Sudan: The Passion of the Present

Pelosi Delegation: ‘Action Must Be Taken Quickly to Bring Security and Hope to Darfur’

A press release from Friday that's related to today's "San Francisco Chronicle" story...

A senior bipartisan Congressional delegation led by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi spent the last seven days paying official visits to five African nations, including the Darfur region of Sudan.

The Pelosi delegation, which included Representatives James E. Clyburn (D-SC), Chairman of the Democratic Caucus, Melvin Watt (D-NC), Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, George Miller (D-CA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Michael Capuano (D-MA), Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Joe Wilson (R-SC) issued the following statement this morning [Friday] as they prepared to return to the United States:

The main purposes of our visit to Africa were to see firsthand the horrific conditions in Darfur, to assess the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and to consult with heads of state in the region about the crisis which the United States has characterized as genocide.

“We are convinced that action must be taken quickly to bring security and hope to Darfur. The African Union military force in Darfur is doing a great job. However, as President Bush has said, to secure and stabilize Darfur, the African Union force must be doubled and international organizations like the U.N. and NATO should play a coordinating role.

“The African presidents we met agreed that the Darfur crisis should be resolved through negotiation, but that more troops are needed to end the violence while negotiations take place. The United States must play a leadership role in ensuring that a force of sufficient size to provide security is assembled rapidly. The leadership of that force must reflect the experience already gained in Darfur by senior military personnel of the African Union.

“Additional humanitarian assistance is required as well. The government of Sudan has done nothing to assist its own people in Darfur. Sudanese 2nd Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, with whom we met, admitted that the Sudanese government has directly supported the Janjaweed militia, which is responsible for most of the violence against civilians in Darfur.

“As the world responds to the suffering in Darfur, the Sudanese government must live up to its responsibilities to bring about a true cease-fire that protects civilians. The needs of the people of Darfur must be addressed, and the government of Sudan cannot be allowed to continue to shirk its responsibility to protect its people and provide for their needs.

“We all went to Darfur with a sense of deep concern and we all left with a sense of outrage and urgency. We are committed to working with President Bush to make sure the world community quickly does what needs to be done to end the genocide in Darfur.”

Sudan Rejects UN Forces in Darfur; Envoy Cites Al-Qaeda Threat / Sudanese reject UN, Western troops on their soil: UN / Africans unsure on UN fielding Darfur force - UN

Three new wire-service stories (thanks, not surprisingly, to the "CFD"); updated to add the one from Reuters:

From Bloomberg...

Sudan's government has rejected a United Nations peacekeeping mission aimed at stopping violence against residents of Darfur, and a UN official said al-Qaeda terrorists have threatened to attack any troops deployed there.

``The government of Sudan has taken a strong position against the transition,'' Jan Pronk, the UN's top envoy to Sudan, told reporters in New York, referring to the planned shift from an African Union force in Darfur to UN blue helmets possibly backed by NATO. Pronk said the government in Khartoum fears the type of occupation of Sudan that the U.S.-led coalition has undertaken in Iraq.

Omar Manis, Sudan's deputy UN ambassador, confirmed his government's objections to a mission that has been planned for several months and endorsed by the Security Council. President George W. Bush suggested on Feb. 17 that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should have a leading role in the mission. Manis said the ``motives'' of UN and U.S. officials pressing for a peacekeeping mission are in question.

``We believe the African Union has done a good job and should stay,'' Manis said in an interview. ``If we are not convinced that there is a good reason for a transition, we wonder what other kind of agenda there might be.''

The government's objections would preclude deployment of a UN mission of up to 20,000 soldiers supported by UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan and Bush. Annan said after a White House meeting with Bush this month that they had agreed on the need for a Darfur force to have mobility ``in the air and on the ground.'' NATO has airlifted troops and police to the African Union force since July.

The AU has about 7,000 soldiers in Darfur, a commitment that doesn't adequately protect villagers from militia attacks, Pronk said.

`Difficult' Position

``They are in an extremely difficult position,'' he said of the AU troops. ``There are places in Darfur where militias are assembling themselves in thousands and preparing attacks that take place. Three thousand men on camels and horseback ride into villages with army cars behind them.''

Pronk said preparations for a UN mission to Darfur have also been thrown into doubt by the African Union's reconsideration of the transition. It is no longer certain what the AU, which initially supported the idea, will decide at a March 10 meeting on the issue, he said.

``We are in a stalemate politically,'' Pronk said. ``The climate in Khartoum against the UN is heating up. There are threats, warnings about al-Qaeda.''

Pronk said intelligence shows there are ``persons in Khartoum who were not there before,'' meaning al-Qaeda terrorists who have threatened his life and would act against any UN troops, particularly non-Africans. Khartoum is Sudan's capital.

The U.S. has circulated what U.S. Ambassador John Bolton called ``elements'' of a Security Council resolution defining the mandate of a UN mission to Darfur. Bolton said there was no support for action on the text before the AU meeting.

From DPA...

The presence of NATO or UN troops in Sudan's troubled western region of Darfur would provoke a jihad because of the deep mistrust by the Moslem-led government in Khartoum for foreigners, a UN official said Tuesday.

