Sudan Watch (to July 2012)

[SWJED]

Moderators Note: This thread was a catch all thread for posts on the Sudan, there is a separate thread on 'South Sudan - stabilisation' and both contain a variety of subjects. On 6th July 2012 this thread was closed after a new catch all thread for Sudan 2012 was opened:
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=16026

(ends)

14 Jan. Reuters - U.N. Envoy Cites Darfur Failure; Wants 20,000 Troops (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/14/AR2006011400330.html).


Attempts to bring peace to Sudan's Darfur region have failed and a U.N. peacekeeping force of 12,000 to 20,000 troops is needed to stop the killings and rape, the top U.N. official in Sudan said.

Jan Pronk gave his most pessimistic assessment yet to the U.N. Security Council on Friday. He said marauding Arab militia were succeeding in their ethnic cleansing campaign, erasing village after village.

"Looking back at three years of killings and cleansing in Darfur we must admit that our peace strategy so far has failed," Pronk said. "All we did was picking up the pieces and muddling through, doing too little too late."

"At least once a month groups of 500 to 1000 militia on camel and horseback attack villages, killing dozens of people and terrorizing the others who flee away," Pronk said.

The United Nations is contemplating a peacekeeping force in Darfur, where the African Union has fielded a force of 7,000 with a limited mandate and scarce funds. But U.N. peacekeeping officials have not planned for the high numbers of troops Pronk suggested...

[SWJED]

9 Feb Reuters - Annan Pushes Bush on U.S. Troops for U.N. Darfur Force (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR2006020901581.html).


The United States should contribute troops and equipment to a planned new U.N. force designed to stop the killings and rape in Sudan's Darfur region, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Thursday.

Annan said he would press President George W. Bush on the issue when the two meet on Monday in Washington, along with expected discussions on Iran, Iraq and the controversy over cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad.

Underfinanced African Union troops are now the only bulwark in Sudan against marauding militia and rebels, with some 7,000 monitors and soldiers on the ground. The U.N. Security Council this week authorized Annan to draw up contingency plans for U.N. peacekeepers to go into Darfur...

[SWJED]

9 Feb Voice of America - WFP: Lack of Security Threatens Darfur Relief Operation (http://www.voanews.com/english/Lack-of-Security-Threatens-Darfur-Relief-Operation.cfm).


The World Food Program warns increasing insecurity in Sudan's conflict-ridden province of Darfur is jeopardizing its operations. The U.N. agency says attacks on food convoys and drivers are hampering efforts to get crucial supplies to thousands of needy people.

The World Food Program says during the past two or three weeks, 20 trucks were attacked in northern and southern Darfur. WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume says this particularly dangerous area is under rebel control. She says it is unclear whether bandits or members of the Sudan Liberation Army are behind the attacks...

[SWJED]

18 Feb Washington Post - Bush Calls For More Muscle In Darfur (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021701935.html).


President Bush on Friday called for doubling the number of international troops in the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan and a bigger role for NATO in the peacekeeping effort.

Bush has concluded that peace talks will not halt the violence that has left tens of thousands dead and more than 2 million homeless in Darfur and that a more muscular military response is required, administration officials said.

After private talks with world leaders, including U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Bush decided to call for an additional 7,000 or more troops to be placed under U.N. command, along with the 7,000 African Union troops already there, because such an expansion would be the quickest way to intervene in the bloody conflict, the officials said. But many details of the policy shift need to be worked out, including how many U.S. troops would be part of the beefed-up international peacekeeping effort. Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, said it is "premature to speculate" on potential increases in U.S. troops...

[SWJED]

11 June Voice of America - NATO Considering Putting Troops with African Units in Darfur (http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-06-11-voa15.cfm) by Al Pessin.


Officials at NATO headquarters, and in NATO capitals across Europe and North America, are considering a request from the African Union to put western trainers into African military units that are trying to establish security in Sudan's Darfur region.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de hoop Scheffer said the request to expand NATO's involvement in Darfur arrived in time to be discussed Thursday during the NATO defense ministers meeting.

"That is a positive reaction to what has been discussed in the North Atlantic Council, and we are now moving on with this." Scheffer says.

The head of NATO's Strategic Direction Center, British Colonel David Short is to put together a detailed mission plan, if NATO leaders approve the African request.

"To me, this latest letter from the African Union is beginning to open a new chapter, if you like, in terms of NATO's engagement," Short says.

Colonel Short says the A.U. request asks NATO to continue its current support for the Union's mission in Darfur - flying troops in and out of the region, helping with training and providing a liaison officer at the mission headquarters. But he says it also includes new requests, including the one involving NATO trainers working in Darfur in the A.U. units that have been deployed.

"Could you look at, further, these sort of 'on the job' capacity building activities? By this, we are talking, potentially, about assisting units on the ground," Short says. "But, I would hasten to say that is very much something which needs further discussion and reconnaissance."

Colonel Short says the A.U. request also asks NATO to expand its training of senior African officers, and to help establish a system for certifying that military units from the various countries are fully qualified to participate in the organization's military activities.

No NATO official can say whether or when the alliance might expand its Darfur mission, as requested. But Colonel Short says the groundwork has been laid for the political decision and the potential military deployments.

"I would not be held to a specific length of time, but because NATO and the North Atlantic Council have been warmed up to these as potential options - because, clearly, we have always tried to forward plan and anticipate what might come in - we have prepared work that can be launched very quickly," Short says.

Years of violence involving militia groups and attacks on civilians have killed hundreds of thousands of people. The U.S. government and others have labeled it genocide. A peace accord reached last month has contributed to an increase in violence, as all groups have not accepted it.

The U.N. Security Council has agreed to take over the African Union military effort in Darfur, but Sudan's government has not accepted the plan. A local leader told VOA on Friday, after meeting with a UN delegation, that the people will not accept troops from outside of Africa. A U.N. force could include both African and non-African troops, including possibly some from NATO countries.

But at NATO military headquarters, Colonel Short says there is no plan for the alliance to organize forces to go to Darfur in large numbers to confront the militias themselves.

He says training teams that may work with the deployed African forces would be small, and the African Union Mission in Sudan, known as AMIS, would still be responsible for trying to restore order in the region.

"The key principle for the AMIS mission is that the Africans are looking for African solutions for African problems. They must remain in the lead. And NATO, who are just one of the partners, are there in support," Short says.

Colonel Short and other officials say NATO will have to ask member nations to provide troops and equipment for the additional Darfur missions. NATO has a new Reaction Force standing by to respond to emergencies, but officials say the training and other services being requested by the African Union are not the type of mission the Force was created to handle.

[SWJED]

Brokering Peace in Sudan (http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/christian.pdf) by Major Patrick Christian, US Army. Special Warfare Magazine, March-April 2006.


In August 2004, the author found himself in just such a role when he deployed to the Darfur region of Sudan as part of a small joint-special operations advisory team dispatched there by the commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Horn of Africa. The team, deployed from Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, consisted of a Navy SEAL lieutenant commander, a Marine recon major, and the author, then an Army Special Forces major. The team was tasked to work as advisers to the African Union’s 12 military-observer teams, or MILOBS, which were attempting to document cease-fire violations among the multiple parties in Sudan’s civil war. The mission was simple: to keep the MILOBS collecting information on the conflict, as well as to stay positioned between the warring parties as advisers without getting killed in the process. The mission originated when the United States partnered with the European Union, or EU, in an effort to avoid a full-scale civil war in Sudan. The coalition focus is on funding and supporting the newly formed African Union, or AU, in a role designed to mediate between the Government of Sudan, or GoS (which is primarily in the control of the Northern Arab Sudanese), and the armed rebel groups in the Darfur region. The government-supported militias were created when the GoS armed a large number of Arab nomadic civilians, known as the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed have since begun attempting to clear the African Muslim tribes out of Darfur in a form of political/cultural cleansing...

[Strickland]

I think one day, a new generation will review the death "scorecard" for Rwanda, DPR Congo, and the Sudan, and ask - "where was the global outrage and response?"

[Strickland]

So, the President will speak to Minni Minnawi, the head of the SLA from Darfur, but will not speak with Bashar Assad, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Kim Jong-il, all heads of state, for fear of sending the wrong message and rewarding bad behavior? I could be wrong, but I believe Minnawi has been indicted for war crimes by the ICC. What message does this send? Does this help the crisis in Darfur, Sudan?

[sgmgrumpy]

Excellent site for current events in SUDAN.


SUDAN WATCH
http://www.sudanwatch.blogspot.com/

[SWJED]

Excellent site for current events in SUDAN.


SUDAN WATCH
http://www.sudanwatch.blogspot.com/

SGM,

Nice link - I'm always on the lookout for additional resources on Africa. This site has links to other Sudan bloggers as well as to Congo Watch, Niger Watch, Ethiopia Watch and Uganda Watch. Thanks again.

Dave

[sgmgrumpy]

Interesting Survey. The website has alot of information as well.

Human Security Baseline Assessment Small Arms Survey, Geneva Sep 2006
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/portal/spotlight/sudan/Sudan_pdf/sudan%20issue%20brief%20sept%2006.pdf


Disarmament and gun control, coupled with security sector reform (SSR) and police training, are viewed by Lakes State residents as high priorities. Almost three quarters of respondents claimed that reducing the number of firearms and related arms would make people safer. In fact, more than one-fifth of respondents contended that firearms were South Sudan’s most pressing concern—outranking even access to education (20 per cent), poor health facilities (7 per cent), and unemployment (4 per cent) as the region’s most urgent priorities. Almost two-thirds of respondents reported that improvements to the security sector (police and military) were a high priority. More than half focused on the need for more effective police, while 20 per cent identified improving the army as a priority.

Small Arms Survey Main Site
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/

[jcustis]

It seems there was an attack at a large refugee camp near the middle of last month, and it caused an exodus of aid workers at a critical time, with only Red Cross left to deal with the 130,000 souls dwelling there.

I found more on aidworkers.net: http://www.aidworkers.net/?q=node/671

Aid groups pull out of Darfur refugee camp after rape

According to an article in the Independent, UK on 22 January 2007 by Alex Duval Smith in Paris:

Aid groups have suspended operations in Darfur and may pull out of the Sudanese province after a French relief worker was raped, another sexually assaulted and an Oxfam employee was severely beaten at the world's largest refugee camp.

The attack took place on 18 December at Gereida refugee camp, South Darfur, and marks the first time a Western aid worker has been the target of rape - a weapon of war in Darfur, where 3.5 million people depend on aid. "We have suspended our operations and we may not go back," said Thomas Gonnet, the director of operations for Action Contre La Faim (ACF), whose colleague was raped and another was molested.


Is there anyone on the SWC who has primary source knowledge of the current conditions in the Sudan?

[sgmgrumpy]

Jcustis,

He might be your best bet. Although he only has a few more months left in country.



I am a South African soldier. My work as an infantry captain at 6 SA Infantry Battalion (Air Assault)includes work as an AU/UN miltary observer. This is my world and I could not imagine doing anything else.

DARFUR BLOG
http://www.rsasoldier.blogspot.com/

[120mm]

Interesting Survey. The website has alot of information as well.

Human Security Baseline Assessment Small Arms Survey, Geneva Sep 2006
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/portal/spotlight/sudan/Sudan_pdf/sudan%20issue%20brief%20sept%2006.pdf



Small Arms Survey Main Site
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/

Every time I see something like this, I cringe. Blaming inanimate objects for complex problems seems to be a "universal solution" for the international activist type.

The "small arm" becomes the totem of both the soldier, and the peacenik, and the peacenik's solution is to simply remove the "small arm". Of course, when combined with military defeat, the symbolism might be effective (We beat you, so we get to remove/you have to give up your totem).

But short of military defeat, removing small arms is a) not practical and b) setting the stage for a "peace without justice" where the large and powerful no longer have to respect the small but well-armed.

It's also possible that c) setting the stage for a future conflict based on the forced disarmament.

Rearming is not a very difficult thing to do, or faking disarmament in the first place is a possibility.

[Jedburgh]

From the UK Defence Academy's Conflict Studies Research Centre, 2 Apr 07:

Darfur: A Cultural Handbook (http://www.defac.ac.uk/colleges/csrc/document-listings/special/07%2813%29TL.pdf)

...The aim of this piece is to explore the broad issues which are part of and associated with the culture of Darfur. Although much has been written on the north and south of Sudan, there is still very little currently available regarding the culture in the west, due mainly to its remoteness, and that it continues to be ‘out of bounds’, with access by Westerners strictly restricted by the Sudanese Government.

Sudan and, specifically, Darfur are difficult and expensive to get into and difficult to travel through and across. But Sudan is very strategically placed and has played an important part in the history of civilisation through the millennia. Through its location it has the ability to contribute considerably to wider regional stability and the prosperity of a key part of Africa in the future....

[Tom Odom]

Just some scenes from Darfur and Kordofan: 1st on approach into El fasher in 84 during US drought relief effort

[Tom Odom]

Later 1993 flood relief effort in 1993, again not far from El fasher

[Tom Odom]

And for the global tourist set:

[Jedburgh]

Military Review, May-June 2007:

Cows, Korans, and Kalashnikovs: The Multiple Dimensions of Conflict in the Nuba Mountains of Central Sudan (http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/MayJun07/varhola.pdf)

This article provides an overview of the 2002 cease-fire monitoring mission in the Nuba Mountains of central Sudan. Singular, bounded, and often inchoate causes – “It is a religious conflict”; “It is a competition for diminishing resources”- are often given as explanations for the conflict there and in Darfur. These explanations are not wrong in themselves, but they are inaccurate and misleading, if one examines them in isolation. The discord in the Nuba Mountains, for example, predates the actual fighting that began in the 1980s and has roots more complex than ethnic or racial difference between the Arab (primarily Islamic) North and African (mainly Christian) South. The current conflict is the most recent product of historical enmities and clashes that coalesce along socioeconomic lines….

[tequila]

An interesting article in CSMonitor: In Darfur, some Arabs now fight alongside rebels (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=3462). Just as the Darfur rebel movements have fragmented, so too have the janjaweed militias. This is turning into a near-replica of the southern Sudanese disaster, which saw similar fragmentation.



There was once only one reason for Tusher Mohamed Mahdi, a member of one of Darfur's many Arab tribes, to venture into the mountainous rebel enclave of Jebel Mara: to kill as many non-Arab guerrilla fighters and their supporters as possible.

Now he comes here to take orders.

Mr. Mahdi used to lead a band of 150 Arab fighters, part of the brutal janjaweed militia that fights as the Sudanese government's proxy army in the country's troubled Darfur region, which has seen more than 200,000 people killed and more than 2.5 million displaced since fighting erupted in 2003.

