on everywhere, and a lot of the buildings
have huge Chinese characters on them. Then there are the red-painted arches and the lanterns which are still around from the Chinese New Year. The buses are Chinese.
So are some of the posters. Yet you see very few Chinese people. They seem to have instructions to stay indoors. And they certainly do not want to be interviewed by BBC News.

We went round to the headquarters of the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation, on a fine site overlooking the Blue Nile. The head of public relations, who was Sudanese,
agreed to be interviewed. We were standing in front of the building, and he was just answering my second question, when there was an angry shout from one of the windows.
He hurried off, and came back a few seconds later. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, "they say no." "Who do?" "The Chinese."

Immense influence

Secrecy seems to be a pattern here. President Hu Jintao came to Sudan last year and signed an apparently far-reaching agreement with the Sudanese president, Omar Bashir -
yet the details were kept secret. Not surprisingly, when the relationship between the two countries is under the microscope because of the fighting in Darfur, this kind of secrecy
makes an easy target for China's critics.

There is a wide range of campaigners and groups, from the left to the religious right in the United States who focus on the Darfur issue. Now they have been joined by Steven
Spielberg and a raft of Nobel prize-winners and Olympic gold medallists. All of them say China must use its immense influence here to oblige the Sudanese government to stop
the massacres.

The US government, urged on by the Darfur lobby at home, has introduced sanctions against Sudan. And it insists the massacres carried out by the ethnic Arab militia groups,
the Janjaweed, amount to genocide.

There is absolutely no doubting the enormous clout the Chinese government has in Sudan.

Nobel laureates

Yet is the Sudanese government actually capable of stopping the Darfur massacres? Even government officials here find it hard to deny that the Janjaweed had the support
early on of the Sudanese government, which used it as a weapon in the civil war. But they maintain now that the violence in Darfur is simply lawlessness and banditry. The
authorities in Khartoum, they say, lack the forces to control them. This is a job which only the new international force, Unamid, can perform.

Well, of course, the Khartoum government's case would be stronger if it had not given a ministerial job to Ahmed Haroun, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court
for crimes against humanity. And if it had not appointed a Janjaweed leader, Musa Hilal, to be a special adviser.

Still, I found the diplomats of various Western countries judged Sudan and the Chinese a little less harshly than the US, the Nobel laureates and Steven Spielberg. Their view
is that China is slowly coming round to see that it would be better to persuade Sudan to co-operate with the international community. And they believe Sudan is not altogether
happy to turn its back on Western countries, including the Americans.

"The West is a more natural partner for Sudan than China," one diplomat said, "and most Sudanese know it."

Well, maybe. But China is certainly busy setting its stamp on their country.

 

[MarkOttawa]

A post at The Torch:

Rebadged CF mission for Darfur/Problems for hybrid UN/AU force
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2008/02/rebadged-cf-mission-for-darfurproblems.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

Sounds like this deployment is going to be the clusterf*&% everybody anticipated....

 

[daftandbarmy]

Nicholas D. Kristof travels to South Sudan, where he says the second genocide of the 21st century may soon begin.

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=93df06ab81032fee7ac594ebc542acb7af88f25f

 

[MarkOttawa]

Plus ça change...

Scorched-Earth Strategy Returns to Darfur
NY Times, March 2
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/world/africa/02darfur.html?ref=todayspaper

SULEIA, Sudan — The janjaweed are back.

They came to this dusty town in the Darfur region of Sudan on horses and camels on market day. Almost everybody was in the bustling square. At the first clatter of automatic gunfire, everyone ran.

The militiamen laid waste to the town — burning huts, pillaging shops, carrying off any loot they could find and shooting anyone who stood in their way, residents said. Asha Abdullah Abakar, wizened and twice widowed, described how she hid in a hut, praying it would not be set on fire.

“I have never been so afraid,” she said.

The attacks by the janjaweed, the fearsome Arab militias that came three weeks ago, accompanied by government bombers and followed by the Sudanese Army, were a return to the tactics that terrorized Darfur in the early, bloodiest stages of the conflict.

Such brutal, three-pronged attacks of this scale — involving close coordination of air power, army troops and Arab militias in areas where rebel troops have been — have rarely been seen in the past few years, when the violence became more episodic and fractured. But they resemble the kinds of campaigns that first captured the world’s attention and prompted the Bush administration to call the violence in Darfur genocide.

Aid workers, diplomats and analysts say the return of such attacks is an ominous sign that the fighting in Darfur, which has grown more complex and confusing as it has stretched on for five years, is entering a new and deadly phase — one in which the government is planning a scorched-earth campaign against the rebel groups fighting here as efforts to find a negotiated peace founder.

The government has carried out a series of coordinated attacks in recent weeks, using air power, ground forces and, according to witnesses and peacekeepers stationed in the area, the janjaweed, as their allied militias are known here. The offensives are aimed at retaking ground gained by a rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, which has been gathering strength and has close ties to the government of neighboring Chad...

Pressure is mounting on Sudan over Darfur. In January, a long-sought hybrid United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force began working in Darfur, but the Sudanese government’s quibbling over which countries the troops will come from and bureaucratic delays have stalled the force’s deployment.

Sudan’s biggest trading partner and ally, China, has also come under pressure from advocates who have linked the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer to the fighting in Darfur. China has been more publicly critical of the Sudanese government in recent weeks. Sudan has also been trying to improve its relationship with the United States, and last week, President Bush’s new special envoy to Sudan, Richard S. Williamson, visited Darfur and the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, meeting with President Omar al-Bashir. Any improvement in relations, he said, would be contingent on tangible improvements in the humanitarian situation...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

France believes Sudanese troops involved in incident with European peacekeepers
AP, March 4
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/04/europe/EU-GEN-France-EUFOR-Chad.php

France on Tuesday said Sudanese forces fired on and wounded a French soldier who had unwittingly crossed into Sudan from Chad — the first casualty for a troubled European peacekeeping mission along Darfur's borders. A second soldier was missing.

Defense Minister Herve Morin said officials were concerned that the missing soldier, seen collapsing in the encounter Monday, might have been killed. The other soldier's wounds were described as light burns.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner contacted the Sudanese government on Monday night.

"We are worried because two men were targeted with a burst of fire from about 10 meters (yards) away," Morin said. "They found themselves about 10 meters from forces that a priori were Sudanese. They immediately gave their identity and were engaged."

Sudan's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that France and the EU had issued an apology. A statement described this "recognition of the mistake and the apology as the right step."

Sudan will "show all the cooperation with the concerned parties" the statement said, adding that the government has instructed the military in the area to "intensify their efforts in search of the (missing) soldier."

French authorities were not immediately available to confirm that France had apologized.

The two soldiers, special forces troops doing reconnaissance, were "unfortunately" not able to fire back after being engaged, the French defense minister said. The two soldiers were two-three kilometers (one-two miles) inside Sudan, Morin said. The border is not marked, he added.

Later, French troops went to the area to try to find the missing soldier; they were fired on and fired back, said Morin.

Sudan has been hostile to the European mission that was to involve at least 14 countries and 3,700 troops. The EUFOR mission, being deployed in Chad and the Central African Republic, is aimed at protecting refugees from the neighboring Sudanese region of Darfur and people displaced by fighting in Chad and the Central African Republic, some of it linked to unrest in Darfur. The mission has been delayed by logistical problems and recent fighting in Chad...

There are currently 700 EUFOR troops on the ground, mostly French, Irish and Swedes [emphasis added]...

About 70 Austrian troops left for Chad Tuesday to join about 75 Austrian soldiers already there, Austria's Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

A total of roughly 160 Austrian peacekeepers were expected to be in Chad by the end of March. Austrian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Wolfgang Schneider said authorities were aware of Tuesday's incident but that, for now, Austria planned to stick to its deployment and work plan.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Yrys]

Sudan 'finds' EU soldier's body

The body of a French soldier who has been missing since 3 March may have been found by Sudanese authorities. A spokesman for the EU Force in Chad (Eufor)
said Sudan believed a body discovered near the Chadian border may be that of the missing soldier. The French soldier went missing when his Eufor vehicle strayed into
Sudan. Eufor has since apologised to Sudan over the border incursion.

It is the first serious incident experienced since the force deployed. Eufor spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Poulain said arrangements for formal identification were
being made. Following the soldier's disappearance, France asked for Sudan's help to find him.

Eufor is mandated to protect refugees from the Sudanese region of Darfur and the Central African Republic, as well as internally displaced people. The French-dominated
3,700-strong force began deploying in eastern Chad and Central African Republic last month.

 

[MarkOttawa]

On and on it goes:
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=593040

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States has called for a new initiative to get a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force on the ground in Darfur, where the 5-year conflict has escalated and malnutrition is rising.

Ambassador Richard Williamson, who took over in January as President Bush's special envoy to Sudan, said countries that are "friends" of the African Union-United Nations force would meet Thursday at U.N. headquarters for the first time to start tackling obstacles to deployment of the hybrid force known as UNAMID.

"Given the humanitarian suffering, given the instability and violence that's going on, its way past time for talk. We have to have action including accelerating deployment of UNAMID troops on the ground," Williamson told reporters Wednesday after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Sudan's Arab-dominated government has been accused of unleashing the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads to commit atrocities against ethnic African communities in the country's western Darfur region as part of a fight with rebel groups. At least 200,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million displaced since the fighting began five years ago.

The AU-U.N. force for Darfur is authorized to have 26,000 troops and police, but Ban said only about 7,500 military personnel and 1,500 police officers were in Darfur as of Jan. 31 [emphasis added]. He appealed to all countries that have pledged troops to expedite their deployment _ reiterated an appeal for critically needed helicopters.