Jan Pronk, the UN special envoy in Sudan, said there is an 'atmosphere of fear and conspiracy' in Khartoum that Sudan might become another Iraq or Afghanistan if the West would send in troops to quell the ethnic conflict in Darfur.

Pronk said he spent time trying to convince people in Darfur to accept a UN force, but to send in NATO troops would be a 'recipe for disaster.'

US President George W. Bush earlier this month called for doubling the number of international troops in Darfur, including giving NATO a bigger role in peacekeeping efforts, which currently are solely under African Union responsibility.

But the AU, which has about 6,000 troops in Darfur, has decided to pull out because of lack of resources and logistics. The UN Security Council was considering a UN force to take over or expand the AU role, but the move is strongly opposed by Khartoum, which prefers only an African force.

Pronk said the AU was reconsidering its position to pull out and may announce its future plans in March.

'I was able to make them (Sudanese) understand that the UN is different,' Pronk said. But he said his hosts reacted differently at the mention of non-UN troops.

'They speak about recolonization, invasion and they speak about Iraq and Afghanistan ... and they speak about a conspiracy against the Arab and Islamic world,' he said, adding that such talks have heated up the climate in Darfur.

Pronk said NATO's logistical capability would certainly be needed in peacekeeping, but its troops would not replace troops from the AU or eventually from the UN.

'We need a robust peace force in Darfur to prevent attacks on the civilians,' Prong said.

He said Arab militiamen riding horses or camels, backed by government army trucks, have continued to attack villages in Darfur, which has become an 'extremely difficult' place. The militias have been fighting with the Sudan Liberation Army for control over Darfur since 2003, killing at least 180,000 people, according to the UN.

Human rights groups put the death toll over 300,000. Another 2 million people have been displaced, some into neighbouring Chad, where Arab gunmen have now gone to steal cattle, burn crops and kill whoever resists their advances, news reports said.

Human Rights Watch said 20,000 Chadians have fled their homes because of the recent fighting.

'Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad,' Peter Takirambudde told the New York Times.  [Actually, this refers to a recent HRW statement cited, among other places, in a new NYT story. - EJM]  He is the director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division.

By Reuters' Evelyn Leopold...

The African Union appears to have second thoughts about handing over its mission in Sudan's Darfur region to U.N. command after heavy lobbying by Khartoum, the top U.N. official in Sudan said on Tuesday.

The United Nations has started contingency planning for a takeover from the African Union, which has 7,000 troops and monitors in Darfur. But the U.N. Security Council cannot authorize a U.N. force unless the AU agrees.

U.N. envoy Jan Pronk also told a news conference that many Sudanese in Khartoum feared fighters from al Qaeda would stream into the country, like they did in Iraq, if a U.N. force took over in Darfur, especially if it had Western contingents.

"There is intelligence information that there are people in Khartoum who were not in Khartoum before," Pronk said, in reference to al Qaeda. "In these situations it is to a certain extent conjuncture (but) it would be unwise not to take the beginnings of such warnings seriously."

He said Sudan had sent delegations "to many countries in the world" to argue that the United Nations should not enter Darfur and the African Union should stay, Pronk said.

"That is the present political situation. We do not know if African Union will confirm its own earlier decision," he said.

AU foreign ministers were to meet on Friday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to decide on the transition, agreed to earlier in principle, but they postponed the session on Tuesday for a week. Arab nations, including those in North Africa, have supported the Khartoum government.

The United Nations would like the United States and Europeans to help with logistics in Darfur, such as ferrying troops to trouble spots. But most troops on the ground are expected to come from Africa and Asia.

Pronk said that Sudanese leaders, whose consent is also needed, were hardening their position at a U.N. force, even though NATO is helping the underfinanced AU operation.

"There is fear in Khartoum that the U.N. transition will be a conspiracy to bring Sudan in the same situation in Iraq," Pronk said.

FEAR OF ANOTHER IRAQ

He said such fears about "recolonization, invasion, imperialism, Iraq and Afghanistan" were genuine but they "can be made bigger than they are" by the government.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million herded into camps during more than three years of fighting between rebels and government-allied Arab militias in Darfur, a region the size of France.

According to reports from AU commanders in the field, militia on camel and horseback are continuing their campaign of rape, pillage and murder in Darfur, with Sudan army vehicles behind them, Pronk said.

The government denies it backs the militia, known as Janjaweed, and Pronk said it was uncertain who was giving orders to support them militarily.

Pronk said that a peace agreement between rebels and the government being negotiated in Abuja, Nigeria, was a necessity before a robust U.N. force entered. He said there might be a pact in March but if it was merely a "fake" ceasefire without follow-up it would again falter.

The United Nations is fielding a force of some 7,000 soldiers in southern Sudan to monitor a peace agreement that ended a three-decade-long north-south civil war and Pronk said he feared the U.N. mission might be affected if the anti-U.N. campaign persisted.

Prendergast: International pressure needed to end violence, insecurity in Darfur

An interview in Lebanon's "Daily Star" (thanks to Mr. Oregon)...

