Small beginnings of military protection forces for Darfur

Associated Press reports, by way of the Seattle Post:

African Union to send 300 peacekeepers to Darfur.

The 300 soldiers will be the first peacekeeping force for Darfur, described by the United Nations as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. They will protect refugees in Sudan and in neighboring Chad.

Sam Ibok, director of the African Union's Peace and Security Division, said the troops would be quickly deployed but he did not give an exact date. He said the force would include troops from Nigeria and Rwanda and possibly Tanzania and Botswana.

The Guardian on the topic.

The Darfur crisis is seen by analysts and diplomats as a test for the AU. One official said the war in the west of Sudan could be a litmus test for the two-year-old organisation's self-imposed mandate to resolve conflicts in Africa.

Mr Ibok said the AU was not willing to call the Darfur violence genocide or ethnic cleansing, as some human rights groups and US officials have done. But he said the AU nevertheless was extremely concerned over human rights abuses.

AU officials are equally careful not to describe the planned Darfur troop deployment as a "peacekeeping operation".

Sudan's foreign minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, said yesterday that Khartoum had agreed to attend AU-mediated negotiations on Darfur in Ethiopia this month and would "cooperate fully with the African Union".

US Senator John McCain, speaking on CNBC today (Monday, July 5)

"This is a horrible thing that's going on...I think that all the sanctions and all the criticism and everything is appropriate but I also think we ought to fund, we the United States of America, should fund a force made up of military from other African countries to go in there and stop this."

Comments

[Namir]

I read in THE SCOTSMAN that these AU military forces are only there to protect the monitors?

[famoh]

The 300 soldiers will be the first peacekeeping force for Darfur, described by the United Nations as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. They will protect refugees in Sudan and in neighboring Chad.
Sam Ibok, director of the African Union's Peace and Security Division, said the troops would be quickly deployed but he did not give an exact date. He said the force would include troops from Nigeria and Rwanda and possibly Tanzania and Botswana.