At Sudan's insistence, the U.N. Security Council agreed that the force would be predominantly African. But the Sudanese government has refused to approve non-African units from Thailand, Nepal and Nordic countries.

Williamson said he discussed the composition of the force with Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir in Kharrtoum last week and asked him for a commitment to allow 1,600 troops from Nepal and Thailand to deploy to Darfur this summer if thousands of African troops are on the ground first [emphasis added].

"He did not reject it," Williamson said. "We're going to have some follow up discussions."

Williamson said another 3,600 African peacekeepers would on the ground by the end of May [emphasis added]...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Yrys]

Nomads die retrieving French body

Four Arab nomads were killed when a grenade went off as they tried to retrieve the body of a dead French peacekeeper, say Sudan's armed forces.

The Eufor soldier had disappeared on Monday after the vehicle he was travelling in had strayed across the border from Chad into Sudan. An army spokesman
said the remains of the soldier were found on Wednesday. The nomads went to put the body on a camel but one of the soldier's grenades went off and they
all died, he said.

The Sudanese authorities confirmed the body was that of a French peacekeeper who disappeared on Monday after the Eufor vehicle which strayed across
the border was involved in an exchange of fire with the Sudanese military at a checkpoint. Officials in Khartoum said the peacekeepers opened fire first but
were forced to flee when the army shot back.

They said three Eufor vehicles and a helicopter returned 30 minutes later and there was a second exchange of fire. A Sudanese civilian and soldier were
killed in the incident. Troops in the French-dominated 3,700-strong European force started to deploy to Chad and the Central African Republic last month
after a brief delay caused by an attempt by rebels to overthrow the Chadian government.

Analysts say the coup attempt was backed by Khartoum - they say Sudan is against having European peacekeepers stationed on its border.

 

[MarkOttawa]

This headline is typical self-important Canadian conceit:

Canada, U.S. want faster Darfur deployment
Only 9,200 of 26,000-strong force in Sudan
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=151b6c5c-7d7c-43a2-8d05-17002da2aa2d

Canada partnered with the United States on Thursday in a bid to speed up deployment of a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force to Sudan's Darfur region.

The United Nations Security Council approved the joint UN-African Union force last year, but equipment shortages and some administrative foot-dragging by the Sudanese government has meant only 9,200 soldiers are on the ground -- and 7,000 of them had been there in an earlier AU force.

The U.S.-Canadian initiative aims at bringing together what one official called a "captive audience" of countries willing to fill equipment needs.

Canada has already delivered 105 armoured personnel carriers
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/005238.html
as part of a much wider aid package, but the mission still lacks vehicles and helicopters both for ground and air mobility and for firepower.

Belgium, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Italy were among countries attending the first of weekly meetings Thursday hosted by U.S. and Canadian diplomats at UN headquarters. Russia said Wednesday it is in talks aimed at delivering helicopters...

At Sudan's insistence, the bulk of troops will come from other African countries, but a Chinese engineering unit is among the few from outside the continent that have already arrived in the region.

UN peacekeeping officials say they hope to also deploy troops from Thailand and Nepal -- and raise the on-the-ground strength to about 11,000 within a few months [emphasis added].

The UN's peacekeeping division normally handles mission deployments, but the sheer size of this one, plus the need to co-ordinate with the AU, has been overwhelming, insiders say...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Yrys]

China talks tough over Darfur

China has issued an unusually energetic call to its ally, Sudan, to do more to stop fighting in Darfur.

The "humanitarian disaster" in the region was a grave concern to China's government, said its envoy Liu Guijin. Mr Liu called for Khartoum to do more
to speed up the arrival of peacekeepers in the region but he also criticised Darfur's rebel groups.

China is a key ally of the Sudanese government - buying its oil, selling it weapons and using its weight at the UN. Mr Liu has just returned from a trip to
Sudan which included Darfur. He said he had been profoundly affected by things he had seen in the province. He said he was also moved by the stories
he had heard from Darfuris forced to flee their homes after five years of conflict.

Olympic pressure

China has been stung by Western accusations that it is colluding with the Sudanese government, and is eager to ensure the issue does not overshadow
this year's Olympic Games in Beijing.

Last month, US film director Steven Spielberg pulled out as artistic adviser to the Olympics, saying that China had failed to use its influence on Khartoum
over Darfur. The BBC's Amber Henshaw in Khartoum says Beijing is keen to defend its economic interests but also wants to be seen to be taking a more
aggressive stance against Khartoum in the run up to the Olympics. She says when Mr Liu spoke to journalists in Khartoum last week he was much less
outspoken. Then he pointed out that China was a friend to Sudan and that the Chinese government was already doing a lot to work with the West over Darfur.

The United Nations says more than 200,000 have died in Darfur during the four-year conflict and at least two million have been displaced and live in camps.