The violence in Sudan's western province of Darfur continues into its third year with few signs of abating. Nearly two million people have been displaced and tens of thousands killed in Darfur, where pro-government Arab militiamen called Janjaweed are accused of ethnic cleansing against non-Arab ethnic groups. The United States says genocide has been committed in Darfur and is now pressing for a resolution authorizing a new UN peacekeeping force in the region to replace the 7,000 African Union troops there whose UN mandate expires March 31. Separately, little progress has been made toward forming a national-unity government that was supposed to emerge from a peace deal ending the North-South civil war. That deal last year ended a 21-year-old war between the mainly Muslim North and the animist and Christian South that cost more than 1.5 million lives.

John Prendergast, senior adviser with the International Crisis Group, who was in Sudan this past autumn, is highly critical of U.S. and UN Security Council actions to date. But he says a robust international response is still crucial to resolving the conflict there. The following interview was conducted by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (www.cfr.org), and is reprinted by permission.

Q: What are your thoughts on the request for a UN peacekeeping presence in Darfur?

A: It's a year or two late. It was quite clear as early as the beginning of 2005 the force that the African Union was deploying under the rules of engagement and the mandate it was given with the little bit of equipment it was provided were simply inadequate to address the enormous insecurity caused by the government of Sudan's counterinsurgency strategy. So a year and a quarter later we finally have the United States making a decision to begin to press for the transition from the African Union force to a United Nations mission. We lost a lot of lives - tens of thousands of lives - as a result of that delay. But, it's never too late. There are still huge protection issues in Darfur, and the situation, in fact, is deteriorating.

Q: News reports say the UN has been preparing for a couple of months [for the transition to UN peacekeepers], but [U.S. Ambassador to the UN] John Bolton criticized [UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan for not pushing harder to get the planning done for the UN forces. Does this criticism have merit?

A: It is the height of disingenuousness. The United States only recently made a decision to begin pressing for a transition to the UN. Principally, for financial reasons and for reasons of policy, the United States was supporting the AU fully and said the AU was the right way to go up until the end of last year. So it's only been the last month or two that the United States began to publicly say we need to have a transition to the UN. And then, to all of a sudden turn around and accuse the UN of dragging its feet-this is one of many, many examples of this administration taking a policy position, seeing that policy crumble in failure, and then pointing fingers at others and blaming others for the failure. Just like the African Union was set up from the beginning to fail, now the United Nations is going to be blamed for dragging its feet.

Q: What do you mean when you say the United States is pushing for a transition to UN forces "for financial reasons?"

A: The U.S. provides 22 percent or so of the peacekeeping budget. So in other words, when it formally becomes a UN peacekeeping operation, it's going to be a much more expensive price tag for the United States to foot. Bush even said himself last Friday [February 17th], unauthorized, before the policy decision was even made, that we need to double the number of forces on the ground in Darfur. And that's basically just one of the major reasons why the U.S. resisted and held onto this African Union-only policy for so long, because it's a much cheaper policy. We really tried to do this whole stabilization effort in Darfur on the cheap [by assigning it] to an embryonic organization that had no experience of doing this, and we thought we could get away with it and really, it was dead in the water from the beginning.

Q: So did the realization of the AU failure prompt the policy change?

A: Yes, I'm quite sure. There's been a lot of fomenting - fermenting, I guess I should say - inside the administration for months now at the full realization that this policy was not working. But the policy often catches up to the realization very late, and so the U.S. administration is now going through a policy review, making new decisions about where it's going in the future. And that's why it's so interesting that President Bush on Friday made these comments - he just said what he thought, unscripted, way ahead of the policy decision. And immediately the Pentagon was scrambling, saying "Well, no policy decision has been taken about these things," and that escalates the debate internally. And so, there are those who don't want to do more in Darfur for financial reasons and for other reasons related to our relationship with Khartoum on the counterterrorism front. Then there are those who do really say, "Hey, we're on the hook, we've said all these things, that this is a genocide, that we need to do all we can and we're not doing all we can and need to do more." So that's the debate there.

Q: Now, this has brought Darfur back into the news for the first time in a long time. Are the peace talks [on Darfur] weighing on what's happening in Darfur at all?

A: On the peace process, the process is bleeding along. They very well could sign another protocol sometime in the near future that would be largely symbolic. But we have two sides of the table. On the rebel side, there is a disintegrating, fractious, free-for-all among different rebel groups as they position themselves on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. And they've really embarrassed themselves. In the context of the negotiations, it's been very, very unfortunate that the meltdown of the rebel side has had such a negative impact on the peace table. On the other side of the negotiating table is the government, watching - and in fact fomenting, fostering the rebel divisions, laughing the entire time, feeling no pressure from the international community to make any sort of compromise, any sort of real policy proposals because all the attention is on the fact that the rebels are so divided they can't negotiate. So [the government] has watched everyone else pay attention to [the rebel divisions] and there has been no pressure on the government to come forward with a real, serious proposal for how to resolve the conflict.

So the government has had a free pass. In the absence of more leveraged external mediation, you're going to get a bleeding status quo ad infinitum. I don't think we have much hope that in the near term there's going to be much progress in Nigeria [where the talks are taking place, sponsored by the African Union].

Q: So are the external efforts to get the government in Khartoum to move forward with peace talks - maybe there aren't any efforts, as you seem to suggest - impeding efforts to get the government to actually do something about Darfur?

A: Yes indeed, there is some diversion of energy, particularly the U.S. policy, as led by the State Department and its belief that a peace deal last year in Darfur would sort of end the atrocities and end the crisis in the region, was ill-founded. They just didn't appreciate the fact Khartoum's strategy is to completely destroy its opposition in Darfur. The government is set on destroying the opposition and destroying the civilian base [made up of the African Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups] of the opposition [led by two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement], which is why they conducted their counterinsurgency campaign in the manner that they did, why the Bush administration calls it genocide. They went after specific ethnic groups that formed the basis of the rebellion and killed and displaced their civilian supporters. It's the oldest counterinsurgency trick in the book: draining the water to catch the fish.

So the State Department completely underestimated the resolve of the government of Sudan to destroy Darfurian opposition and thought they'd get some kind of quick deal at the negotiation table.

Constantly, there's this accommodation and constructive engagement with the regime officials in Khartoum that attempts to incentivize the path to resolution, which will never work because Khartoum pockets the incentives and continues with its policies of destruction.

Q: So, what do you think would work?

A: Hard pressure is the only way to do it. That means you go to the [UN] Security Council. We already have an authorization for targeted sanctions; we have 17 names on a list from the work of the UN sanctions committee [charged with investigating anyone they deemed to be obstructing efforts to end the Darfur conflict] as we saw leaked to the press in the last couple of days. Sanction those people, go after them, go after their assets, freeze their travel, do these kinds of things. Send a message to Khartoum that, in fact, there will be a cost for conducting the kind of counterinsurgency campaign they're conducting and there will be a cost for committing massive crimes against humanity. By the way, there are three rebel leaders on that list as well. Sanction them, too.

So far, three years into this war, no one has been penalized in any way for anything that has happened. That is a remarkable failure on the part of the United Nations Security Council and a remarkable failure on the part of the United States, which came out and for the first time called something genocide while it was going on. And then to not have any repercussions for that is simply a moral failure.

Q: Do you see the UN peacekeepers as part of this pressure diplomacy?

A: If we start to press very hard for a United Nations force that actually has a civilian protection mandate, that actually has the kind of muscle on the ground to protect people, that is a form of pressure that is a statement to Khartoum that the days of no accountability for crimes against humanity are over and that we're going to actively involve ourselves, the international community, in protecting civilians because the government of Khartoum has abdicated its responsibility to protect.

Q: Bush also mentioned NATO in his comments on Darfur. Do you see NATO troops getting involved as part of this pressure we're going to be putting on Khartoum?

A: I think it is a long shot. President Bush was certainly affected by the bipartisan congressional resolution that was introduced last week [by Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Joseph Biden (D-DE)] that calls for more direct NATO involvement in the effort as a bridging element to the United Nations. I think it's the right approach, but there are two major problems. The first is that the government of Sudan will strongly oppose this and so there will have to be a great coordination of pressure on Khartoum to think about its position. And secondly, the politics of NATO are problematic. The French government is not willing to envision a NATO-led deployment into Africa. The French would like EU [European Union] leadership in these kinds of things, not NATO, and so this is an issue that will have to be worked internally within NATO. And so I think that it's going to be a really difficult hurdle at a time when the U.S. needs to work with the French on Iran and Iraq, and other issues.

Q: Do you think the U.S. and UN policy changes are too late, or is there still hope for resolving the conflict in Darfur?

A: This crisis has unfolded in slow motion compared to what we've seen in previous eruptions of violence. Three years have gone by, the killing is sort of a low-intensity nature, and therefore there are constant opportunities for an escalation of a response to have a significant impact on the ground and end the tragedy in Darfur. So yes, I think there is a great deal of hope that if the U.S. and the UN actually do make the kinds of policy changes necessary, deploy a more muscular force and produce measures of accountability like targeted sanctions, and step up their support for the process - if we see those things happening across the board, we could get a resolution of the Darfurian crisis that will literally save tens of thousands of lives and will enable, over time, literally two and a half million people to go home again.

AU meeting on Darfur handover to UN postponed

Also from Reuters...

A meeting of African Union members on whether to hand over the AU's mission in Sudan's Darfur region to the United Nations has been postponed until March 10, an AU spokesman said on Tuesday.

"It was postponed to give ample time for all those concerned in the Darfur crisis to attend," AU spokesman Assane Ba said, without elaborating.

The AU meeting to make a final decision on a handover in Darfur was originally due to take place on Friday.

About 7,000 AU soldiers are trying to stop escalating violence in Darfur, a desert region about the size of France, with a mandate to monitor ceasefire violations but limited powers to intervene.

However, the AU said in January money for the peacekeeping mission, which costs $17 million a month to maintain, was running out.

The United Nations has already started contingency planning for a takeover, but Security Council members say a resolution should come only after AU foreign ministers make a decision on whether to turn over the mission.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million herded into camps during more than three years of fighting between rebels and government-allied militias in remote Darfur.