But like a growing number of Arab militia leaders now disenchanted with the Sudanese government, he has thrown in his lot with the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) rebel force, as Darfur's four-year conflict enters a new chapter.

"In the beginning we were proud to fight because the government was telling us that all this land would belong to us," he says over a glass of sweet, black tea in the small hillside town of Gorolang Baje.

"But later we discovered that would not be true."

Rebel leaders claim that dozens of janjaweed commanders are joining their struggle against the Sudanese government after promises of land, cattle, and money proved worthless.

In Jebel Mara they say 4,000 Arabs have bolstered their forces in the past year ...

[SWJED]

27 May LA Times - U.N. Presses for Peace in Darfur (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sudan27may27,1,3000064.story?coll=la-headlines-world) by Maggie Farley.


U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has put his personal diplomatic clout on the line to end the bloodshed in Darfur, demanding a cease-fire and fresh peace talks in a letter to Sudan's president, U.S. and Sudanese diplomats said Saturday.

Ban has asked the Security Council to hold off on sanctions to give President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir time to respond to an all-out diplomatic drive outlined for the first time in the confidential letter, which was delivered Friday.

The letter is also meant to signal a last chance for Bashir to stop attacks by Arab militias widely believed to be supported by the government. If Sudan continues to stall or backtrack on agreements, diplomats here say, even its strongest allies in the Security Council will have little excuse to block strong sanctions...

[sgmgrumpy]

Satellites to Watch for Darfur Violence (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EYES_ON_DARFUR?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US)


The new Amnesty International Web site, http://www.eyesondarfur.org , was launched Wednesday in conjunction with a conference at the University of California, Berkeley.

"We're hoping that by shining a light that we will deter the abuse from ever happening," said Ariela Blatter, director of the Crisis Prevention and Response Center for Amnesty International USA.

Satellite images have been used before to document destruction in Darfur and elsewhere. But the latest project offers clearer, more up-to-date images, allowing experts to better track developments, Blatter said.

[tequila]

U.S. relies on Sudan despite condemning it (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-ussudan11jun11,0,3455459,print.story?coll=la-home-center). Greg Miller and Josh Meyer, LATIMES. 11 June.

Sudan has secretly worked with the CIA to spy on the insurgency in Iraq, an example of how the U.S. has continued to cooperate with the Sudanese regime even while condemning its suspected role in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Darfur.

President Bush has denounced the killings in Sudan's western region as genocide and has imposed sanctions on the government in Khartoum. But some critics say the administration has soft-pedaled the sanctions to preserve its extensive intelligence collaboration with Sudan.

The relationship underscores the complex realities of the post-Sept. 11 world, in which the United States has relied heavily on intelligence and military cooperation from countries, including Sudan and Uzbekistan, that are considered pariah states for their records on human rights.

"Intelligence cooperation takes place for a whole lot of reasons," said a U.S. intelligence official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing intelligence assessments. "It's not always between people who love each other deeply."

Sudan has become increasingly valuable to the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks because the Sunni Arab nation is a crossroads for Islamic militants making their way to Iraq and Pakistan.

That steady flow of foreign fighters has provided cover for Sudan's Mukhabarat intelligence service to insert spies into Iraq, officials said ...

[SWJED]

12 June LA Times - Sudan OKs Peacekeepers for Darfur (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sudan13jun13,1,2672380.story?coll=la-headlines-world) by Maggie Farley.


Sudan on Tuesday accepted a combined United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force of up to 23,000 troops and police to stabilize to the war-torn Darfur region.

But U.N. diplomats, cautious after months of waffling by the regime, were not ready to celebrate a breakthrough.

The agreement came before a Security Council mission to Khartoum on Saturday to press for an end to the government-stoked conflict in Darfur. At the end of a two-day summit of Sudanese, U.N. and African Union officials in Ethiopia, Sudan also agreed Tuesday on the need for an immediate cease-fire and peace talks with rebel groups to end four years of fighting.

Sudan had initially agreed to the joint force in November, but it has backtracked and added conditions in the months since...

[sgmgrumpy]

Officials from the U.N., AU and Sudan met in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to jump-start a three-stage plan for a joint force to back up 7,000 overwhelmed and underpaid African Union troops already in Darfur.

How about NOT being paid.:mad:

Well hopefully the UN will not screw up the payment of the soldiers as the AU did almost often as noted in this SA blg on his year tour of duty in al-fashier under a AU hat.

I recall numerous problems with NIBATTS and ECOMOG forces in other peacekeeping duties under the blue hat, not getting paid on time and soldiers/units going as far as refusing to get onto helo transports until they were paid. Pretty bad when your trying to insert PKs into area because the place is about to get real bad in a hurry and all they need to do is pay them.

I would think they had it right by now since the 90s, but after reading some of the blogs, it's obvious some things never change.


I hope the UN don't screw this one up.


If you want the truth, anything more than Boots on the Ground is BS.

http://rsasoldier.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2007-03-26T09%3A26%3A00%2B02%3A00&max-results=20

http://www.rsasoldier.blogspot.com/


On another note: 32 AMIS Camps where built by PAE. Here is a report to GAO on Darfur. Good resource for background information. Another interesting note is that of the 16 authorized US Military Observers, only 11 were filled at the time of report.? Probably figure out why.

GAO Report on Darfur Nov 2006
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d079.pdf

[SWJED]

6 July NY Times commentary - In Sudan, Help Comes From Above (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/opinion/06flint.html) by Julie Flint.


The one bright light in the dismal international response to the slaughter and starvation in Sudan’s Darfur region has been a humanitarian effort that has kept more than two million displaced people alive. In the fifth year of the war, mortality levels among Darfurians reached by relief are marginally better than they were before the war and lower than in the capital, Khartoum. In South Sudan, where conflict is stilled, children have higher death rates and lower school enrollment.

This is a formidable achievement, better than in any comparable war zone in Africa. Credit the likes of Oxfam, Mercy Corps and Doctors Without Borders, and their 13,000-strong army of relief workers — 90 percent of them Sudanese.

Yet these successes will be lost if Democratic presidential candidates get their wish: a no-flight zone that is militarily enforced over Darfur. The idea, supported by Senator Hillary Clinton and others, is that this would pressure the Sudan government into allowing the immediate deployment of a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force. “If they fly into it, we will shoot down their planes,” Mrs. Clinton said last week at a Democratic presidential debate. “It is the only way to get their attention.”

Aid agencies are quietly appalled by the prospect of a no-flight zone. They believe Khartoum would respond by grounding humanitarian aircraft and, at worst, by forcing aid agencies to leave. Even if Khartoum didn’t ground flights, the United Nations most likely would, for fear of sending its planes into a potential combat zone. Without humanitarian air access, Darfurians would soon suffer lethal health and food crises...

[Tom Odom]

Why you have to love, Sudan

From a safe distance....

Darfur conflict takes unexpected turn (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/17820.html)
NERTITI, Sudan — As far as Osman Ahmed could tell, the clashes that forced his family out of their home and into a dismal refugee camp last month were no different from the attacks that have devastated Darfur for four years and counting.

"The village was totally burned and looted. It was the janjaweed," said Ahmed, a tired-looking man in a long white gown, invoking the name of the government-sponsored Arab militias responsible for most of the recent carnage in western Sudan.

But Ahmed, who fled immediately with his family to safety in Nertiti, about seven miles away, wasn't around to see what happened the following day. Darfur rebels retaliated by striking a nearby government security station, and their allies in the attack were also Arab janjaweed.

[Tom Odom]

a related article on the AU peacekeepers in Darfur:

Unpaid, underequipped African peacekeepers struggle in Darfur (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/17822.html)
EL FASHER, Sudan — The white pickup emblazoned with the initials “AMIS” — for African Union Mission in Sudan — slowed down near the entrance to a refugee camp in northern Darfur. A young boy in grubby clothes appeared at the side of the road.

Sitting at the wheel, David Eklu, a Ghanaian peacekeeper, lifted an arm to wave at the boy. The boy raised his right arm — and hurled a handful of rocks at Eklu’s car.

Eklu sighed and drove on. “That has happened before,” he said.

To the war-weary people of Darfur, nothing seems to symbolize the international community’s inability to end the four-year-old conflict more than the 7,000 A.U. peacekeepers stationed here.

Tasked with monitoring a cease-fire that the Sudanese government and rebel groups have never taken seriously, the peacekeepers find themselves the targets of growing hostility from civilians — and, more worryingly, the armed factions.

In April, unidentified gunmen killed seven peacekeepers in three attacks over two weeks. In the most brazen assault, a Ghanaian peacekeeper was murdered in a carjacking just a few hundred yards from the mission’s Darfur headquarters in El Fasher, within sight of fellow peacekeepers. The guards, from the Gambia, allowed the assailants to get away, and no pursuit was ordered.

[Stan]

Tom,
Starting to sound like the (slaughtered) Belgian Peace Keepers in Rwanda and the French in Goma...All over again :mad:

I somewhat agree that the African Peace Keepers have an edge, but as far as being more capable, that's been seen one too many times before. I can just barely imagine the Zairian troops holding back the former Rwandan Army in Goma amidst the --ahem-- chaos :rolleyes:

Seems we haven't learned too much from more than a decade ago. It's that, or few have taken the time to read the countless reports!

Regards,

Stan

[Firestaller]

Tom,
Starting to sound like the (slaughtered) Belgian Peace Keepers in Rwanda and the French in Goma...All over again :mad:

I somewhat agree that the African Peace Keepers have an edge, but as far as being more capable, that's been seen one too many times before. I can just barely imagine the Zairian troops holding back the former Rwandan Army in Goma amidst the --ahem-- chaos :rolleyes:

Seems we haven't learned too much from more than a decade ago. It's that, or few have taken the time to read the countless reports!

Regards,

Stan




I personally believe that the inaction by the world's powers have to do with not wanting to risk any negative affect on the global economy.


China has provided a substantial boom to the global economy and any slowdown due to higher price of oil as a result of a decrease in the oil market due to any sanctionson Sudan might create a panic in the markets. Just look at the reaction to periods of heightened tension between the US and Iran ... oil prices started soaring.



I think that the world leaders are pretty much trying to ignore it ... if it wasn't for those pesky human rights activists. Hell, the French oil firm Total signed a deal with Sudan exploration rights about a month ago.


To further complicate matters, Sudan has been home to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Salafi Islamic groups (same ideology as Al-Qeada) that have influenced the government and the populace for decades. Given that Sudan has been quietly co-operative with the US in hunting down radical Islamic militants, the US could either expand the GWOT to Sudan and Sudan is like another Pakistan.



I'm wondering what will happen when the 26,000 peacekeepers arrive in Darfur. Will the rebel groups in Darfur see it as an occupation ... will Jihadist groups plant IED's etc. to draw the West further into conflicts?

[Jedburgh]

ICG, 26 Jul 07: A Strategy for a Comprehensive Peace in Sudan (http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/africa/horn_of_africa/130_a_strategy_for_comprehensive_peace_in_sudan.pd f)

....Peace in Sudan is being frustrated on all fronts by the NCP regime, which views the transformation of the country as a threat to its survival. Obstacles to CPA implementation continue to grow, and a collapse of the agreement is a real possibility. International efforts have become so concentrated on Darfur, albeit without much success, that CPA implementation – the bedrock for peaceful transformation in the country – is being ignored, in effect a reversal of the situation in 2003-2004, when the focus on ending the North-South war led to diplomatic reluctance to address the unfolding catastrophe in Darfur. The international community is unwilling to hold the parties responsible for violations, or even to speak out about them, lest it imperil already problematic NCP cooperation on Darfur. The situation is complex, the threat of additional conflicts elsewhere in the country very real, but the core of lasting peace is already entrenched in the CPA and the interim national constitution – it does not need to be renegotiated or facilitated, merely enforced and implemented, with emphasis on the core national reforms and the democratisation process.

The CPA’s collapse would mean return to large-scale war in much of Sudan. Since the Khartoum-SPLA war ended in 2005, both sides have been rearming and preparing for possible resumption of hostilities. Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Eritrea were all destabilised to various degrees by the earlier war, just as Darfur is producing deadly spill-over effects in Chad and the Central African Republic. Unlike the last war, however, this one would probably not be limited to the South, Abyei, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile. It could easily connect with the conflict in Darfur and spread to other disaffected areas of the North, leading to Sudan’s first truly national civil war. The impact on at least all nine neighbouring countries would be devastating. The threat is very real and requires an urgent international response....

[Granite_State]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2174209.ece

Looks like most of the developed world won't be putting boots on the ground though.

[marct]

I'm on one of the Darfur support lists and this just came ver it.


NBA Dream Team Rallies for Darfur
For immediate release - May 10, 2007
Contact: Jill Savitt, Dream for Darfur, (917)-941-3530, Jill.Savitt@dreamfordarfur.org
Steve Kauffman, for Ira Newble, (310) 456-5400, Ksmg4@aol.com

NBA “Dream Team of Conscience” Urges China to Protect the People of Darfur
Cleveland Cavalier Ira Newble Rallies Players to Stop the Genocide

Cleveland – May 10 – Cleveland Cavalier small forward Ira Newble announced today that 11 of his teammates have joined him in co-signing an open letter to the government of the People’s Republic of China, urging the Chinese government to take immediate action on the crisis in Darfur, in advance of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Read the full text of the letter and signatures.


“I have been distraught about the crisis in Darfur, and especially with recent news that shows the situation has not improved – and more innocent people are continuing to die,” said Newble. “China is playing a major role in the crisis. The 2008 Beijing Olympics gives professional athletes the chance to speak out about the ideas of peace and brotherhood that the Olympics represent. I urge all athletes to ask China to do what it can to protect civilians in Darfur.” For information on China’s role in the Darfur crisis, see below.

More... (http://www.dreamfordarfur.org/NewsEvents/Media/PressReleases/PressReleaseIraNewble/tabid/185/Default.aspx)

[Tom Odom]

26,000 personnel--7,000 AU, 6400 UN civilians, 12500 other military, supposedly to come mainly from Africa with US airlift and money, British financial aid and logistics. All of this is supposedly to be finalized in 90 days.

I will be quite surprised if they do it in 90 days. I am equally doubtful they will be able to draw another 12,000 troops from Africa. MONUC in the Congo has been and still is a struggle with 16,700 troops, 700 milobs, 1000 police, and 1800 expatriate civilian workers (permanent or UN volunteer).

Plus one can make the argument that the Congo is relatively developed when it comes to infrastructure avaliable when compared to Darfur and Kordofan.

Tom

[Granite_State]

26,000 personnel--7,000 AU, 6400 UN civilians, 12500 other military, supposedly to come mainly from Africa with US airlift and money, British financial aid and logistics. All of this is supposedly to be finalized in 90 days.

I will be quite surprised if they do it in 90 days. I am equally doubtful they will be able to draw another 12,000 troops from Africa.
Tom

Yeah, I know next to nothing about African militaries, but I was wondering about that.

[Stan]

13 August - By Martin Plaut, BBC Africa analyst

"And so far these UN troops (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6944277.stm) have caused no difficulties for the Sudanese government."

Really ? Now this begs the question...who's nominally in charge whilst the rest beg, borrow and steal :D


The chairman of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, dropped something of a bombshell after holding talks with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Speaking to the media, he insisted that the 26,000-strong hybrid United Nations-African Union force would be drawn entirely from Africa, and that it would be under African command.

The initial response to the statement was one of surprise.

The Americans, among others, had argued that Africa does not have enough trained soldiers to make up a credible and effective force.

The Sudanese are fearful that some of their number might be arrested by UN forces, under a sealed warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, for crimes allegedly committed in Darfur.

African troops, led by an African commander, might be prevailed on not to carry out this exercise.

But in some ways the whole rumpus is a little puzzling.

The UN already has 10,108 total uniformed personnel, including 8,824 troops, 591 military observers, and 693 police patrolling South Sudan, as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement reached between the authorities in Khartoum and rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in January 2005.

More at the link

[tequila]

In Nubia, fears of another Darfur (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nubia31aug31,1,2412565,print.story?coll=la-headlines-world)- LATIMES, 31 Aug.

The tranquil Nubian villages along this Nile River stretch are best known for the brightly painted gates that adorn many of the simple mud-brick homes. With geometric shapes and hieroglyphic-like pictures, the oversized gates hark back to the stone-carved doorways the villagers' ancestors once built on pyramids that rivaled Egypt's.

These days, however, the elaborate entryways are shadowed by black flags. Government soldiers patrol once-quiet dirt streets, occasionally drawing stones from angry youths. Protest graffiti mar the walls, including one scrawling of an AK-47 with the simple caption: "Darfur 2."

First, southern Sudan erupted in a 20-year civil war, followed by the east and, most recently, the western region of Darfur. Now many fear that Sudan's northern territory of Nubia will be the next to explode over the fight for resources and all-too-familiar accusations of "ethnic cleansing" and complaints of marginalization by an Arab-dominated government ...

[negotiator6]

I deployed on a DOD contract with four others to Nuba Mountains, Sudan, located in the southern half of the largest country in Africa-Sudan. The story in the LA Times about the Nubian people might require alittle more definition. Date of deployment: early March of 2002.

Mission: Observer/Advisor to interim cease fire agreement between SPLA-Sudan People's Liberation Army and GOS-Government of Sudan

In the early years of tribes in north Africa, the Nubian people were mostly black Africans tribes, in lieu of the Arab tribes more common to the tribes currently making up the Middle East. As Islam and Arab tribes migrated westward, the Nubian people or factions of the tribes moved south. Although, many remained, as today, the Nubian people were constantly degraded to near slavery under Islam; many retained their "Christain" legacy reinforced by the occupation forces during World War I.

Others moved south and many took up residency in the five (5) mountains (maximum height at 3,000 ft) in what is called Nuba Mountains in the southern half of Sudan. There about 2 million people resided until the conflict between what was then the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Government of Sudan which began after Bashir came to power. The war started in 1983 and until its conclusion in 2004, it was the longest continuous war in Africa with over 2 million dead and countless hundreds of thousands as IDP's and refugees along the Sudan-Congo, Republic of, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Chad and in the region called Darfur.

The Nuba Mountains were essentially surrounded by the Government of Sudan soldiers and encampments; the last major attack in Nuba was in May of 2001 near the dirt landing strip near Kauda.

Only two of the four deployed into the mountains; BLH to sector 5/mountains with a small contingent of SPLA and myself, to the command HQ of the SPLA in Sector 1. Co-located with the SPLA leadership, I acted as an observer and advisor: tasking included moderating issues which would break the cease fire agreement; compliment any NGO activities and moreover, reinforce the end state objective of a sustained cease fire moving into a final peace agreement. Often myself and several others would walk to the SPLA "garrisons" which were located a narrow passage ways into the mountains; the SPLA fighters were located with their families knowing full well, if they could not succeed in controlling key terrain, they and their families would be slaughtered by the GOS soldiers.

The SPLA with its leader John Garang (Infantry Officer's Basic Course-FT. Benning) who led the uprising against the GOS interdicted the oil transport lines from southern Sudan to the coast, thereby inflicting heavy economic damage on the government.

As you know, China receives nearly 10% of their oil from Sudan and all parties, including US wanted this peace agreement to materialize. In fact, the Sudan Peace Act under President Bush promised the Bashir government 300 million in economic aid if a peace agreement between the factions was finalized. In view of today's issues in Sudan, I suspect that funding has been withheld-I might add, a great amount was destined for the south, but according to current reports, none has materialized.

The Point: If there are any doubts about the Government of Sudan and its efforts to cleanse Sudan of their non Islamic population, I can testify as a witness to genocide in Nuba Mountains, Sudan. The people were on the absolute verge of starvation. I most often tried to eat (initially MRE's) solo, as I could see the look on their collective faces when I broke opon a pack.

All the talk in the world will not stop Bashir and his government from cleansing all who are not Islamic, speak Arabic and abide by sharia law.

Never negotiate except from a position of strength..so goes the phrase..and up currently Sudan remains in a position of strength with oil reserves to exceed perhaps those of Saudi Arabia; billions of petro dollars are flowing into Khartom and the Arab world supports Sudan push to extinguish those who are not of the Islamic faith.

And, lastly, when I returned, one of the Sudan DOD desk officers asked: " Tell me about the SPLA fighers..what kind of soldiers are they?"

My response was terse with this short example. I replied.." Almost any SPLA soldier licking an ice cream with his left hand could gut you from the neck to your bellybutton and not miss a lick..."

Enough said!

Randy

[tequila]

Chaos in Darfur on the Rise as Arabs fight with Arabs (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/03/world/africa/03darfur.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin)- NYTIMES, 3 Sep.


Some of the same Arab tribes accused of massacring civilians in the Darfur (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/sudan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) region of Sudan are now unleashing their considerable firepower against one another in a battle over the spoils of war that is killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands.

In the past several months, the Terjem and the Mahria, heavily armed Arab tribes that United Nations (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org) officials said raped and pillaged together as part of the region’s notorious janjaweed militias, have squared off in South Darfur, fighting from pickup trucks and the backs of camels. They are raiding each other’s villages, according to aid workers and the fighters themselves, and scattering Arab tribesmen into the same kinds of displacement camps that still house some of their earlier victims.

United Nations officials said that thousands of gunmen from each side, including some from hundreds of miles away, were pouring into a strategic river valley called Bulbul, while clashes between two other Arab tribes, the Habanniya and the Salamat, were intensifying farther south ...


The images with the article gives a good idea of just how far the "ethnic" definition of "Arab" can stretch in Sudan:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/09/03/world/03darfur2.650.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/09/03/world/03darfur.600.jpg

[Stan]

Hey Tequila !
Nice post and pics :)

Setting road blocks and gaunlets is not a good sign for Africans of any tribe. It boils down to a lack of everything, and borders on total chaos. These so-called movements actually have little politically 'to do' with motivating the troops (although it often sounds great in the press).

Once the chow's run out and there's nobody left to steal from or rape, the UN troops will really have their hands full (because they'll be next on the food chain).

Regards, Stan


Some aid workers say Darfur is beginning to resemble Somalia, the world’s longest-running showcase for AK-47-fed chaos. Highwaymen in green camouflage — rebel fighters? local militia? janjaweed? — routinely flag down trucks and drag out passengers, robbing the men and sexually assaulting the women. Newly empowered warlords are exacting taxes. The galaxy of rebel armies — the Greater Sudan Liberation Movement, the Popular Forces Troops, the Sudan Democratic Group, to name a few new arrivals — keeps expanding, and ideology seems to fade away. Despite peace talks among them in early August, the rebels, mostly non-Arabs, are now also battling themselves.

[TROUFION]

I hate to say this but, the effectiveness of UN PK forces has been very suspect for a long time. I hate to say this becuase it is often seen as a slam against non-western militaries ability and professionalism. It is also seen as elitist. That said here goes, the idea of a stand alone UN military force is written into the UN Charter, the capacity fielding this force exists yet it is not politically viable. Too many questions on command and control, loyalty etc.

Stand by for controversy:

What the UN should do is higher Blackwater or another firm, combination of firms, to provide professional uniformed military forces. The quality would go up, the quantity could be a problem but that is a $ thing. But the money is there note--The amount of money spent to higher say Bangladeshi troops is huge, and then you have to pay extra to arm and equip them. By resorting to PMC's the UN could build effective first rate forces, that are governed by the UN (new international SOFA style and UCMJ style rules would have to be created) commanded by the UN and sanctioned by the UN. Note Blackwater ahs stated they could outfit a battalion fairly easily. This could at least provide a professional QRF. The existance of a quality QRF could stiffen the resolve of the other forces.

[jcustis]

While it may make all the sense in the world to go with a PMC solution, the member states would never go for it...no matter how painful it would be to go without.

That's one of the greatest failings of the utopian-esque drama that is called the UN. Country prestige is one of the foremost things on the mind of contributing states. Second most important is likely keeping their soldiers happy with a little extra pay (which US forces see none of when part of these lash-ups).

Add to this the fact that Blackwater is a PMC that grew up within the belly of the great Satan, and the idea will go over like a fart in church. I'm talking about likely resistance from the Canadians and Norwegians too, who have their own peacekeeping academies.

Blackwater will not be able to break free of the mercenary perception, no matter how hard it tries, so it will probably remain relegated to support services and smaller-level security details.

Again, it doesn't matter that Blackwater can do it better. Half the answer has nothing to do with capability.

[MattC86]

That's one of the greatest failings of the utopian-esque drama that is called the UN. Country prestige is one of the foremost things on the mind of contributing states. Second most important is likely keeping their soldiers happy with a little extra pay (which US forces see none of when part of these lash-ups).

Again, it doesn't matter that Blackwater can do it better. Half the answer has nothing to do with capability.

Very true. In the 90s, developing countries used UN peacekeeping deployments as means of getting free equipment and money from first world nations. The results speak for themselves: How effective was UNOSOM (sp?), the effort in Rwanda, or any number of other operations? Then there was the case of some African troops (forget which country) molesting and killing children during a peacekeeping operation.

These operations only have any effect when backed by the muscle of a committed modern military power, and even then they are dicey (see UNOSOM).

I think the whole concept of peacekeeping operations needs to be rethought - though not abandoned - and certainly the way they are conducted.

A thought to keep in mind though: many in the US don't like the UN, and don't like us paying money and backing peacekeeping operations, but they're destined to fail almost automatically if we or other modern powers don't commit.

Matt

[jcustis]

Very true. In the 90s, developing countries used UN peacekeeping deployments as means of getting free equipment and money from first world nations. The results speak for themselves: How effective was UNOSOM (sp?),

I was thinking specifically of UNOSOM as I typed my first reply. I watched UNOSOM spiral into a morass after the US withdrew in March, 1994, and those observations frame my views on peacekeeping to this day. I'm trying to break that cycle, but it is very hard.

[TROUFION]

JCustis, give me a second, i'll put away the crack pipe :). I fully realize and understand the reality vs the intent (or dream) of the UN. I've had ample opportunity to study UN Ops. Red tape, and heavy handed management, look just at the standard of 80% administrative fees for most operations to see the possibility for corruption and theft is great. I futher fully understand the general US disgruntlement with the UN, seeing it as nearly a parasite and place where the US gets dragged through the mud, called the devil by petty dictators etc. There is a lot to dislike about the UN.

What I see here however is this. The President thas labled the activity in Darfur as a Genocide, the why of this could be debated, the President hass also called African relations a Vital National Interest, again debatable but he did it and therefor it is so. YET except for the slow, near plodding and confused stand up of USAFRICOM, some activity in the HOA and minor supports in other areas (Trans Sahara & Sahel Initiatives training militaries) we haven't done much. Truth be told we cannot spare troops for these areas even if we wanted to, not with current activity elsewhere. A new approach needs be set cause we risk looking foolish and ineffective once again.

Further, the standard in the UN is that nothing in the General Assembly matters, it is all rhetoric. the GA has a part in establishing the budget and managing the overall efforts of the subcommitees and groups like UNICEF. Where we are concerned in Chapter VI and VII action only decisions in the Security Council truly matter. Decsions as we all know in the SC require unanimity due to the Veto power of the big 5 not an easy thing to get. Yet for Darfur, for various reasons each unique to each country the decision to support a deployment of troops ahs been passed. Money is now being rasied, troops are being organized (@90% light or motorized infantry). A 'robust' ROE (that too is debatable) is being established. In other words a lot of the UN and the Security Council permanent 5's reputation has been put on the line.

What i said in my first post still stands, the pool of forces available to the UN is mainly infantry, little to no Log, Com, and other Staffing functions. The US will kick in strategic lift to get the infantry in country, but it will end there. Who provides the in country lift? The Canadians? Nope-they have a great deal for the UN they provide QRF for insert and extract ops, they do not provide helo squadrons for other UN forces.

The US could give helicopters to the UN for use in country, we have a large fleet of old birds UH1, CH 46 etc that would fit the bill. But who do we give them to, who can we trust not to take them and sell them off? Who provides the pilots, the ground crews? Here is an opportunity for a PMC. There are a good number of retired, and other former military pilots who would buy into this as well the ground crews. It probably wouldnt be to hard to piece together two squadrons of helos for the operation from former military folks. And I made a mistake by mentioning the buzz word 'black water' group I should have just said PMC, becuase PMC's are growing, England, France both have them.

The UN has outsourced security in the past, they already hire PMC's to provide security for their diplomats, it is not that far of a stretch. Remember in 1999 PSC were declared dead, the actions of Sandline/Executive Outcomes had apparently seen to that. But then the need for private security began to grow quietly and today 20k + work in Iraq. In 1980's US military the thought of a PMC providing support in warzone would have been seen as nuts.

If someone can figure out a way to turn a profit from providing military/paramilitary support to the UN it will/could happen. Think of this. If you could sell the idea to a few influential US Senators and who control the $ flow to the UN. Then get the US and some NATO forces to donate old UH1's and CH46, CH47's. Then allow for open recruitment of retired/former military pilots and ground crews. Kick in a few purchases of a few Russian birds, maybe a chinese aircontrol radar and you could have a deal.

I'll leave it at this, since wee have put our word out that the Genocide must be stopped then we need to ensure this effort works. Since we are commited elswhere and couldnt raise the support for US troops to go then US national prestige is on the line. PMC's could be the way to go. There is nothing utopian in this analysis.

[jcustis]

Troufion,

Copy on all. There are a number of quiet professionals already working within the shadows, supporting peacekeeping/security cooperation on the continent.

ICI of Oregon is just one company, and frankly, they have a ton more experience than Blackwater or probably any other PMC, within the African context. I see your point though, and yes, the generic brand of PMC is easier to swallow for outsiders that the specific one hanging its hat in Moyock.

We're on the same sheet of music. I just think that support services are the biggest player. I do not feel that BW's battalion-level capability is tenable for the foreseeable future though.

I agree that utilizing PMC support services could prove more efficient in the long run.

[tequila]

In Darfur, From Genocide to Anarchy (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR2007082701339.html)- Washington Post, 28 Aug.



Imagine you are a U.S. Special Forces officer and you get a call: You are being posted to Darfur. Your job is to protect African villagers from marauding Arab horsemen and to show the Sudanese security chiefs that their bluff has been called -- at last, the international community is standing up to their evil schemes.

What can you expect? According to news reports, a sort of slow-motion Rwanda (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Rwanda?tid=informline) in the desert. What will you find on arrival? A reality that's complicated and messy. A Darfur (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Darfur?tid=informline) that has more in common with Chad (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Chad?tid=informline), southern Sudan (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Sudan?tid=informline) and -- dare we say it? -- Somalia (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Somalia?tid=informline).

In Darfur today, knowing who is on which side is not straightforward. The savage counterinsurgency offensives, with their massacres and scorched earth, that Colin Powell (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Colin+Powell?tid=informline) called "genocide" in September 2004 had in fact largely concluded by the time Powell made that historic determination. This isn't a moral exculpation; it's simply a fact. It's also been a regular sequence in Sudan's recurrent wars over the past 25 years. Episodes of intense brutality and mass displacement are followed by longer periods of anarchic internecine fighting, ably exploited by the government.

Because the vanguard of government offensives is tribal paramilitaries -- well known to prefer soft civilian targets to hardened rebels -- the result of each offensive is a fractured and demoralized society in which every group is armed and most leaders cut opportunistic alliances to preserve their power bases. The warlords who prosper in this environment deal only in the currency of power, switching alliances as their calculus shifts ...


Sounds like ... Diyala?

[jcustis]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/09/30/sudan.darfur.ap/index.html


DURAIJ, Sudan (AP) -- A large force of rebels stormed an African Union peacekeeping base in Darfur, killing at least a dozen soldiers and wounding several others in the biggest attack on the mission so far, the AU said Sunday.

More than 50 AU peacekeepers and support personnel are missing in action since the attack on the base in northern Darfur just after sunset on Saturday.

"This is the heaviest loss of life and the biggest attack on the African Union mission," said AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni, who could not confirm the casualty figures because the fighting was ongoing.

More at the link, but does anyone have an easily referenced info source for this snippet?
The underfunded force has been unable to stem the fighting in the war torn western region and will soon be merged into a much more powerful hybrid U.N. force.

The first units of the 26,000-strong force will be deployed in October and it is expected to assume responsibility for the area on December 31.

[TROUFION]

From a survey of the open source reports it would appear 150 peacekeepers, basically mech-motorized infantry company, were attacked by about 1000 irregular troops who weilded mortars, and heavy machine guns. Apparently the peackeepers held out for several hours until their ammunition ran out. They had to rely on rescue by the Sudanese Army.

Once again the UN/AU shows its weakness. no air support-no ready action QRF, unless you consider the sudanese army-the guys you are partially there to police. An airstrike or two would have most likely broken the attack. Oh well. Also note some of the African nations who promised troops are starting to back out. I can't blame them if they feel they are sending troops into hamrs way without the proper support.

[jcustis]

Also note some of the African nations who promised troops are starting to back out. I can't blame them if they feel they are sending troops into hamrs way without the proper support.

Got any links? This whole UN-AU things smells, in my mind. cobbled together, not 100% ready to mobilize and deploy, etc. There are several spots on the CNN website that speak to a few of the issues, and I fear that these problems will be construed as an easy crutch for not doing anything.

[sgmgrumpy]

Jcustis,

I believe they where NIBATT's involved. I know they did have two NIBATTs deployed several months ago on AMIL to AU mission. The statement of running out of ammo came from NIBATT soldier.

As far as who was responsible.

JEM can say all they want about they were not part of the attack, but G-19 militia has teamed with JEM in past. G-19 primarily operates in Northern part of SUDAN. At least that is my opinion.:D

Sudan - Darfur: Humanitarian Profile - Sept 2007 Reported Incidents
http://www.unsudanig.org/library/mapcatalogue/darfur/data/dhnp/Map1036%20Darfur%20Profile_September%202007.pdf

Main Website
http://www.unsudanig.org/index.php

[TROUFION]

Both Nigeria and Senegal are threatening to back out and or send less troops.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071001/ap_on_re_af/darfur_q_a_1;_ylt=Ao9D3pz8q6EiD1MFcK17EoEE1vAI

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071001/wl_afp/sudandarfurafricanunionunrest_071001192642;_ylt=Ah DycDi3ofRmWXZiswo8IlwE1vAI

http://news.yahoo.com/photo/071001/photos_wl_africa_afp/d74e98ec78be5409b6c5727aa8050cd7&g=events/wl/040704sudan;_ylt=AnO2G5fJYDomaQ2u8vyXxoWROrgF

[sgmgrumpy]

Particular interest is page 48, Non-signatory SLA factions. Since 2003, smaller groups have broken off from SLA/JEM and are forming new ones. Mainly to have a seat in the upcoming peace talks.

Divided They Fall: The Fragmentation of Darfur’s Rebel Groups (http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/portal/spotlight/sudan/Sudan_pdf/SWP%206%20Darfur%20rebels.pdf)



The G-19, an SLA splinter group that emerged in March 2006, has become the main rebel group in Darfur since the DPA was signed. It was originally formed by 19 commanders from North Darfur who said they rejected both Minni’s authoritarianism and abuses and Abdel-Wahid’s weakness. Some came on board before the Haskanita conference, but most joined at the northern commanders’ meeting in Karo, Bir Mazza, in December 2005.


In May 2006, the G-19 still had no more than 15 vehicles: by early October, five months later, it was estimated to possess around 100 vehicles, mostly taken from government forces and SLA-Minni. The fighting force is now thought to be about 5,000, almost all in North Darfur.98 The G-19 is said to recruit with ease among the Zaghawa refugee camps in eastern Chad, but it lacks the weapons to arm its new fighters.


Making Sense of Darfur: Watch Kordofan (http://www.ssrc.org/blog/2007/09/13/watch-kordofan/)


In the coming year, Kordofan is at serious risk of large scale violence—and any such violence could have disastrous ramifications for the whole of Sudan. Here’s why.

The central political issues in Sudan today are the 2009 general elections and the 2011 referendum on self-determination for Southern Sudan. If either of these were to fail, the prospect of major hostilities looms. Kordofan is the location of several possible flashpoints for war, and should there be a new war for any reason, it is certain that it would engulf Kordofan and cause immense human suffering.

There are five particular causes for concern........

[Jedburgh]

ICG, 26 Nov 07: Darfur's New Security Reality (http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/africa/horn_of_africa/134_darfur_s_new_security_reality.pdf)

The Darfur conflict has not lent itself to quick solutions. It has evolved from a rebellion with relatively defined political aims to a conflict increasingly overshadowed by shifting alliances, defections, regional and international meddling and a growing, complex tribal dimension. This is particularly true since the signing of the DPA (http://se1.isn.ch/serviceengine/FileContent?serviceID=PublishingHouse&fileid=B7750F00-0DED-1779-BB56-D7AD72453FFC&lng=en). The NCP is behind this transition and the continued tribalisation of the conflict; it has been deft at pulling strings to divide the rebels, empower Arab allies, generate mistrust, and minimise the space for Darfurians to unite around a common political vision and oppose the regime in upcoming elections. It has also expanded its control by institutionalising the demographic shifts and creating new localities.

The rebel factions have been unable to maintain a unified focus and have instead descended into a spiral of infighting and splintering, exasperating outside attempts to bring them together. They, like the NCP, have refused to adhere to previous ceasefires. Some have even tried to widen the conflict into the Kordofans, encouraging local uprising and insurgency. Many Arab groups, previously engaged in the conflict solely as elements of the counter-insurgency, have also entered the fray, as they have grown more frustrated with the NCP or have wanted to secure their gains in Darfur. The DPA signatories, despite signing up to a peace deal, have been a generally destabilising presence on the ground as well. The consequences of all of this have been felt the hardest by the millions of Darfurians who continue to be displaced, as well as by the humanitarian agencies that are increasingly under siege.

For some time, there was a lack of sustained international peacemaking engagement – beyond rhetoric – with most efforts focused on peacekeeping. Much energy was spent, commendably, to ensure that a hybrid operation would be able take over from the ailing AMIS but there is now the risk that the stronger UNAMID (http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unamid/) force will arrive in Darfur with no peace to keep. Nevertheless, this is not a reason to rush; for the AU/UN mediation effort to be successful, it must avoid the trap of thinking there are quick fixes. Peace talks are the first step in a long process but they require broader participation, including that of women, to be successful.

International efforts at peacemaking and peacekeeping must take advantage of the delay in the Libya talks and adapt to the changes in the nature and dynamics of the conflict. They must also effectively pressure the NCP to cease its devastating policies of demographic manipulation. To date, little has been done to hold the NCP accountable. Failure to respond appropriately would leave the international community as an unwitting accomplice to the beginnings of Sudan’s next civil war.
Complete 41 page paper at the link.

[Jedburgh]

USIP, 21 Feb 08: Sudanese Universities as Sites of Social Transformation (http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr203.pdf)

Summary

• Education is an important resource for any country, but it is especially valuable in spreading the values that transform a wartime society into one with a culture of peace.

• Some of the structural inequities besetting the educational system in Sudan today stem from the colonial period and policies set during the early days of independence.

• Efforts to unify the country through an Arabic national curriculum caused resentment and alienation in the non-Arab communities and exacerbated civil conflicts.

• Sudanese universities have historically been the incubators of political change in Sudan, and student unions in particular have retained a tradition of vibrant—and sometimes violent—political activity.

• The education revolution implemented by the current regime in the 1990s overextended Sudanese universities, resulting in an extreme teacher deficit and the degradation of university resources and degrees.

• Various additional policies had the effect of intimidating university students and teachers, changing the atmosphere on campuses and leading to a nonreflective focus on exam results and to little intellectual exchange.

• In the interim period between the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the general election, a new openness allowed universities to begin to revive their historical intellectual traditions. This openness will be vital for securing peace with the South and for eventually reconciling Darfur and the East.

• A productive model has been illustrated by efforts to engage Sudanese universities with their local communities as sites for the development and sharing of public information, culture, and the acceptance of difference.

• The international community should advocate creative collaboration, research, and teaching exchanges both to and from Sudan, encourage international conferences involving Sudanese students and faculty, and pay active attention to restoring Sudanese libraries and research facilities.

• Sudanese education officials, university faculty, and civil-society organizations should work together to counter four key educational problems: the lack of exposure to critical thinking and research skills; the lack of vibrant extracurricular life; the alienation of universities from their local communities; and the recurring pattern of violent student activism.
Complete 12 page paper at the link.

[negotiator6]

Many of the readers know of Sudan as primarily the ongoing crisis in Darfur.Between 1983 and January of 2005, Sudan experienced the longest continuous civil war in Africa.* The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed on January 9, 2005 between the then National Islamic Front (NIF)-now termed the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the political component of the Sudan People's Liberation Army/SPLA.* John Garang, the infamous bush fighter turned leader of the SPLA headed up essentially both the SPLA and the SPLM.* Garang was killed in a helicopter "accident" after returning with a meeting in Uganda with its president in July of 2005.

I deployed under a DOD advisory contract in March of 2002 in support of cease fire agreement in Nuba Mountains-Nuba was a five mountain chain adjacent to the oil pipeline from Unity State..just south of Nuba Mts (South Kordafan).* Parties agreed to the following: The SPLA would cease cutting the oil pipeline, while the north (NIF) would allow humanitarian relief into Nuba Mts. which had been essentially cut of from all aid for many years.The cease fire in Nuba Mts was the first step in bring the parties together which culiminated in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed on January 9, 2005.

The US along with Britain have been supporters of the SPLA in part due to the radical Islamic government headed by the current President Bashir in Khartoum.* You may recall UBL headquartered for a time in Sudan in the mid=1990's before being pushed out moving to the border areas of Afghanistan-Pakistan.OK, movin fast forward..in comes the UN and as part of the planning post was southern Sudan, the mission to "transform" the SPLA into a professional military organization.* The USG government contract was awarded to Dyncorp.* I joined the advisory mission to the SPLA in November of 2007.

Lessons Learned:

(1) Dyncorp was wholly un-prepared for the mission-

(2) The Program Manager was former military who worked as liaison officer with State and essentially built the advisory program, and in doing so worked his way into the contract for $240,000 per year.* The result was a person totally unqualified to lead a mission of this importance in Sudan..and perhaps anyplace.

(3) Relationships within the government continually give rise to intra-personal situations not for the purpose of the mission, but to "buy" a job post retirement from government service or the military.

(4) Outsourcing critical training components of the US foreign policy to companies who really do not care about the mission, but rather are concerned about profits.

(5) Visited several times by former US Army generals (retired) who meant well in their collective presence, but everyone knew they "sold" their connections for income opportunities-this fact seems so apparent.

(6) The recruitment of "advisors" included several with severe health issues; one fellow on Prozac, while others were totally un-qualified for the positions.* At issue..the company just could not find as required in the USG Statement of Work (SOW) qualified people when considering the competition from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.So, you say..why did you stay...well, I didn't.*

In short, the US is thin on fulfilling its worldwide mission.* We need to re-think our committments and provide the resources neccesary, otherwise, more harm than good will result as in the case of providing competent military advisors... called the Training & Advisory Team (TAT) mission to Southern Sudan in support of the Sudan People's LIberation Army/SPLA.

[Tom Odom]

Many of the readers know of Sudan as primarily the ongoing crisis in Darfur.Between 1983 and January of 2005, Sudan experienced the longest continuous civil war in Africa.*

And in doing so beat its own previous record of 14 years of civil war that ended in 1975 as I recall...


John Garang, the infamous bush fighter turned leader of the SPLA headed up essentially both the SPLA and the SPLM.* Garang was killed in a helicopter "accident" after returning with a meeting in Uganda with its president in July of 2005.

And was the college classmate of my 3rd ex-wife, whom I met while we were in Sudan. Garang is one of those figures who was hero to some and devil to others. He was also labeled both terrorist and freedom fighter.


The US along with Britain have been supporters of the SPLA in part due to the radical Islamic government headed by the current President Bashir in Khartoum.*

In this latest iteration, yes, In the earlier stages when I was there we were trying to walk the line and attempted to discourage the Khartoum government from declaring Shariah in 1983. When that failed we tried to convince Nmeri not to enforce it.That partially restarted the war--what really got it going was US oil exploration in the south and the exploitation of that by the Arab north, The southern rebels shut that down in 1984 when they attacked the camp at Malakal, killing several expatriate workers.

I am not surprised thet Dyncorp couldn't do the job, nor am I surprised that they took the contract. Damn few folks know anything about the Sudan and most are happy to use ignorance as a carte blanche to do what they want according to various agendas.

Tom

[Stan]

Lessons Learned:

(1) Dyncorp was wholly un-prepared for the mission-

(2) The Program Manager was former military who worked as liaison officer with State and essentially built the advisory program, and in doing so worked his way into the contract for $240,000 per year.* The result was a person totally unqualified to lead a mission of this importance in Sudan..and perhaps anyplace.

(3) Relationships within the government continually give rise to intra-personal situations not for the purpose of the mission, but to "buy" a job post retirement from government service or the military.

(4) Outsourcing critical training components of the US foreign policy to companies who really do not care about the mission, but rather are concerned about profits.


A sad state of affairs, but not at all surprising that the responsible individuals at the US Embassy would not engage. Keep in mind the contracting officer(s) is/are nearly the most junior officer(s) with the least amount of experience, and already a full plate to deal with before he/she/they pull(s) plug at the 2-year mark.

It takes but one individual to get the IG fired up (I've done it twice while on active duty... it works, albeit slowly).



(5) Visited several times by former US Army generals (retired) who meant well in their collective presence, but everyone knew they "sold" their connections for income opportunities-this fact seems so apparent.


Hmmm, all our 'visitors' were either in 'government' or still on active duty !
We used to call that "gettin' your passport stamped "Goma" in the event there would be awards or potential presidential candidates in near future" :wry:



(6) The recruitment of "advisors" included several with severe health issues; one fellow on Prozac, while others were totally un-qualified for the positions.* At issue..the company just could not find as required in the USG Statement of Work (SOW) qualified people when considering the competition from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.So, you say..why did you stay...well, I didn't.*


Two California-based contractors with shady pasts employing Rwandan and Nigerian soldiers under the (ahem) watchful eye of the African Union? Better yet, a five-year open-ended State Department task order... Yep, sounds just about right.

Hard to find qualified people to work for nothing in Africa these days.



In short, the US is thin on fulfilling its worldwide mission.* We need to re-think our committments and provide the resources neccesary, otherwise, more harm than good will result as in the case of providing competent military advisors... called the Training & Advisory Team (TAT) mission to Southern Sudan in support of the Sudan People's LIberation Army/SPLA.

I concur with you ! Do you feel AFRICOM will come up with qualified active duty personnel to fulfill all our political commitments in Africa ? Having spent a decade in DRC (then Zaire), I can't imagine just how much it would take to turn things around. We had the qualified personnel and literally unlimited budgets, but the problem was far more difficult than D.C. could ever fathom.

Regards, Stan

[Beelzebubalicious]

This is just being reported so not a lot of info right now. If anyone is on the ground there, would be interested in hearing more about this.

http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnMCD049604.html

[Tom Odom]

Omdurman with the Karari training area is west of Khartoum. The Infantry, Armor, Artillery, and ADA centers are all out that way. Hard to say,,,

[Beelzebubalicious]

Know any good forum or blogs to track this?

[Rex Brynen]

Fighting prompts Khartoum curfew (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/51DF8D2C-009B-4262-BCC2-C59F07219ABB.htm), al-Jazeera English, 11 May 2008.


A curfew has been imposed on Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, after government forces clashed with fighters from the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) in an area north of the city.

The Jem website said on Saturday that its fighters had taken control of Wadi Saidna air force base, just north of Khartoum, although this has not been verified.

More coverage (and some pictures) at the Sudan Tribune (http://www.sudantribune.com/) website.

[Beelzebubalicious]

All kinds of curfews in place now. Friend in the UN has been told to restrict all movement in Khartoum. Active fighting is taking place in several areas. That was sent out this morning.

Last I heard the government was rooting out some of the JEM guys from Omdurman, but this sounds a bit more widespread. Brief review of news sources show nothing more.

[Beelzebubalicious]

Interesting little article from NY Timeson the reasons behind the rebel attack and press coverage.

After a Quixotic Attack in Sudan, a Question Lingers: Why? (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/world/africa/12sudan.html?em&ex=1210737600&en=c752033d37de2c7d&ei=5087%0A)

And also this from the TimesOnline (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3917030.ece)


Analysts said that Jem had achieved its aim of undermining Khartoum's reputation as an impregnable fortress, exposing opposition and fear within the capital.

John Prendergast, of the Enough Project which campaigns against genocide, said: “There were more soldiers on the inside than there were soldiers who ventured all the way from Darfur, which should be very worrisome for the Government.”

[AdamG]

They're rounding up the usual suspects.

KHARTOUM: Human Rights Watch voiced concern on Tuesday at mass arrests in Khartoum after an attack on Sudan's capital by Darfur rebels and said it feared some people had been tortured or killed.

http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/05/13/africa/OUKWD-UK-SUDAN-DARFUR.php

[JJackson]

Chad closes its border with Sudan (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7397412.stm)

I have to admit I am mainly posting this because I love the title so much - it is the idea that Sudan has some control over its boarder that is so hilarious.

[Rex Brynen]

it is the idea that Sudan has some control over its boarder that is so hilarious.

I find the idea that Chad has any control over its border with Sudan equally amusing...

[JJackson]

Yes, sorry that was a typo on my part but it works equally well both ways as you point out. I just hope they oiled the padlock well incase they need to open it again soon - that dust and sand gets into everything.

[Tom Odom]

Here is a typical desert "highway" in Sudan that runs west into Chad. It is actually on some maps as an improved road :D

I am sure that the Sudanese-Chadian border is equally well demarcated. :wry:

[Beelzebubalicious]

Demarcation is pretty clear to me. Right of the bush and across the sand to that other bush.

By the way,

Activist Call in Response to Recent Attacks in Khartoum

Please join ENOUGH Co-Chair Gayle Smith and Advisor Omer Ismail tomorrow Wednesday, May 14th at 12:30 p.m. (E.D.T.) for a special conference call to discuss the weekend rebel attack on a suburb of Sudan's capital Khartoum. The call will provide an update and analysis on the volatile situation .

If you would like to be a part of the call, please register and fill out the form below.

The call in number is 1-866-682-6100
Please ask to be placed in the "Sudan Activist Call"

sign in at http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/84/signUp.jsp?key=1763

[Barnsley]

It is indicative of the appalling mess that 'New Sudan' is melting into. Juba is a bloody dangerous place to be these days. Armed gangs roam the town at night and deliberately target the compounds of the UN and NGOs. Following the money. The levels of corruption are epic. Almost every commodity is imported through Atiak having been dragged all the way from Mombasa via Busia or Mbale then on through Kampala or Lira, Gulu, Kitgum and over the border. Its a trip of about 2000kms. The economist and friend-of-Bob Geldorf, Jeffery Sachs recently had his minions calculate ht e average speed of an ISO container over the route, 5kph. Cost of journey (according to a local Indian businessman, $10k. And they intend to build a capital city. The roads from the Kenya/Uganda border mostly look and feel like they have been cluster bombed. As each day goes by, with convoys of huge over-loaded trucks, the roads get worse. The journey from Lira to Kampala used to take me 4 hours in 2005, it now takes six. They are rebuilding the Yoweri Museveni Memorial Highway and Regional Bombing Range, between Nakasongolo and Luweero, but it is being destroyed even as its being repaired. The railway line between Kisumu and Kampala fell in the water last week, about the same time as the Government announced that the bridge over the Owen's Falls at Jinja is badly cracked and will have to be rebuilt asp. It is the MSR for Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan and E Congo. The Chinese, who are here in hordes, are on a promise to build a railwayline from Kampala to Juba .... some day.
My favorite Sudanese cluster-fug of the moment is at: www.normeca.com/normeca/news/ Southern%20Sudan%20Hospital%20Project_mail.pdf -
It will no doubt be Sudan's equivalent of the Millennium Dome.
The cost of building this 'folly' is in excess of EU 20m
The estimated monthly running costs are EU 5m
There is currently a major crisis because GOSS haven't paid any running costs yet.
Shame for all those expat docs and nurses sitting around the pool drinking cold beers, whilst the locals [Taposa pastoral nomads] have to have a shower before they are allowed in the hospital. This is supposed to be a sustainable project, yep, but who is going to sustain it? And the deal is they will build 9 more, a bunch of mobile clinics and two hospital ships on the Nile! I swear!! Assuming they can attract enough expats to man these white elephants, the monthly running costs will total about $100m a month. Meanwhile 37 nurses were sacked in Juba Referral Hospital ( they only have 50) for walking out because the administration failed to pay them.
Tom: I am back. I wrote the paper on CIMIC and also a shorter article for a magazine. If you instruct me as to where and how I post its URL, i will do so. You were all a great help, thank you. If there is anyone out there who is current on the Dyncorp story, i would be interested. And in anything else S Sudan. Kony is still wandering around the woods in either Congo or CAR, but the people have got bored and gone home. There are some great stories about resettling IDPS in northern Uganda if you think it would start a string. I also have a good friend who is commanding AMISOM in Mogadishu, I could ask him if he wanted to join and offer thoughts, he is desperate for new ideas.

[Tom Odom]

Tom: I am back. I wrote the paper on CIMIC and also a shorter article for a magazine. If you instruct me as to where and how I post its URL, i will do so. You

Just send it t the editors here and we will be happy to look at for the blog, the magazine, or perhaps both.

Welcome back,

tom

[Barnsley]

Tom
Here is a URL with a copy of the article.
Bob
http://www.hfncenter.org/cms/Leitch

[negotiator6]

Sudan is a complicated in almost every category one can name. Ethnic cleansing or perhaps genocide by starvation is ongoing in Darfur, yet it seems the international community can do little.

Just back from Southern Sudan/Juba..as mentioned as part of the training and advisory mission to the SPLA..my comments are included in the threads as above.

I wanted to comment briefly how the overall situation is going in Juba..the capital of Southern Sudan. The international community is ever present; the restaurants and bars for ex-pat's are beginning to crowed the dust filled roadways. While white UN vehicles and other NGO vehicles move from place to place with the windows up and the A/C on...while people walk by what would be considered upscale dining establishments..the local community residents have no running water, nor sanitary...and eating is the day's fulfillment.

Also, one can readily see the SPLA leadership or those connected driving in Mercedes or other. All this time, the locals see little for them.

I asked my friend "M" about the corruption within the SPLA..He responded with several examples including the ID card machine which cost the SPLA (or donors..) nearly one (1) million US dollars...I asked..how could that be..one million dollars for a ID card machines..

"M" responded that a number of generals who "ordered" the equipment also took a large portion of the proceeds..and so did the alleged attractive Ethiopian female who sold the equipment. "M" was at one time Dr. John Garang's body guard (I have the last picture of Garang in Uganda the day of his death..) and when asked..."What would Garang do if he saw such corruption?" "M" response was..."he would of killed them all..."

Remember, war can be big business for many..we all know that. But, even in Sudan..one tribe will "sell" another in terms of inflicting starvation or other for money...knowing full well, the international community will quickly fund any differences.

Is there a resolution? Well, so far, the war, the ethnic cleansing and genocidial intent in Sudan continues...until a resolution which is a model of reconciliation in Africa..these types of "wars" will continue..and the international community will continue to fund...

rh

[Rex Brynen]

UN fury at Darfur militia ambush (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7498811.stm), BBC News, 9 July 2008.


UN chief Ban Ki-moon has condemned an ambush which left seven members of the joint UN-African Union peace mission to Sudan's Darfur region dead.
Twenty-two others were injured, seven critically, in one of the deadliest assaults on UN forces in recent years.

The UN says its peacekeepers fought for over two hours to repulse suspected Janjaweed fighters, who were armed with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

If it was the Janjaweed, and if the attack was in the numbers and with the firepower reported (40 attacking vehicles with mounted MG/AA/RCL), it would seem to be the Sudanese sending signals to UNAMID (http://unamid.unmissions.org/), whether about ICC prosecution or generally to deter the mission from showing too much operational ambition.

[davidbfpo]

I note the BBC website does not indicate which contingent was attacked. I recall AU patrols have been ambushed, even disarmed (including a South African unit). The Sudanese state has played a very astute role throughout the Darfur crisis. Will the ambush discourage AU / UN nations contributing? I suspect so.

davidbfpo

[Rex Brynen]

I note the BBC website does not indicate which contingent was attacked.

According to AFP (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ivvR9HQuNFx6_OpVcEyB1yBzj2iw), one Ugandan police officer was among those killed. Also:


UN officials in Sudan said a Ghanaian was among the dead, and that 17 Rwandan peacekeepers, and others from Ghana, Senegal and South Africa, were among the wounded. Some of the victims are in intensive care.

[Tom Odom]

UN officials in Sudan said a Ghanaian was among the dead, and that 17 Rwandan peacekeepers, and others from Ghana, Senegal and South Africa, were among the wounded. Some of the victims are in intensive care.

The Rwandans will not put up with this crap. Look for a retaliation.

Tom

[Rex Brynen]

This would certainly explain why Sudan might want to up the ante against UNAMID:

Sudan Leader To Be Charged With Genocide (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/10/AR2008071003109.html?hpid=topnews)
Peace Efforts in Darfur Could Be Hampered, Some U.N. Officials Fear

By Colum Lynch and Nora Boustany
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 11, 2008; Page A01


UNITED NATIONS, July 10 -- The chief prosecutor of the Internationals Criminal Court will seek an arrest warrant Monday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity in the orchestration of a campaign of violence that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the nation's Darfur region during the past five years, according to U.N. officials and diplomats.

It will also be a massive test case for the ICC, with profound repercussions for its future.

[Mark O'Neill]

mind 'Hans Brix' offering the North Korean leader a 'very stern letter' in that scene from Team America .

That scene forever skewered in place in my mind the image of the impotence of the UN in bringing recalcitrants to bay if none of the UNSC permanent five are willing to act.

On another note, I cannot for the life of me understand why the lives of various Sudanese ethnic factions are worthy of protest and attention by the same elements of Western society who willingly advocate abandoning elements of Iraqi society to equally violent fates.... Guess it pays to belong to an 'at risk minority' that captures Hollywood's 'concern'.

[Tom Odom]

On another note, I cannot for the life of me understand why the lives of various Sudanese ethnic factions are worthy of protest and attention by the same elements of Western society who willingly advocate abandoning elements of Iraqi society to equally violent fates.... Guess it pays to belong to an 'at risk minority' that captures Hollywood's 'concern'.

regardless of reality, certain elements in the US insist on painting the Sudanese conflict as a religious struggle. that is how John Garang kept the SPLA going for so long. It has long been "cool" to look at Sudanese dissident groups as white hats versus Khartoum as black hats. The reality is of course much more complex.

Tom

[marct]

On another note, I cannot for the life of me understand why the lives of various Sudanese ethnic factions are worthy of protest and attention by the same elements of Western society who willingly advocate abandoning elements of Iraqi society to equally violent fates.... Guess it pays to belong to an 'at risk minority' that captures Hollywood's 'concern'.


regardless of reality, certain elements in the US insist on painting the Sudanese conflict as a religious struggle. that is how John Garang kept the SPLA going for so long. It has long been "cool" to look at Sudanese dissident groups as white hats versus Khartoum as black hats. The reality is of course much more complex.

LOL - too true, Tom! Mark, there's a mental game I play as a thought experiment that might prove useful in getting a handle on things like this. Basically, shift one of the axiomatic assumptions in the situation and see how it plays out. In the Darfur case, try shifting the ostensive "race" of the victim :cool:.

Tom, playing up the South as Christian has, as you noted, been a great way to keep groups like the SPLA going. The links become absolutely fascinating when you look at which particular evangelical groups have been, and are currently, operating in the area and then look at their ties in Western societies.

[Steve Blair]

LOL - too true, Tom! Mark, there's a mental game I play as a thought experiment that might prove useful in getting a handle on things like this. Basically, shift one of the axiomatic assumptions in the situation and see how it plays out. In the Darfur case, try shifting the ostensive "race" of the victim :cool:.

Interesting. I do this often as well. I suspect in my case it has to do with observing the currents of historical study and how they tend to flow to or around certain groups depending on what's in vogue or (perish the thought) fashionable at any particular time.

This isn't to say that some forms of history aren't worth studying. Far from it. But it is interesting to watch the popular emphasis shift depending on certain factors (sometimes race, sometimes gender, sometimes economics...you get the idea).

[marct]

But it is interesting to watch the popular emphasis shift depending on certain factors (sometimes race, sometimes gender, sometimes economics...you get the idea).

Yup. I started doing this systematically when I was studying social theory as an undergraduate. The key shift I used then, and still use in many cases, is assuming that reincarnation is absolutely real. Boy, does that cause changes in perception!

I used the "race" shift in the Darfur example, because there is an excellent analog with Zimbabwe and Mugabe's systematic, racists attacks on "white" farmers. Notice that the elements that are crying out about Darfur didn't make a peep when Mugabe brought out his "final solution" to "economic imperialism" :cool:. I mentioned this to one of my students who is quite active in the Darfur social movement here in Ottawa, and she hadn't even heard about it <sigh>.

[Rex Brynen]

But it is interesting to watch the popular emphasis shift depending on certain factors (sometimes race, sometimes gender, sometimes economics...you get the idea).

Agreed--although my preference is that we elevate all systematic human rights abuses to the same moral plane, rather than lowering them to the lowest common denominator.

Tom is right that Sudan is far from a good guys vs bad guys situation, and I've long argued that precisely because of that complexity NGO calls for a R2P Chapter 7 humanitarian intervention in northern Sudan were a recipe for disaster. That having been said, we should be clear that the Bashir regime is a particularly nasty one, and that Sudan's various civil wars rank the most tragic conflicts of recent decades.

[bourbon]

Interesting. I do this often as well. I suspect in my case it has to do with observing the currents of historical study and how they tend to flow to or around certain groups depending on what's in vogue or (perish the thought) fashionable at any particular time.

This isn't to say that some forms of history aren't worth studying. Far from it. But it is interesting to watch the popular emphasis shift depending on certain factors (sometimes race, sometimes gender, sometimes economics...you get the idea).

"History itself is an endlessly unfolding S&M novel. History is much more sick, bloody, and unjust than historians will ever let on. When they finally get around to writing some real history, we’ll all need medication. It’ll be too depressing."

- Jim Goad, The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats

[Norfolk]

The Rwandans will not put up with this crap. Look for a retaliation.

Tom

Rex wrote:



well, this would explain it...

This would certainly explain why Sudan might want to up the ante against UNAMID:

Sudan Leader To Be Charged With Genocide
Peace Efforts in Darfur Could Be Hampered, Some U.N. Officials Fear

[]

It will also be a massive test case for the ICC, with profound repercussions for its future.


It goes without saying of course that it is rather unlikely that the accused will ever appear before the ICC; possible, but exceedingly improbable. The bitter truth is that by taking a swipe at the Rwandans, the Sudanese may end up starting something they may not be able to handle. The next time rebels march on Khartoum, they just might be bringing a wringer with them.

Someone in Khartoum right now should be engaging in some sober second thought.

[Tom Odom]

Looks like is official on the charges against Bashir. On the Rwandans versus the Sudanese, I am probably the only westerner who has been inside both militaries. My experience with the Sudanese is dated (1984) but their military culture is probably unchanged. I'd bet on the Rwandans.

In any case, this charge will complicate life for Bashir. Perhaps it will make Chinese support to the regime more odious but I doubt it.

Tom



Sudanese president charged with genocide (http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/14/darfur.charges/index.html)

CNN) -- The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has filed genocide charges against Sudan's president for a five-year campaign of violence in Darfur.


1 of 4 Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Monday urged a three-judge panel to issue an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to prevent the deaths of about 2.5 million people forced from their homes in the war-torn region of Darfur and who are still under attack from government-backed Janjaweed militia.

The five charges against al-Bashir include masterminding attempts to wipe out African tribes in the war-torn region with a campaign of murder, rape and deportation.

[Beelzebubalicious]

The Enough Project came out with a statement (http://www.enoughproject.org/node/974)in support of the ICC's charge.

I also wanted to note that a friend working for the UNDP in Khartoum has been asked to take an early R&R just in case things get a bit hairy (hairier?). UN is overly cautious, I think, but then again, are there any reliable predictors of violence in places like Sudan?

[davidbfpo]

I am not convinced the attack on the UN / AU convoy by the Janjanweed is in anyway related to the ICC request for an arrest warrant for President Bashir.

Had the ICC indicated to outsiders, like the pernament five on the Security Council, it's intentions? I have a vague recollection that indictments in war crimes cases in Bosnia for example were "sealed" and very few knew they existed.

I am more persauded that the ambush was convenient for the Sudanese government, even if not ordered.

Secondly "back channel" communications with the Sudanese government exist, although going public on these will be difficult for awhile. The ICC indictment makes diplomacy rather difficult - not that it appears to have achieved much for so long in the conflict in Darfur.

From a faraway armchair.

davidbfpo

[Beelzebubalicious]

Saw this and thought some of you might be interested...

The ICC Indictments and What they Mean -
Conference Call, July 16, 2008, 1pm


You are invited to participate in a conference call to discuss International Criminal Court's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo recently filed genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

"Q and A: The ICC Indictments and What They Mean"

Moderator: Allyson Neville, Advocacy Associate, Genocide Intervention Network

Speakers: John Norris, Executive Director, ENOUGH Project
Colin Thomas-Jensen, Policy Advisor, ENOUGH Project

Date: July 16, 2008

Time: 1-2pm

Agenda
What is the current state of play/situation?
What are their implications?
What are/should be the policy/advocacy asks be?

RSVP: Meghna Raj at mraj@enoughproject.org

[Randy Brown]

This topic is outside my usual Priority Information Requirements, but I thought I'd relay this David Axe posting on Wired.com's "Danger Room." Eye-catchingly headlined "When Soft Power Backfires" (http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/07/when-soft-power.html), and linked to an American Prospect article (http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=is_the_un_making_things_worse_in_ darfur) also penned by Axe, it discusses an French-Swedish-Polish-Irish-stew (given the recent deployment of a brigade of EUFOR peacekeepers) of challenges:


The Darfuri refugee camps in Chad are key. The U.S. and Europe fund layers of defense for the dozen large camps and their 250,000 residents. The defenses range from Chadian paramilitaries to a new E.U. peacekeeping force (pictured) with armored vehicles, helicopters and drones.

Problem is, the rebels fighting in Sudan use the Chad camps as bases, traveling in at night when the camps' defenses are down. Worse, they use the camp populations as recruiting pools, luring or forcing kids as young as ten to join the fighting, ensnaring the next generation of Darfuris in the cycle of violence.

I'd originally thought to post this to the peacekeeping or NGO thread, but instead ended up running toward the sound of the gunfire (or was that typing?) over here, where y'all seem more actively engaged on current-events implications for UN/AU in Sudan. I hope you find this germane ...

[Tom Odom]

This topic is outside my usual Priority Information Requirements, but I thought I'd relay this David Axe posting on Wired.com's "Danger Room." Eye-catchingly headlined "When Soft Power Backfires" (http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/07/when-soft-power.html), and linked to an American Prospect article (http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=is_the_un_making_things_worse_in_ darfur) also penned by Axe, it discusses an French-Swedish-Polish-Irish-stew (given the recent deployment of a brigade of EUFOR peacekeepers) of challenges:



I'd originally thought to post this to the peacekeeping or NGO thread, but instead ended up running toward the sound of the gunfire (or was that typing?) over here, where y'all seem more actively engaged on current-events implications for UN/AU in Sudan. I hope you find this germane ...

There is very much a sense of deja vu for me regarding the Darfur situation and the relationships between refugees, assistance, and camps as they combine to add to unrest. The refugee camps in Zaire and elsewhere were my greatest headaches for the last 20 months of my time in Zaire and Rwanda.

But in tagging his article to "soft power" as expressed by SecDef Gates or over the past decade by Dr. Joe Nye, Axe is mixing apples and oranges. Peacekeeping and peace enforcement are military applications and are by definition NOT elements of soft power. By joe Nye's defintion, soft power does not even include economic leverage--that he places as a hard power element.

I would add that the ultimate test for peacekeeping or even peace enforcement has to be what it seeks to accomplish as expressed in its mandate. If it is not getting the job done--and many do not--then it needs to go away. Rwanda and UNAMIR 2 provides a good case study for how a new government limited the role of a UN peacekeeping and ultimately forced its withdrawal.

Tom

[Tom Odom]

regardless of reality, certain elements in the US insist on painting the Sudanese conflict as a religious struggle. that is how John Garang kept the SPLA going for so long. It has long been "cool" to look at Sudanese dissident groups as white hats versus Khartoum as black hats. The reality is of course much more complex.

Tom

As an example of muddled agendas and analogies, consider the cartoon posted on SWJ Blog today:

[Tom Odom]

Rwanda Threatens Darfur Pullout if U.N. Removes General (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/23/AR2008072303610.html?sid=ST2008072400059&pos=)UNITED NATIONS, July 23 -- Rwanda has warned that it will withdraw its 3,000 peacekeepers from a U.N.-backed mission in the Darfur region of Sudan if the United Nations refuses to retain an alleged Rwandan war criminal as its second-highest-ranking commander there, according to U.S. and U.N. officials.

The United Nations has sought to persuade the Rwandan government to replace Maj. Gen. Emmanuel Karake Karenzi, the deputy force commander of a joint African Union and U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur. A Spanish judge indicted Karenzi and 39 other Rwandan officers in February for alleged war crimes in Rwanda in the mid-1990s.

I know Karake about as well as any westerner can know a foriegn officer. Hei s brave, intelligent, and feared by his enemies. The Spanish charges are to my mind more of the Hutu reverse genocide information operation that has been ongoing since 1994. For that matter, I have been targeted by the same. As for the 2000 fight in Kisangani, I cannot say. It seems to me if the UN looked into it--as they did--then it should be a dead issue.

The UN and the Rwandan government do not "like" each other. This symptomaric of that dislike.

Tom

The pic is from the Iwawa clearing operation. I was on the island with Karake shown in this picture.

[Tom Odom]

PS

Reference Karake and operations in 1997, my second Ambassador Bob Gribbin singles out Karake for praise in his book on that time period. The insurgency was raging in western and northwestern Rwanda, complicated by RPA heavy handed sweeps that turned bloody. Then COL Karenzi took command of the sector and with former ex-FAR battalion commanders in his brigade changed operations and disciplined the troops. Some of that included summary executions of RPA soldiers found guilty of killing civilians. he restored control of the RPA and at the same time finished the Hutu insurgency as a force inside Rwanda.

[Tom Odom]

More on the Spanish case and General Karenzi


Judgment without borders (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rivkin6-2008oct06,0,4163298.story)
What we are seeing is the birth of a type of worldwide judicial anarchy.
By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey
October 6, 2008

'He may be a sonofabitch," President Franklin Roosevelt is supposed to have muttered, referring to a Nicaraguan dictator, "but he is our sonofabitch."

That is foreign policy realism in a nutshell -- straightforward, practical, pursuing the national interest regardless of ideology. Its counterpart, of course, is a foreign policy driven by idealism and conviction -- a credo often called Wilsonian, after President Woodrow Wilson, but most recently associated with the neoconservative movement. These days, the assumptions of both schools of thought are threatened by a new global actor in the form of international judicial activism.

[Jedburgh]

ICG, 21 Oct 08: Sudan's Southern Kordofan Problem: The Next Darfur? (http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/africa/horn_of_africa/145_sudans_southern_kordofan_problem___the_next_da rfur.pdf)

.....The CPA partners have neglected an important aspect for achieving peace in Sudan. Overwhelmed by the Darfur crisis and Abyei (http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2007.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/RMOI-77YLP4-full_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf) and their mutual mistrust, they have allowed the situation in Southern Kordofan to reach a dangerous level. The Nuba (http://www.nubasurvival.com/) and Misseriya have been used as pawns in a bigger game. Since the signing of the CPA (http://www.iss.co.za/af/profiles/Sudan/darfur/cpaprov.htm) in 2005, the NCP and SPLM (http://www.splmtoday.com/) have abandoned their war-time allies and instead of delivering on wartime promises – particularly desperately needed development – have pursued national agendas they hope will win them the elections in 2009 or 2010.

Nuba and Misseriya leaders have become increasingly intolerant and frustrated at their marginalisation by the centre and the lack of peace dividends. They could well resort to armed insurgencies if their needs are not met soon. If the NCP, SPLM and international community fail to pay the required attention to the divided region, their inaction could come back to haunt them in a way that threatens the stability of the already divided country. Prevention of a new conflict in Southern Kordofan needs to be placed prominently on both national and international agendas.

[Stan]

If there is anyone out there who is current on the Dyncorp story, i would be interested. And in anything else S Sudan.

Some of our current programs are being handled by Dyncorp and they are now in Georgia in various capacities (until this year I didn't have the pleasure of managing projects with them). Some tuning is indeed in order :rolleyes:

Coincidentally, I have a good friend from the Swedish Rescue Services (SRSA (http://www.raddningsverket.se/templates/SRSA_default____20877.aspx)) standing up a demining office in The Sudan as we speak. When he returns I'll get a gander at his AAR, which should prove an interesting read !

Regards, Stan

[Jedburgh]

CH, 9 Jan 09: Against the Gathering Storm: Securing Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/12941_0109sudan_r.pdf)

This report is divided into four sections. The Introduction sets out the main provisions of the CPA and briefly assesses progress on these provisions. The second section highlights some of the main issues in the drafting and implementation of the CPA. The third section looks at existing trends towards fragmentation in Sudan, and tries to assess how they will play out in the next few years. The final section contains recommendations for international supporters of the CPA. One of the report’s main assumptions is that conflicts in Sudan arise from an unbalanced relationship between the centre and many of its peripheries. The report focuses on three or four areas of current or former conflict in Southern Sudan, Southern Kordofan and Darfur. There are important lessons to draw from conflicts and peace processes in other areas, such as Eastern Sudan, Blue Nile and parts of the Northern Nile Valley affected by dams. Rather than giving a tally of progress in these different peripheries, the report focuses on the often overlooked problem of the centre.

[davidbfpo]

Moderators Note: This thread is a catch all thread for posts on the Sudan, except the current (Jan '10) thread on 'South Sudan - stabilisation' and contains a variety of subjects.

The South Sudan thread is: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=8460

[davidbfpo]

Just found this blogsite:http://robcrilly.wordpress.com/ by a UK journalist Rob Crilly and praised by a BBC journalist:
The crisis in Darfur is complex, multi-layered and has its roots deep in history. It is not, as it is often portrayed, a straightforward issue of good versus bad. Rob Crilly has spent more time than any other journalist I know travelling in and out of the region to piece together his analysis; his vast experience informs this book and lifts it head and shoulders above other attempts to explain what has plunged Darfur into disaster.

Mr Crilly has a new book out: http://www.reportagepress.co.uk/books-name.php?book=44 and this is a synopsis:
Africa is a continent riddled with conflict. Most are forgotten wars that rumble away unnoticed for years. Darfur is different. For five years an unlikely coalition of the religious right, the liberal left and a smattering of celebrities have kept Darfur's bloody conflict in the headlines. Rob Crilly, East Africa correspondent of The Times, arrived in Sudan in 2005 to find out what made Darfur special. He found a conflict very different to the one popularised by the Save Darfur movement. This was no simple genocide being carried out by Arabs on black, African tribes. Along the way he rides with rebels on donkeys, gets caught in a Janjaweed attack and learns lessons from Osama bin Laden's horse.

[M-A Lagrange]

Sudan and JEM rebels agree to sign a final deal for peace in Darfur

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34230

And when a brand new beautiful world is blowing then comes the rain…

Darfur rebel factions unite under new umbrella in Doha
February 23, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – Ten Darfur rebel groups currently in the Arab Gulf state of Qatar announced today that they have joined together under a new umbrella called ‘The Liberation Movement for Justice’ removing one of the major obstacles that faced the mediators in Doha as they attempted to jumpstart peace talks with the Sudanese government to resolve the seven year conflict.

However, four other groups refused to join the new umbrella including SLM faction of Ahmed Abdel-Shafi, SLM-Unity, Revolutionary Forces Front, SLM faction led by Abdullah Khalil. These movements comprise mainly of Addis Ababa factions brought together by US special envoy to Sudan Scott Gration.
Mahjoub Hussein who is the Secretary General of ‘The Liberation Movement for Justice’ said during a press conference that they will not be a party to the JEM-Khartoum accord signed today and that they will sign their own framework agreement in the coming days.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34232

We will se how far can Qatar facilitate that second peace agreement.
There still are 6 movements out of the peace process (peace process number ???).

However, Khartoum really seems in hurry to get his house clean before the elections, the 2011 referendum and the war that will follow (according to SPLM/SPLA). Especially as this time SPLA has decided to put war in the north.
Somehow, they looks like 2 children: you put may “country” at war then I will spoil yours now…
And we do call that peace process?

[M-A Lagrange]

Some interesting news about Darfur and he race for peace before the Sudan elections:
(unfortunately in French as I did not find any link in English but I translated the key points)

Force mixte Tchad-Soudan, un support inlassable pour le retour de la paix au Tchad et Soudan
http://www.alwihdainfo.com/Force-mixte-Tchad-Soudan,-un-support-inlassable-pour-le-retour-de-la-paix-au-Tchad-et-Soudan_a3068.html?com

A mix force Chad Sudan is being created to secure the border and settle the peace between the 2 countries. This force will be 3000 men strong. As stated in the article, it’s not a first try, it’s the redrafting of what was agreed in 2006/7.
I must say that I do agree with the comment left on that page: I have very little confidence this will work. But… I like to be positively surprised.

Still on Darfur Doha peace agreement progress: prisoner exchanges have started.

Soudan : Le chef des rebelles darfouris du JEM ordonne la libération de 50 prisonniers du gouvernement
http://www.elmoudjahid.com/accueil/monde/52887.html

Khartoum did free 57 men, including 50 war prisonners from the attack on Omdurman who were condemn to death penalty.
On its side, JEM free 50 prisonners. As usual, ICRC is facilitating and providing support.
Apparently, for once, this peace agreement is being put in place.

But peace in Darfur is not really for tomorrow:
Since two days, Khartoum forces are conducting an extremely violent attack in Darfur on the non signatory rebel group SLA.
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/3/20100226/twl-soudan-darfour-violences-d407853.html

The UN Special Envoy will meet in Kigali next Friday to discuss Darfur peace. The delegation will be conducted by Ibrahim Gambari, Chiefof joint mission ONU?UA in Darfur (MINUAD).
http://www.afriquejet.com/actualites/securite%11conflit/securite:-une-reunion-pour-le-retablissement-de-la-paix-au-darfour-2010022644852.html
See also the MINUAD site for the original declaration.

[M-A Lagrange]

Sudan dismisses US Rice’s remarks on arms embargo violation
The Sudanese government discounted statements made by US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice saying that she is isolated in her positions within the UN Security Council (UNSC).
On Thursday Rice said there is a continuous pattern of weapons flowing to Darfur, acts of sexual and gender-based violence committed with impunity, military over-flights and offensive actions.
She further said that “this behavior does not suggest a new willingness on the part of Sudan to fully engage in the peace process”.
The spokesman of the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, Muawiya Osman Khalid, said that Rice is at odds with “objective parties at the US administration itself that are concerned with supporting the ongoing process Darfur and solving the root causes of the issue”.
He added that the “personal hostility of Rice to Sudan prevented her to recognize that the issue of arms in Darfur cannot be solved through sanctions committees, but through a comprehensive peace agreement that can be reached by the ongoing peace process in Doha”.
Khalid accused Rice of forcing Sudan into the UNSC agenda “so that she can bash Sudan” adding that her “deceptive statements” confirms her continuous hostility to Sudan government.
“Rice is a short-sighted personality whose artificial concern with Darfur did not motivate her to appreciate the so far adopted peace steps or the framework agreement signed with the Justice and Equality Movement that was welcomed by the whole world”.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34345

[M-A Lagrange]

Mbeki’s panel flirting with failure in Sudan
The former South African president and head of the AU High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) Thabo Mbeki sent a letter to leaders of Sudanese parties this week informing them of an indefinite adjournment of a summit that was to bring them together to discuss a number of thorny issues primarily related to the upcoming elections in April.
"The panel had twice to postpone the meeting at the request of some of the parties. This is because these parties wanted that various issues should be resolved before the meeting convened...the panel respected this request and convened a number of meetings with the parties concerned to enable them to resolve the matters they have raised" Mbeki said in a copy of the letter seen by Sudan Tribune dated March 8.
"Regrettably, in the end, all the numerous efforts of the panel to facilitate a resolution of these and other matters failed. It is therefore became obvious that in the light of this negative development it would not be possible for the summit meeting to achieve what the panel had considered would be its historic result, namely the adoption of the Electoral Code of Conduct and the Declaration of Common Commitments".
The downbeat-toned letter said that convening the summit under these circumstances "would only serve further to foul the atmosphere in the country by exacerbating the divisions among the Sudanese political leadership".
Mbeki said his panel "gained a deeper understanding of the prevalent and most unfortunate mistrust which has so far made it impossible to organize an open and frank encounter among all Sudan’s political leaders to discuss all major national challenges, which we are certain all these leaders desire".http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34424


On the East front, the situation is not better, According to Angolapress (French version in link) despite the 2006 peace agreement and 600 millions of aid the economical situation is still very bad. What mainly pushed South and Darfur to war (poverty, non access to power…) are re surfacing again.
Will East be the new double front?
http://www.portalangop.co.ao/motix/fr_fr/noticias/africa/2010/2/10/Les-raisins-colere-sont-murs-dans-est-Soudan,895ea650-c48d-4f33-ae5a-dfa39663e665.html


The border is not set and it does create problems. Last week the SPLA have announced that nomads from North did attack a SPLA out post in the border area.
(again, French link below)
http://lci.tf1.fr/filnews/monde/accrochages-entre-l-armee-du-sud-soudan-et-des-nomades-3-morts-5770152.html

[M-A Lagrange]

And the UN say thank you to everybody to have done the job for them...


May I also recognize and strongly commend the State of Qatar for the tremendous investment of resources in facilitating this process and for its willingness to commit even more resources for the development of Darfur. My brother, Minister Mahmoud, deserves no less commendation for his personal commitment and diligence in supporting and facilitating the peace process in both the logistics and the substantive aspects. The Government of Libya and Mr. Scott Gration also deserve commendation for their efforts in bringing together the groups in the LJM.
I would not end my remarks without acknowledging the critical role which President Deby and the Government of Chad has been, and continues to play, in advancing the peace process, and in particular to commend and appreciate the personal commitment of Minister Mahamat Faki in this regard.

http://appablog.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/speech-by-unamid-joint-special-representative-ibrahim-gambari-at-the-signing-ceremony-of-the-framework-agreement-between-the-government-of-the-sudan-and-the-liberation-and-justice-movement/


Ibrahim Gambari, the Joint Special Representative of the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), said it was critical now for Khartoum and the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), which signed the framework agreement today, to implement its contents.http://allafrica.com/stories/201003180930.html

I do agree with him. What is important in peace agreements is the implementation more than the piece of paper. May be UN staff should include them selves into such declarations. Like when I deploy a force to impose peace: I use soldiers….

[M-A Lagrange]

Armed men kidnap three aid workers in South Darfur

May 18, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – Three aid workers including a woman form the United State have been abducted today in South Darfur state by unknown gunmen on Tuesday, a UN official stated.

A United Nations press officer in Khartoum, Samuel Hendricks, said the incident occurred when the kidnappers stopped a two-vehicle convoy transporting nine aid workers in a village near Nyala.

"It happened near a village called Abu Ajura in South Darfur as the convoy was heading to Nyala. Three of the people were captured. The remaining six are in Abu Ajura and are believed to be secure," Hendricks said in a statement to the AFP.

South Darfur authorities and US embassy in Khartoum confirmed the kidnapping whoever the identity of the American female and the name of the aid group remain undisclosed. But a South Darfur state minister, Abdel Baqi al-Jilani, spoke about an American organization.

Abduction of international staffers becomes more and more recurrent in Darfur. but the motivations differ from a group to another.

Abdel Baqi said the abduction could be financially motivated

"From our experience, we expect that a ransom will be demanded. We had asked aid groups working in Darfur to decrease foreigners’ movements there," the state minister said.

Onemore time Aid workers are taken hostage!
After France being tagetted, it is USA.
All my support to them, where ever they are.

For all the soft rebel with a cause: keep on fighting

[M-A Lagrange]

Sudan locates kidnappers of three aid worker

May 26, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – Security services have located the position of three aid workers kidnapped by unknown gunmen last week, a Sudanese official said on Tuesday.
The three aid workers including an American woman were abducted on 18 May while travelling to the South Darfur capital, Nyala in a two vehicle convoy.
"We succeeded in locating them and we will negotiate their release using local mediators," said state minister for humanitarian affairs Abdel Baqi Al-Jilani
"But we will refuse to pay a ransom and we reserve the right to bring them to justice," he further said.
Abduction of international staffers becomes more and more recurrent in Darfur. but the motivations differ from a group to another.
Abdel Baqi last week said the abduction could be financially motivated.
"From our experience, we expect that a ransom will be demanded. We had asked aid groups working in Darfur to decrease foreigners’ movements there," he said.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article35198


Free them NOW!

For all the soft rebels with a cause: keep on fighting!

[M-A Lagrange]

From OCHA in Darfour, some precisions on what happened:

On 18 May around 5:30 p.m., two vehicles of the INGO Samaritan’s Purse were hijacked about 10 km west of Abu Ajura, South Darfur, by eight armed men wearing military uniforms. Two male nationals and one female international were abducted; six national staff members were left behind. A recent media report that the national staff had been freed could not be corroborated and appears to be unfounded.

I personnaly do not like so much Samaritan's Purse as an organisation. But in such case it just doesn't count.

For all the soft rebels with a cause: keep on fighting!

[M-A Lagrange]

On 25 May, two Sudanese staff members of INGO Samaritan’s Purse abducted on 18 May were released near Thur (Kass locality). One female international staff member remains in captivity.
From OCHA

For all the soft rebels with a cause: keep on fighting!

[M-A Lagrange]

Shawshank Redemption-style prison breakout in Sudan raises eyebrows
The four men who were convicted and sentenced to death for killing a USAID employee two years ago in the Sudanese capital escaped from the notorious Kober prison through a sewage pipe, the country’s police chief said on Friday.
A Sudanese journalist who spoke on condition of anonymity from Khartoum told Sudan Tribune that "no one in the entire country believes what the police said about how they escaped".
"They [fugitives] could not have done it without some sort of facilitation from the government. No one has ever managed to do it before. It appears that they have some sort of link with officials inside the government who made this possible. I would not be surprised if the government was actually behind killing Granville in the first place for political reasons".
Granville was killed one day after former U.S. President George W. Bush signed a law encouraging divestment from companies which do business in Sudan in an effort to up economic pressure on Khartoum over Darfur.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article35364


Sudan says ICC prosecutor top impediment to peace
The Sudanese ambassador to the United Nations Abdel-Mahmood Abdel-Haleem lashed out the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno-Ocampo accusing him of becoming an impediment of peace in his country.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article35363

This happened the very same day: June 12…

Since May 18 one femal international aid worfer of USA nationality is hold hostage…

For all the soft rebels with a cause: keep on fighting!

[M-A Lagrange]

An interresting document from Amnesty International on the Human Rights violation by National Intelligence and security services in Northern Sudan.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR54/016/2010/en

[M-A Lagrange]

The situation for the US femal citizen taken hostage in Darfour is getting worst and worst according to her. (AFP news)
According to last communication from the Samaritam Purse worker, she has no access to safe drinking water and she is alone with approximately 20 armed men.

What is interesting is that the chief of the group who took her hostage used the name of Abou Mohammed al-Rizeigui.
This name has been used several times by various armed groups who took hostages in Darfour. The name was used by the armed groups who took hostage 2 French aid workers from the NGO Aide Medical International (AMI) in Darfour and 2 aid workers from the French NGO Triangle GH in entral African republic, close to Sudan border.

According to several observers, the hostage takers are part of “arab” groups who previously fought for Khartoum in Darfour.

This could be the next step of Darfur and next insurgency there. While Khartoum is “trying” to make peace with rebel groups (except JEM), come the problems of the former Janjarweed. What will Khartoum do with those fighters they have armed and trained?
Khartoum may qualify them as bandits but this addresses a much wider issue: what to do with tribes ones a government has armed them and has no more use for them?

[CloseDanger]

Bashir is merely enlisting them into the army, hence making them immune to persecution.

http://iwpr.net/report-news/concern-over-janjaweed-%E2%80%9Cimmunity%E2%80%9 (http://iwpr.net/report-news/concern-over-janjaweed-%E2%80%9Cimmunity%E2%80%9D)D

[M-A Lagrange]

As USA friends in Africa increase their pressure for Africa leaders to respect their commitment to Rule of Law and Justice, North Sudan regime is changing his strategy.
Kidnapping US and non UN citizen NGO workers do not seems to be working so Khartoum decided to expel several UN and ICRC heads of agencies.
Yes they did go further than what Khartoum did expect. Actually they did their job to protect civilians and allow them to suffer from war with dignity and access food, water, shelter, education…

Darfur kidnappers file demands to release Jordan’s peacekeepers

The kidnappers of the two peacekeepers who were abducted on Saturday have submitted their ransom demands to the African Union - United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), said a report published by a Jordanian daily newspaper.
In it’s Monday edition the Amman based daily, Addastour, reported that a Jordanian security source had told them that the abductors have asked the UNAMID to implement a number of demands before the two Jordanian police advisers are released
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article35967

Sudan expels five aid workers from west Darfur

August 16, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan on Sunday, August 15, ordered five foreign aid workers to leave West Darfur State, only one week after president Al-Bashir publicly mandated Darfur governors to expel foreigners who "exceed their work agreements".
A UN official told Reuters yesterday that the Sudanese authorities had asked three UN staff members and two of ICRC to leave western Darfur.
"The heads of the UNHCR [U.N. refugee agency] and FAO [UN Food and Agriculture agency] in West Darfur as well as the head of UNHCR agency in Zalengei have been asked to leave," said Abdallah al-Fadil, the head of UNAMID in west Darfur.
He added to Reuters that the government also informed him “that it had asked both the ICRC’s heads of delegation in Al-Geneina and Zalengei [town] to leave too."
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article35973

Botswana says Bashir still vulnerable for arrest on its territory despite AU resolution

Botswana has maintained a position supportive of the ICC and rejecting continent-wide condemnation of the warrant saying it will honour its obligations as a signatory of the Rome Statute which is the founding text of the court.
“We have not surrendered the sovereignty of this country to the AU” Botswana Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Phandu Skelemani told reporters adding that Botswana signed the Rome Statute as a sovereign country.
“The International Criminal Court (ICC) Rome Statute is signed by a Country not AU. Botswana does not fear being isolated by other African countries since they [Botswana] are implementing the international protocols they have signed,” Skelemani added.
“That decision by the AU was a consensus. It was not a unanimous decision. Other countries do not even want the issue to go to a vote,” said the minister.
Botswana Vice president Mompati Merafhe reportedly addressed AU leaders at the summit held in Kampala saying that his country "cannot associate herself with any decision which calls upon her to disregard her obligations to the International Criminal Court".
South Africa has also declared that it will not abide by the AU resolution on cooperating with the ICC.http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article35980

As it is mentioned in one of article, a civilian aid worker from Samaritan Purse is still kept hostage.

For all the soft rebels with a cause: keep on fighting!

[M-A Lagrange]

Sudan says military rescue operation freed Jordanian peacekeepers in Darfur
Captain Khalid al-Sawarmi, the spokesman for the Sudanese Armed Forces, told AFP that the army had launched an operation and rescued the two officers after their abductors fled the scene.
"We dispatched a unit that stormed the area and they fled at our approach, leaving them (the Jordanians) behind," Al-Sawarmi said, adding that "they were bound and handcuffed". Al-Sawarmi said that the army continues to sweep the area for the kidnappers.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article35984


Abducted Jordanian Peacekeepers Released
South Darfur government managed to release the two UNAMID Jordanian peacekeepers who were kidnapped last Saturday. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, Muawaia Osman Khalid:

Said that the concerned Sudanese authorities managed to safeguard the release of the two UNAMID Jordanian Officers in a relative quick operation as the kidnapping lasted only for few days, pointing out to the efforts exerted by the local administrations and the leaders.
The release was safely and the abductees were returned to the base in Nyala. No ransom was paid or any military operation and that represents an achievement to the Sudanese concerned authorities.
As for the American hostage the efforts are underway to release her
On his part the Jordanian State Minister for Information Affairs, Ali Al-Abid announced the release of the two officers affirming that Nabeel Kailani and Ahmed AlGaisi who hold the rank 1st Lt. are now with the Jordanian mission in good health.
http://www.sudanvisiondaily.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=59957

You trust who you want… One is SUNA, the other a nearly independent news paper from South.

But result is the same. Especially as Scott Gration had a meeting with Khartoum authorities the following day.

Gazi Meets Gration over the New Darfur Strategy

Sudanese government expressed readiness to accept any international participation that serves the nation’s interests.
Presidential Assistant, Darfur File Official, Dr. Ghazi Salah Addeen told journalists, after his meeting with the US Envoy General Scott Gration, that the meeting discussed the situations in Darfur and the south Sudan Referendum in concentration on the new government strategy.

He added that the US Administration has some remarks on the strategy especially the development and humanitarian work in Darfur, adding that they agreed to continue the discussion with all the parties in the coming two weeks to mobilize the support from the international community.

Ghazi said that they affirmed to the US Envoy that the referendum will be conducted as scheduled if the political will is available.

He confirmed that the new strategy insisted that Doha forum is the only platform to reach a political settlement in Darfur.
http://www.sudanvisiondaily.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=60015

Khartoum who still keeps his levier: a US citizen hostage of “unknown and uncontrolled” Janjarweed…:eek:

For all the soft rebals with a cause: keep on fighting!

[M-A Lagrange]

China threatens to block UN report on Sudan: report
"These were very concrete allegations against the Chinese," said a UN-based diplomat familiar with the issue. "The Chinese don’t want the report to be published."
The UNSC resolution 1591 adopted on March 29, 2005 placed an embargo on the supply of arms to all parties to the conflict in Darfur.
"China has serious concerns about the annual report submitted by the panel of experts on the Sudan sanctions committee and believes that there is much room for improvement in the work of the panel," a Chinese official told the Security Council, to justify the abstention.
"We urge the panel of experts to conduct their work under the principles of objectivity and responsibility," the official added, without giving any details.http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article36632

[RobSentse]

When a country has been hit by disaster or (civil) war usually also the governmental institutions suffer. Sometimes the whole governmental system has to be building up again. In such an environment there are opportunities for coaching.

Also the international community can create a comprehensive approach by the use of a coach. It would be beneficial for a country, if the UN / EU would deploy civil servants from crucial workplaces and from several levels, of "our" own governmental management into war thorn countries, to work as a coach for their fellow civil servants.
This would be a kind of a left-seat / right-seat activity in which they guide their colleagues through governmental processes and procedures.
Another basic element to build a healthy nation is a general mental health.
Have a look at Sudan and be aware that the same is the case for other war-thorn countries or countries that suffered severe disasters.

Nearly all programs of nearly every organization that wants to bring prosperity
completely lack a comprehensive psychological-social approach towards the population.
Until now there is no awareness, recognition nor acknowledgement that Sudan exists of a traumatized population, possibly the sole item that the Sudanese population share mutually. Because of this the population hinders their own progress.

Within the Sudanese population, and possibly more in the South, there is an experience of being a perpetrator, victim or spectator (sometimes these three elements are united in one person).
It would be wise to integrate a psychological-social care program within Nation Building processes.

A proper psychological-social trauma care program works to overcome and prevent traumatic stress and its consequences within the individual as well as the community, safeguarding the rights and dignity of people affected by violence and conflict.
Such a trauma care program aims to strengthen local resources for the development of peaceful, human rights-based, societal ways of living.
Furthermore it would be beneficial for the country, in this case the Government of South-Sudan (GoSS), if the UN / EU would deploy civil servants from crucial workplaces and from several levels of "our" own governmental management into South Sudan, to work as a coach for their fellow civil servants at ALL levels.

A kind of a left-seat / right-seat activity in which they guide their (former military) colleagues through governmental processes and procedures.

This is very important as part of the Influence Campaign Plan. It is in fact crucial to create a healthy Pol/Econ environment for proper nation building.
So, if the “troop contributing” countries feel so committed to the prosperity of a country, than one of the most important “condition shapers” are "our own” governmental civil servants.

This, in a concerted approach with “security providers” like “own military and police”, is important to reach a desired end state.
It´s important to note that “own military and police” has to cooperate closely with “local military and police”, bearing in mind that Nation building is not an exclusive “military/police party”.
More important is the input of "our own” governmental civil servants who cooperate closely with the local civil servants at ALL levels.

Cross training, cross learning, cross teaching ... without trying to copy “our” democratic values into a country that is founded on quite another culture.

www.linkedin.com
www.scribd.com/amniat

[M-A Lagrange]

Ok I did not fill the theat with all the Doha discussions and the fightings that came after. But as South is separating, Darfur is moving. And not necesseraly in a parallele direction. Despite what some darfur armed movements would like.


Darfur JEM says government forces captured some of its officials

The Darfur Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said that government troops ambushed its forces and managed to take into custody a number of its senior officials.
"Three days ago, a mobile administrative unit belong to JEM was touring the villages of Abu Jurouj, Bir Saliba and Garji Garji in west Darfur, close to El Geniena city. The unit was ambushed by a government force and its associated militia" said a statement by the rebel movement and signed by its military spokesperson.
http://www.sudantribune.com/Darfur-JEM-says-government-forces,37642

Darfur and more especially the capacity of the North (And the South) to avoid degradation of the situation and capacity to enforce Doha Agreement will be the next Sudan frontier. South separation process is on the way and the main problem will tio manage to keep it viable while for Khartoum the main problem now is to avoid total implosion of its territory.
And it’s not done yet:


SLM rebels reject internal plans for peace in Darfur declare their support to Bassole’s efforts
However, "we are opposed to plans that the head of the African Panel Thabo Mbeki intends to implement in Darfur," he further said.
The rebel spokesperson emphasized that the approach of the former South African President of dialogue among Darfurians cannot be implemented in a situation dominated by injustice and violence against civilian.
"We should remember that Mbeki was ineffective and had done nothing to restore peace and democracy to Zimbabwe and other countries where he tried to sell his idea about reconciliation," he said.
http://www.sudantribune.com/SLM-rebels-reject-internal-plans,37639

Further than the peace speech which is actually meaningless, this statement is interesting as it real addresses the question of South Africa Leadership in the continent. Like it or not the Nbeki quiet diplomacy does not work but more important, it is perceived as ineffective. Are we witnessing the drawing of the limit of South Africa influence area on the continent?

[Stan]

Breaking Up Is Good to Do (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/13/breaking_up_is_good_to_do)
Southern Sudan is just the beginning.


In Sudan, the United States has certainly placed itself on the right side of this trend. It has been a key architect of the internationally sanctioned referendum that will likely result in Southern Sudan's independence, making clear that the eventual split is not a U.S.-led conspiracy to hack apart the Arab-Muslim world.

[SWJ Blog]

Sudan Update (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/01/sudan-update/)

Entry Excerpt:

South Sudanese vote overwhelmingly for secession (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/world/africa/22sudan.html?_r=1&ref=world) by Josh Kron and Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times. BLUF: "Nearly 99 percent of southern Sudanese voters have chosen to split off from northern Sudan and form their own country, according to preliminary results of an independence referendum..."



--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/01/sudan-update/) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[SWJ Blog]

The Terrorist Climate of Sudan (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-terrorist-climate-of-sudan)

Entry Excerpt:



--------
Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-terrorist-climate-of-sudan) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[M-A Lagrange]

"Véhicules civils militarisables" and the EU arms embargo on Sudan

From IPIS at: http://www.ipisresearch.be/arms-trade.php

[davidbfpo]

Moderator's Note

This thread was a catch all thread for posts on the Sudan, except the current (Jan '10) thread on 'South Sudan - stabilisation' and contains variety of subjects. On 6th July 2012 this thread was closed after a new catch all thread for Sudan 2012 was opened:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=16026