The UN's handling of Darfur

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Ambush on peacekeepers...

Peacekeepers in Sudan Lose 7 in Ambush
July 10, 2008 - Seven international peacekeepers were killed and 22 wounded in a brazen day ambush by heavily armed men in trucks and on horseback in the Sudanese province of Darfur, United Nations officials said Wednesday.

The attack, on Tuesday, was the deadliest on international forces in Darfur since September 2007, when 10 peacekeepers were killed in an assault on a base, and was a severe blow to the combined United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force that has struggled to protect civilians and itself. About 200 men in 40 trucks descended on a convoy of peacekeeping soldiers and police officers about 60 miles east of their base in El Fasher, the regional capital, as they returned from patrol. They had been investigating allegations of abuses by a rebel faction allied with the government.

The militiamen had heavy weapons, including antiaircraft and antitank guns mounted on their trucks, and a fierce firefight raged for three hours. The peacekeepers took heavy casualties. Five Rwandan soldiers were killed, with police officers from Uganda and Ghana, a United Nations official in Sudan said. Officials did not say who was responsible for the attack, and it has become increasingly difficult to determine who is who in the kaleidoscope of rebel movements and militia groups vying to control Darfur.

The conflict began five years ago as an uprising of non-Arab ethnic groups against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. But as the rebel groups and Arab militias have splintered and alliances have formed and faded, the Darfur region has become increasingly lawless and chaotic. “It is just a free-for-all,” said a Western aid official in Sudan, speaking on the condition of anonymity because aid workers have faced retribution for talking publicly about the conditions in Darfur. “Security simply doesn’t exist.”

More http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/wo...tml?ref=africa

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Should have done this 4 years ago...

Sudan president expected to face war crime charges
Jul 11, `08 - U.N. officials and diplomats said the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will seek an arrest warrant Monday charging Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur.

The court based in The Hague, Netherlands, said the prosecutor will present evidence of the war crimes in Darfur to judges Monday and one or more new suspects will be named. But court officials refused Friday to identify any of the potential new suspects. The U.N. officials and diplomats said they expect lesser charges of helping orchestrate genocide and participating in crimes against humanity to be brought against Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

A spokesman for Sudan's president dismissed the investigation and said his government refuses to hand over any suspects. Sudan's ambassador to the U.N., Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed, warned that issuing arrest warrants for government leaders would be "a criminal move." "We condemn it in the strongest of terms. It will have far-reaching, bad implications for the entire country, and all options are open for our reactions," he told The Associated Press.

"If you indict our head of state, the symbol of our country, the symbol of our dignity, then the sky's the limit for our reactions." State Department spokesman Sean McCormack warned the Sudanese government not to resort to violence. "Violence perpetrated by the government against those on the ground performing humanitarian missions, performing duties on behalf of their governments serves - certainly does not serve the purposes of the Sudanese government," he said.

More My Way News - Sudan president expected to face war crime charges

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The thugs are in control of the whole continent of Africa...

AU warning over Darfur 'charges'
Saturday, 12 July 2008 - The joint AU-UN force has not been able to contain the violence in Darfur

The African Union (AU) has expressed concern over reports that war-crimes charges might be brought against members of the Sudanese government. The AU said such a move could jeopardise peace efforts in the region.

Thousands of UN and AU peacekeepers are deployed in Darfur and a spokeswoman for the force has said the security alert for its staff has been raised. Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are expected to present new evidence on Darfur on Monday.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the African Union "expressed its strong conviction that the search for justice should be pursued in a way that does not impede or jeopardise efforts aimed at promoting lasting peace". The statement also "reiterated the AU's concern with the misuse of indictments against African leaders".

'Sovereignty violation'

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When the goin' gets tough, the UN gets goin'...

UN staff and aid workers being evacuated from Sudan
Monday 14th July, 2008 - Some UN staff deployed in Sudan's restive Darfur region are being pulled out of the country.

The decision was made after recent violence and as a precaution against retaliation for the likely arrest of Sudan's president on genocide charges. Judges at the International Criminal Court have still to decide if there are reasonable grounds to issue an arrest warrant against Omar al-Bashir. Mr Bashir has denied the accusations and has said through his ambassador to the UN that Somalia will continue to protect UN personnel and facilities. Sudan's president has been accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by International Court prosecutors.

Meanwhile, aid agencies are suspending operations in Somalia as deadly attacks against humanitarian workers ramp up. Millions of Somalis are reliant upon food aid due to a combination of conflict, drought and rising food prices. However, some agencies have become increasingly concerned by the security situation and are considering their options. Last Friday alone, two workers were killed and another seriously injured in separate attacks.

This followed on from the deadly shootings of the head of the UN Development Program the previous Sunday and a driver for the World Food Program last Monday. The head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR's Mogadishu program is still being held by gunmen. German charity Bread for the World temporarily suspended its operations after its local deputy director was shot dead near Mogadishu on Friday.

UN staff and aid workers being evacuated from Sudan

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Fearless W warnin' he might gonna go in an' clean house...

Bush warned he might send U.S. troops to Darfur: Wade
Friday, July 18, 2008 - Senegal's president said on Thursday George W. Bush told African leaders at one stage the United States might send troops to Sudan's Darfur if they did not act to halt what he saw as genocide there.

President Abdoulaye Wade said Bush, who has lobbied strongly for robust international action to end the five-year-old conflict in Darfur, had made the warnings to him, but he did not specify when or in what circumstances. Commenting on the International Criminal Court chief prosecutor's move this week to seek a war crimes arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Wade said Bush had "always proclaimed loudly and clearly that the United States considered Bashir had committed genocide in Darfur".

"I've had to transmit to President Bashir and to my other African colleagues President Bush's warnings that if Africa didn't do anything to end the tragedy in Darfur, the United States could bypass the (United Nations) Security Council and send contingents to Darfur," the Senegalese leader said in a statement issued in Dakar. "Myself and other African colleagues tried to dissuade him from this and to convince him to leave us to try to sort out this problem among us Africans," he added.

The United States has supported the deployment of a joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur and has even helped to airlift international peacekeepers to and from the violence-torn western Sudanese region. However Washington, stretched by heavy military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, has stopped short of sending its own troops to Darfur, where foreign experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in five years of political and ethnic conflict. Wade said he had taken Bush's warning to send troops to Darfur "very seriously ... especially since in the case of (the U.S.-led invasion of) Iraq, he'd informed me two days in advance".

"INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY"

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When will China pressure Khartoum to stop the genocide?...

Darfur force 'failing civilians'
Monday, 28 July 2008 : The African-UN mission in Sudan's Darfur region is failing to provide adequate protection to civilians, aid agencies claim.

A report published by a group of mainly African relief and advocacy groups, the Darfur Consortium, said the force was too small and inadequately funded. It said six months after the mission began, only about a third of the 26,000 personnel promised had been deployed. The five-year-old Darfur conflict has left some 300,000 people dead.

The African Union-Union Nations Mission in Darfur (Unamid) was set up after the United Nations Security Council promised protection to some four million people caught up in the war between the Sudanese government and rebels. But Khartoum insisted that Africans should make up the bulk of the soldiers.

Critically short

The BBC's Mark Doyle says most of the troops came from an earlier underfunded solely African force and the hope was that UN involvement would improve logistics. The Darfur consortium says Unamid is "in danger of becoming the world's latest broken promise". It says the mission is still critically short of basic equipment such as helicopters and armoured vehicles.

Some of the soldiers from the former African force were so badly supplied that they were reduced to putting blue plastic bags over their helmets to indicate that they now worked for the UN, the report says. The report adds that the soldiers who had deployed could do much better by, for example, mounting regular foot patrols in camps or consistently protecting women who collect firewood.

More BBC NEWS | Africa | Darfur force 'failing civilians'

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UN extends peacekeeper mandate...

Security Council Votes to Extend Darfur Peacekeepers
31 July 2008 - The United Nations Security Council has voted to extend the mandate of peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region.

Ambassadors originally were set to meet and vote on the one-year extension by mid-afternoon, New York time. But the meeting was pushed back because the United States was objecting to language in the draft resolution that raised concerns about moves to indict Sudan's president for genocide. The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) has asked the court to issue an arrest warrant for Mr. Bashir on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Security Council has the power under the ICC charter to suspend prosecutions or investigations by the ICC for a year at a time, with indefinite renewal. Last week, an adviser to the Sudanese president said Sudan cannot guarantee the safety of African Union and United Nations peacekeepers in Darfur if the president is indicted. The joint U.N.-AU force has about 9.000 soldiers and police, barely a third of the 26,000 personnel that was projected. The force's mandate expires Thursday.

