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POLITICS: Sudan Resists UN Force, As Donor Funding Falters

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 19 2006 (IPS) - When Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir was told about a proposed peacekeeping force to stop the ongoing killings in Darfur, he was quoted as saying that U.N. troops will be permitted into his country “only over my dead body.”

“These are colonial forces,” he said of the proposed U.N. peacekeeping mission. “We will not allow colonial forces into the country.”

Asked for his comments last week by reporters covering the African Union (AU) summit in Gambia, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan responded diplomatically: “In the world of politics things change. We hear ‘never’, ‘forever’ – and yet it does come around, and so I am expecting that, in time, there will be a U.N. peacekeeping force deployed to Darfur.”

At a pledging conference for Sudan held in Brussels Tuesday, Annan allayed the Sudanese president’s fears: “No hidden agenda drives us; only the urgent need for Darfur’s people.”

Annan also said that U.N. peacekeeping forces – “which will come primarily from Africa and Asia, with some additional and much needed support from developed countries – will come to Darfur not as occupiers, but as helpers.”

The United Nations wants the current 7,000-strong, ill-equipped AU force – the African Union Mission in Darfur (AMIS) – to be transformed into a larger 12,700-strong U.N. force comprising 10,500 military personnel and 2,200 civilian police personnel.

The pledging conference was primarily to fund a heavily under-sourced AMIS, whose financial resources may run out by September.

But Annan wants AMIS to continue at least through December, by which time he hopes the Sudanese government will come round to cooperating with the new U.N. peacekeeping force.

Alun McDonald of Oxfam, who is based in Sudan, said the amounts pledged at the Brussels conference fell short of expectations.

The total amount of money pledged by donors Tuesday was around 215 million dollars: 116 million dollars from the United States; 36 million dollars from Britain; 31.2 million dollars from the European Union (plus an extra 50 million dollars for humanitarian work – not for AMIS); 25-30 million dollars from the Netherlands; 2.5 million dollars from France; and 1.0 million dollars from Belgium.

The amount pledged “is only enough to sustain AMIS until the end of September even though it is supposed to be here until the end of December – it is basically about half of what we (and the AU) were asking for,” McDonald told IPS.

The AU has said it is confident more money will eventually come through to last until December, but nothing has even been pledged yet for this – and of course what is pledged isn’t always guaranteed to be delivered, he added.

“What AMIS needs is real financial security to last right through its time, rather than having to keep asking for a bit more every couple of months. Otherwise its just going to be working on a day-to-day basis rather than being able to do any real long-term planning – which is what is needed to address the crisis and protect people,” McDonald said.

“As you can see”, he said, “most of the money came from a very small number of nations – others need to provide support as well.”

Ann-Louise Colgan of the Washington-based Africa Action said that pledges of money in Brussels to support the AU operation in Darfur amount to only a portion of what the AU needs to sustain even its current mission, which is clearly inadequate to the protection needs on the ground.

“A U.N. peacekeeping force is needed to reinforce the AU operation and to stop the violence and protect civilians and humanitarian efforts in Darfur,” Colgan told IPS.

The United States and other powers must do everything necessary to overcome the Sudanese government’s objections, and must act quickly to authorise and deploy a U.N. force for Darfur, she added.

She said the Sudanese government had said earlier this year that it would allow a U.N. force in Darfur once a peace agreement had been reached in Abuja.

In the two months that have passed since this agreement, Colgan pointed out, violence against civilians in Darfur has increased, and Khartoum has now asserted strong objections to a U.N. mission.

“But nothing short of a U.N. peacekeeping force can supplement the AU and meet the protection needs in Darfur, and the international community must move beyond pledges to find the political will to take new action to achieve such an intervention now,” she added.

Colgan also said that as the situation in Darfur worsens by the day, this week’s pledging conference in Brussels revealed a broad international consensus on the need for a U.N. peacekeeping force to protect civilians and humanitarian operations on the ground.

“But the international community’s failure to overcome Khartoum’s objections to such a U.N. force, and to take new action to initiate such a force, leaves the Sudanese government to dictate the pace and the extent of the response to this crisis,” she added.

The most immediate priority for the people of Darfur is protection, and yet world powers are failing to offer this protection or to articulate a plan to achieve this on an urgent basis, she added.

According to published figures, nearly 200,000 have died in the fighting in Darfur, with about two million displaced in camps in Darfur and neighbouring Chad.

Meanwhile a group of eight leading aid agencies – CARE International, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, International Rescue Committee, Islamic Relief, Oxfam International and Tearfund – has combined forces to call for urgent action to end the continued violence and suffering in Darfur.

“While an enormous amount of energy is being spent debating what will happen in six months time, no one seems to have noticed that people are still being killed today,” says Denis Caillaux, secretary general of CARE International, in a statement released Tuesday.

“Many countries have still not given enough money to support the troops already on the ground. This lack of funding means patrols in and around camps are impossible or have been scaled back and we are seeing people attacked, killed or raped as a result,” he added.

The eight agencies have warned that the security situation on the ground continues to deteriorate despite the recent peace agreement.

This peace agreement, the agencies said, gave the AU Force more responsibilities requiring more resources, despite the fact that it was already chronically under-funded and failing to protect civilians.

“The African Union force is being set up to fail. It simply cannot be expected to fulfill its mandate without proper support. The current scenario is a recipe for disaster. Donor governments must now put their hands in their pockets and fully fund the African Union force,” said Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam.