U.N. Presses for Peace in Darfur
27 May LA Times - U.N. Presses for Peace in Darfur by Maggie Farley.
Quote:
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...
Satellites to Watch for Darfur Violence
Satellites to Watch for Darfur Violence
Quote:
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.
U.S. relies on Sudan despite condemning it
U.S. relies on Sudan despite condemning it. Greg Miller and Josh Meyer, LATIMES. 11 June.
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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 ...
Sudan OKs Peacekeepers for Darfur
12 June LA Times - Sudan OKs Peacekeepers for Darfur by Maggie Farley.
Quote:
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...
In Sudan, Help Comes From Above
6 July NY Times commentary - In Sudan, Help Comes From Above by Julie Flint.
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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...
Janjaweed and Erstwhile Enemies
Why you have to love, Sudan
From a safe distance....
Quote:
Darfur conflict takes unexpected turn
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.
Analysis: Africa's Darfur bombshell
13 August - By Martin Plaut, BBC Africa analyst
"And so far these UN troops 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
Quote:
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
In Nubia, fears of another Darfur
In Nubia, fears of another Darfur - LATIMES, 31 Aug.
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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 ...