UN to agree on Darfur sanctions within days - UK

From Reuters...

The U.N. Security Council will agree to punish individuals believed to be blocking peace in Sudan's Darfur region within the next 10 days, a senior British official said on Tuesday, a move that would end a year-long deadlock.

The issue was discussed in New York on Monday, but Security Council members failed to resolve their differences.

The council voted nearly a year ago to authorise sanctions against individuals blocking the peace process or violating a U.N. arms embargo. Experts from the world body last December gave the council a list of 17 people it said should be punished.

"In terms of impunity and sanctions ... we have action in New York to try to see against whom we should put in place measures, I would expect that to happen in the next 10 days," said the senior British diplomatic official.

"I think we are getting to a point where we will take measures against some named individuals," he said, adding the action would mostly likely include travel bans and a freeze on assets.

He said the number of individuals who would be penalised would be "close to double figures", fewer than the list of 17 the U.N. experts gave the council.

On Monday, the United States, Britain, Denmark and France argued that certain individuals should be swiftly designated as sanctions targets, but China, Russia and Qatar called for a delay, diplomats said after closed-door talks.

Britain and the United States are keen to do what they can to stem the violence in the remote western Darfur region which diplomats say has worsened in the last few months.

The official estimated that around 300,000 people had died as a result of the Darfur conflict in the past three years. Fighting in the region has forced more than 2 million people from their homes and into camps.

Non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing Khartoum of neglect. The Sudanese government is accused of responding to the rebellion by backing Arab militias, who are accused of committing atrocities in Darfur. Sudan denies the charges.

The International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes there.

Refugees from Chad seek safety in troubled Darfur

Four stories:

(While it's not directly related, see also today's important "New York Times" feature concerning Darfur and Chad.)

From Reuters...

Chadians fleeing mounting insecurity at home are crossing the border into Sudan's Darfur region, increasing already staggering refugee pressures there, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

About 8,000 to 10,000 people, among them "an undetermined number" of Chadians, have set up camp on the Darfur side of the frontier after a rebel attack in the Chad border town of Adre on Dec. 18, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

"Confirmation that Chadians have crossed into Darfur is certainly a worrisome new development and a sign of the deteriorating security situation across the border," UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told a press briefing.

U.N. officials said it was difficult to estimate the numbers of Chadians in the makeshift camps because Sudanese nationals were also seeking shelter there from the ongoing Darfur conflict between rebels, the government and government-backed militias.

Two million Darfuris have fled their homes since a rebellion began there in early 2003. Some 200,000 of those have crossed the border into camps in eastern Chad.

Chad has withdrawn its border troops to protect its main frontier towns, including Adre, after the December attack and officials say that has created a dangerous security vacuum along the Sudan-Chad border.

U.N. and human rights officials say the Darfur conflict is spreading over the frontier and Chadian rebels hoping to depose President Idriss Deby present a new threat.

In addition to pressures along its eastern border, Chad has also received 5,000 refugees from the Central African Republic in small villages in the south of the country this month.

Pagonis said banditry and hostilities between rebel groups and government forces in the Central African Republic had spurred an influx into Chadian border towns Bekan and Bekoninga.

U.N. and other agencies have begun moving refugees to the Amboko and Gondje sites near Chad's southern town of Gore, she said.

Chad, a landlocked northern African country of about 10 million people, also shares borders with Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger and Libya.

From VOA...

Increased violence along the border between Chad and Sudan is actually causing people to flee Chad for safety in Darfur. The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, says most of the insecurity is along Chad’s border with West Darfur State, where thousands of people have gathered around the villages of Galu and Azaza.

Helene Caux is a spokesperson for the UNHCR. From Geneva, she spoke with English to Africa [reporter] Joe De Capua about the movements along the border.

She says, “There are now movements from Chad to Darfur. Up till recently, we had many movements from Darfur to Chad following the beginning of the confrontation between rebel movements and the Sudanese government in 2003. We already have 200,000 refugees who have crossed from Darfur to Chad and we have about 1.8 million displaced persons within Darfur. This time we identify between 8,000 and 10,000 people who have gathered in a place above El Geneina, which is the main city in West Darfur. And among these people, a great number are believed to be Chadians.”

She adds, “These people told our teams on the ground, told UNHCR, that they crossed over to Darfur following a major attack on the Chadian city of Adre last December. This attack took place between rebel movements and Chadian governmental forces. And following this attack some villages north of Adre were attacked as well by different armed groups. So people crossed for fear of being killed or being beaten up. And other people have crossed in anticipation of possible attacks.”

Caux says the fact that Chadians are seeking refuge in Darfur is “very worrisome.” The UNHCR has been warning of insecurity along the Chad/Sudan border for the past month.

From the AP...

Fighting between soldiers and rebels in eastern Chad is sending civilians fleeing into Sudan's Darfur, site of one of the world's bloodiest conflicts over the past three years, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday.

Human rights groups have said Chadians are also targeted by cross-border attacks by Sudanese militia. The refugees fleeing the fighting in Chad is "further evidence of the spreading insecurity that now straddles this increasingly insecure region," UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis said.

Most of the Chadians in Sudan are women and children.

Chad hosts about 300,000 refugees who fled the conflict between rebels and Sudanese government forces and militias in Darfur. Sudan has accused Chad of harboring Darfur rebels, who have tribal ties across the border, while Chad has said Sudan backs Chadian insurgents.

"You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn't get worse, but it has," Peter Takirambudde, Africa director of Human Rights Watch, said in an early February statement. "Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks in Darfur or in Chad."

Human Rights Watch said Chadian and Sudanese militias based in Darfur were conducting deadly and almost daily raids into Chad, displacing tens of thousands of Chadians. Human Rights Watch accused ethnic Arab militiamen of targeting mainly non-Arab Chadians.

At their January summit, African leaders took the unusual step of passing over Sudan to take over the group's rotating chairmanship because of concerns over Darfur, Sudan's relations with Chad and its human rights record.

In early February, Sudan and Chad signed a Libya-brokered accord pledging to deny refuge to each other's rebel groups and to normalize diplomatic relations. But little progress has been made since in easing tensions. African Union-mediated talks aimed at ending the Darfur fighting also have stalled.

Last year scores of defectors from the Chadian army joined a number of Chadian rebel groups based in the area bordering Darfur. In December Chad's army repulsed two main rebel groups that tried to take the eastern Chad town of Adre.

UNHCR's Pagonis said Chadians fleeing the Adre region have cited that attack and further fighting between rebels and Chadian government troops over the past two months as the reason they left.

An undetermined number of Chadians has joined a group of at least 8,000 people gathered around the Darfur border villages of Galu and Azaza, she said. She added that "a small number of new arrivals are still reported daily" at makeshift settlements in the area. Others are believed to have fled to relatives living in the Galu area.

UNHCR is trying to determine which people returning to Sudan were Chadians and if they should be considered asylum seekers, Pagonis said.

At least 180,000 people have died in Darfur, and 2 million have been displaced, since decades of tribal clashes over land and water erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003. The Sudanese government is accused of using ethnic Arab militias in a scorched earth policy against Darfur rebels, some of whom draw support from ethnic African villages.

From the BBC...

Conflict in Chad has led people to cross the border into Sudan's Darfur region, which has been seen as one of the world's worst crises, the UN says.

This reversal of previous refugee flows is "a worrisome new development", says the UN refugee agency.

Between 8,000 and 10,000 including "an undetermined number" of Chadians are seeking help after a rebel attack.

The three-year Darfur conflict has led some 2 [million] people to flee their homes and at least 180,000 have died.

In recent months, Chad has been in danger of being drawn into the conflict - with Chad and Sudan swapping accusations of backing the other's rebel groups.

There are some 200,000 Darfur refugees in Chad.

Meanwhile, a senior British official has said he expects targeted sanctions, such as travel bans, to be imposed soon on about 10 Sudanese officials, accused of human rights abuses in Darfur.

The government denies backing the Arab Janjaweed militias accused of mass killings, rape and looting against Darfur's black African population.

A special UN inquiry has given the International Criminal Court in the Hague the names of 51 potential suspects.

The UN is also trying to take control of the Darfur peacekeeping mission from the African Union, which is short of both funds and soldiers.

Sudan, however, is unhappy at this prospect and says the extra money should be given to the 7,000-strong AU mission, rather than set up a new team.

Lawmakers call for action to help Darfur refugees

From the "San Francisco Chronicle" (also reprinted on Sudan.Net)...

Bay Area leaders of a House delegation to Africa, returning from a visit to the squalid refugee camps of Darfur in western Sudan, say the international community must do much more to halt the fighting that has left an estimated 200,000 people dead from disease and famine.

"I feel a greater sense of urgency,'' said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland.

Lee has campaigned for more international pressure against the government of Sudan and for a budding divestment movement in this country to urge companies to stop doing business with the government in Khartoum, which is widely blamed for the violence that has driven about 2 million people from their homes. The Bush administration and Congress have labeled the situation as genocide.

The 11-member bipartisan congressional group found conditions in the camps that are protected by overstretched African Union peacekeepers "totally horrible,'' said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.

"It's impossible for the civilized world to receive this challenge without acting to stop it,'' added Pelosi, who led the congressional group that returned to Washington this weekend after a weeklong trip to six African countries.

Pelosi meets regularly with President Bush at the White House as part of the congressional leadership and told the president two weeks ago of her planned trip to Darfur. Two days later, on Feb. 17, Bush said in a speech in Tampa, Fla., that he wanted to see the number of peacekeepers doubled from the current level of 7,000 and for NATO to take on the job of coordinating the mission and helping with distribution of humanitarian aid.

There is already a plan to "re-helmet'' the African forces and put them under United Nations command.

"We were pleased by his statement,'' Pelosi said. "It's something I hope we can work on in a bipartisan way.''

She said she plans to call Bush to see if the 11 members can meet with him to discuss their trip.

About 2 million people have been displaced from their homes in western Sudan in what outside observers say is an attempt by the Arab government in Khartoum to drive blacks from their homes.

More than 250,000 refugees have crossed the border to refugee camps in Chad. The African Union forces are stretched thin because the area they have to patrol is the size of Texas, Pelosi said.

Refugees are afraid to leave their camps because of possible attacks by militia forces that the international community says are backed by Khartoum. Humanitarian workers also have been attacked, making it harder to provide relief supplies to the refugees.

For years, the Sudanese government has denied any ties to the militia known as the Janjaweed. But Pelosi said that in a Khartoum meeting, Sudanese Second Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha admitted the government has directly supported the Janjaweed.

However, she said, a session with the governor of Darfur became quite lively when she told the governor of the region that what was going on in his territory was genocide. "He objected. He did not appreciate our characterization,'' she said.

Congress has passed many resolutions on Darfur and is considering more. The resolution sponsored by Lee, who last visited Darfur in early 2005 with a group that included actor Don Cheadle, calls for new sanctions against Sudan, appointment of a special presidential envoy, cuts in international diplomatic ties with Sudan and a freeze on many Sudanese assets in this country.

Most sweeping is the provision authorizing Bush to use all means, including military force, to stop the genocide in Darfur. So far, her bill hasn't gotten out of the House International Relations Committee, and Bush hasn't talked about sending Americans into Darfur.

Lee is also among those pushing the divestment movement. The University of California regents are due to vote on a Sudan divestment strategy at their March meeting.

The state Assembly has passed what Lee calls a weak divestment bill, encouraging the vast state pension fund to avoid investing in businesses operating in Sudan that might contribute to human rights violations in Darfur.

"I'm pushing as fast and as hard as I can,'' Lee said.

The "challenges" of Darfur (by Eric Reeves)

From South Africa's "Mail & Guardian"...

How serious is South Africa about halting massive, ethnically targeted human destruction in Darfur in western Sudan? Is President Thabo Mbeki prepared to support the robust, international force required to protect millions of vulnerable people and the increasingly tenuous humanitarian lifeline upon which they depend? At the moment of truth for Darfur, the answers are not encouraging.

This is troubling since South African leadership will be crucial at the March meeting of the African Union Peace and Security Council that will determine whether the Darfur mission will be handed to the United Nations, something the AU has declared itself willing to do only “in principle”. Without such a hand-over, the current AU force will continue to prove inadequate to the tasks of civilian protection for humanitarian operations. The AU is certainly incapable of disarming the combatants, especially the murderous, Khartoum-backed Janjaweed militia. And without such security, more than two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees languishing in camps cannot return to their lands and resume agriculturally productive lives.

Currently, the AU force has only 5 000 troops -- and only 7 000 personnel altogether for a region the size of France. This is well short of the AU set target, partly because South Africa has for months reneged on its commitment to a contingent, approximately 500, of civilian police. Recent assessments of the AU force highlight the lack of civilian police as one reason extreme insecurity persists in IDP camps. Most of these camps remain the site of rapes, killings, arbitrary arrests and torture. Indeed, Khartoum’s Janjaweed allies are increasingly attacking camps themselves, assaults the AU is unable to halt or deter.

Despite these terrible realities, Mbeki and other African leaders have retreated into the mantra of “African solutions for African problems”.

Mbeki’s view is highlighted in a recent study of the AU force in Darfur: “We have not asked for anybody outside of the African continent to deploy troops in Darfur. It is an African responsibility, and we can do it.” The ghastly facts on the ground in Darfur reveal the hollowness of these words, and the question becomes whether Mbeki’s passionate African “continentalism” will triumph over the need to move swiftly to save the more than 3,5-million people estimated to be “conflict-affected”. Most within this vast population have lost everything in fleeing to IDP camps and into eastern Chad. There are no remaining foodstocks, and agricultural production has largely collapsed. Violence has produced intolerable levels of insecurity, forcing an increasing number of humanitarian evacuations, leaving hundreds of thousands without food or assistance of any kind.

To be sure, Mbeki has plenty of company insisting that the AU is up to the task in Darfur, including Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt as well as Libyan leader Moammar Ghadaffi. The same insistence comes from officials within the AU, even if this stubborn pride comes at the expense of the innocent women and children who make up a large majority of acutely vulnerable camp populations.

Mbeki had a chance to confront the architects of the current genocide in Darfur a year ago, when he addressed the Parliament in Khartoum. Instead, in remarks widely reported, he devoted his time to excoriating Winston Churchill and British policies in Africa of a century ago. And although Mbeki visited Darfur, he made only the obligatory stops that Khartoum had sanitised for visiting dignitaries. Afterwards, he spoke not of genocide or conspicuous crimes against humanity, but of “challenges” in the region.

Mbeki has unrivalled power as an African leader, and has used that power wisely in several arenas. But failure to lead the way in halting ethnically targeted destruction of defenseless populations in Darfur ensures his leadership will be compromised by the failure to help stop genocidal destruction that may eventually exceed that of Rwanda in 1994.

Eric Reeves teaches at Smith College, Massachusetts, US, and has published extensively on Sudan

The Darfur situation is out of control (by Derrik Sovak)

From UND's "Dakota Student" (thanks to the Save Darfur "Latest News" section)...

In the Darfur region of the Sudan, in Africa, the Janjaweed militia groups - backed by the Sudanese government - are slaughtering thousands of citizens and housing the bodies in mass graves. In early 2003, war erupted in Darfur because of attacks by the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on Sudanese military installations.

In Darfur, there is chronic economic and political marginalization that has left the country in shambles. One facet of the war lay in the fighting between government-aligned forces and rebels. Another lay in the government-sponsored attacks by the Janjaweed militias on civilians. The final facet lay in the struggle between Darfur communities themselves.

This ongoing problem has garnered attention over the past few years because of the international view of the region's difficulties. The international community is divided over how to properly take action against the mass-rapes, genocide and displacement of Darfur's citizens, lootings and indiscriminate killings taking place in that region.

Moreover, a threat of mass famine to over two million people exists currently in Darfur and the threats of state-sponsored killings are at an all-time high.

So what can be done to save the innocent people of the Darfur region?

In the past, the United States has taken a stand against state-sponsored terror, but that is not the case in the Sudan. Many confuse the 20-year North-South war in Sudan with the conflicts in Darfur.

Although an agreement brokered by the U.S. helped end the North-South conflict in the Sudan - which ultimately gave government positions and oil revenue to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM) - the conflict in Darfur was never addressed. In July 2004, both the U.S. and U.K. claimed there was not enough evidence to prove genocide was taking place in that region. [sic]

But the atrocities conducted by the Sudanese government and their sponsored Janjaweed militias are evident on a daily basis to those in the region. Many citizens are kept from receiving aid brought into the region by the United Nations and private donations. The people removed from their communities are displaced for long periods of time leaving them exposed to the threat of sexual abuse and attack. Most of these refugees live without shelter, food or medical attention.

No matter how much we write about these gross atrocities on humanity, we won't see any real progression toward peace until someone steps in and holds the Sudanese government accountable for its actions. Many feel that sending donations to aid groups will help these people, and some of these donations can help the citizens of Darfur. But with most of the aid being kept from the people who truly need it, more action needs to be taken. There has not been such gross mistreatment of people committed since the Rwanda genocide of 1994.

The U.N. needs to get help to the ground forces of the African Union. Countries like the U.S. and Great Britain need to get readily involved in helping these people. Our government cannot keep turning its head from the inhumane treatment of the Sudanese people.

Early in his presidency, George W. Bush wrote on the margins of a report on Rwandan genocide, "Not on my watch." Maybe it's time that President Bush and his administration take some action to ensure that another country won't have to endure any more of these hardships.

If the U.N. were to place sanctions on the Sudanese government or if they deployed troops to the country to protect these innocent civilians that are being slaughtered on a daily basis, maybe the threat of violence could be quelled.

If there was ever a time when a country should be invaded due to crimes against humanity, the time is now; the place is Darfur.

U.N. and DR Congo troops battle ethnic militia for town

By Reuters' David Lewis...

Thousands of [DR] Congo government soldiers and hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers battled ethnic militia fighters on Tuesday for control of an eastern town, killing some government troops, the United Nations said.

U.N. peacekeepers backed up by helicopter gunships and mortar fire fought alongside the national army to retake control of Tchei, 60 km (37 miles) southwest of Bunia in Ituri district, where militia violence has killed 60,000 people since 1999.

"There is heavy fighting going on," said U.N. military spokesman Major Hans-Jakob Reichen. "The armed groups are trying to break the strangle(hold) that the joint forces have put around them."

"Our operation will not stop until the rule of law is established in the Tchei area. We have engaged with attack helicopters and mortars. Men in (armoured personnel carriers) and soldiers on the ground are also fighting," he said.

Long accused of doing little to stop fighting in Congo despite peace deals that officially ended a five-year war in 2003, the U.N. has adopted a more robust approach in recent months, aiming to cut militia activity ahead of polls starting in June.

"There are quite a few Congolese soldiers wounded and a few have died," Reichen said, adding that one U.N. soldier had also been hurt though not by enemy fire.

"There have been casualties amongst the militia," he said, without giving any figures.

Five battalions totalling around 2,500 from the reformed national army, which includes both government and rebel fighters from the war, together with four companies or some 500 U.N. peacekeepers were taking part in the operation, he said.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is around the size of Western Europe, and the United Nations' biggest peacekeeping force, numbering some 17,000, is spread thinly across it.

Peacekeepers and Congolese government troops are trying to end chronic violence by a range of different local and foreign armed groups left behind after years of warfare that has killed an estimated 4 million people since 1998, mainly through war-related hunger and disease.

Ituri has seen some of the worst militia violence.

The militia involved in Tuesday's fighting was formed last year from the remnants of rival Hema and Lendu ethnic groups.

Experts say they have resisted disarmament and rejected any form of government or U.N. authority in Ituri to protect their economic interests, which include some mining activities as well as the ability to raise taxes from local civilian populations.

From gold and diamonds to coltan and timber, Congo's huge natural wealth has been a fuelling factor in a decade of war which at one point drew in the armies of six nearby countries.