The draft resolution also calls on the government of Sudan, troop contributors, and donors to do everything possible to support an increase in the force so that UNAMID can reach 80 percent of its capacity by the end of 2008. Darfur activists have accused the international community of failing to give enough support to the mission. A report written by aviation expert Thomas Withington and backed by more than 30 human rights groups says donor nations have failed to supply helicopters and other badly needed equipment to the force.

International experts say more than 200,000 people have died and some 2.5 million displaced from their homes since Darfur rebel groups rose up against the Sudanese government in 2003. Sudan says Western governments and media have exaggerated the scale of the conflict, and that only 10,000 people have died.

VOA News - Security Council Votes to Extend Darfur Peacekeepers

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More diplo-speak...

UN chief calls for more urgent action on Sudan
Saturday 2nd August, 2008 - The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ending Sudan’s long-running north-south civil war has faced some of its most “volatile and challenging” months since it was signed in 2005, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon writes in a report made public Friday.

Recent incidents – including the May attack by the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on Omdurman, near the capital Khartoum, and fighting between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in Abyei – serve as “stark reminders of the fragility of peace in the Sudan,” Mr. Ban says in his latest report on the accord. Additionally, he notes that such instability highlights how the people of Sudan would suffer if the CPA – which he characterizes as “the bedrock for sustainable peace in the Sudan” – were to fail.

Steps taken to consolidate the peace agreement have been thwarted by the crisis in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where as many as 300,000 people are estimated to have been killed as a result of direct combat, disease or malnutrition since 2003. Another 2.7 million people have been displaced because of fighting between rebels, Government forces and allied militiamen known as the Janjaweed. “Ultimately, peace in the Sudan is indivisible,” the report states, given that Darfur is part of the north and the CPA is the basis of the peace process between north and south.

One of the biggest obstacles to implementing the accord, the Secretary-General says, has been the disputed town of Abyei, which lies in an oil-rich area close to the boundary between north and south Sudan. “The root cause of the problem has been the failure of the two parties to agree on an approach to implement the Abyei Protocol,” he notes, referring to the agreement to end the deadly fighting in the town. In June, the National Congress Party and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) agreed on a road map to resolve the Abyei dispute, including through arbitration.

More UN chief calls for more urgent action on Sudan

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Bush tryin' to get China to help stop the violence in Darfur...

Bush presses China to use influence in Sudan
Monday 11th August, 2008 - US President George W. Bush Monday urged China to use its influence on the Sudanese government to help resolve the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.

Chinese leaders should make use of their relations with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, who was recently accused by the International Criminal Court of genocide and war crimes, Bush told US broadcaster NBC in Beijing. 'My attitude is, is if you got relations with Mr. Bashir, think about helping to solve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur,' Bush said. 'That was my message to the Chinese government,' he said, referring to talks Sunday with President Hu Jintao and other leaders.

Bush told NBC he was disappointed that China revoked a visa for Joey Cheek, a US Olympic gold medallist in speed skating, who had planned to travel to Beijing during the Olympics to draw attention to the Darfur crisis. 'Joey Cheek has just got to know that I took the Sudanese message for him,' he said. Bush said it was 'hard to tell' if Chinese leaders had heeded his message.

'All I can tell you is, is that it is best to be in the position where a leader will listen to you,' he said. After his talks with Hu Sunday, Bush watched US athletes compete in Olympic swimming and basketball events. Earlier Sunday, he visited the Kuanjie Church for morning worship, urging China not to 'fear the influence of loving religion.'

Bush presses China to use influence in Sudan

See also:

UN Helicopter Hit by Gunfire in Darfur
Monday, Aug. 11, 2008 — A helicopter used by the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur was hit by gunfire Monday and forced to return to its airfield.

U.N. spokesman Noureddine Mezni said it was not immediately clear who fired, damaging the rear of the aircraft and its radio. There were no casualties. Peacekeepers have frequently been attacked by armed gunmen. An ambush in July killed seven soldiers.

The force took over peacekeeping duties in January from a beleaguered African Union-only force, but is still operating with only about a third of its authorized 26,000 soldiers. It also lacks sufficient combat and rescue helicopters.

Fighting erupted in Darfur in 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Up to 300,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million displaced.

Sudan's government is accused of unleashing janjaweed militias in a reign of terror against Darfur civilians. The government in Khartoum denies the allegation. Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir was accused last month by the International Criminal Court prosecutor of directing genocide in Darfur. The court is reviewing a request to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir.

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