Sudan: The Passion of the Present

Sudan security violates the constitutional rights of SLA negotiator

An SHRO-Cairo press release, reprinted on Sudan Tribune...

(See also a similar, earlier one from the Darfur Consortium.)

The Sudan Human Rights Organization - Cairo Office [has] received reliable information that the Sudanese national Abulgasim Ahmed Abulgasim, a member of the Sudan Liberation Army’s (SLA) negotiating team in the Abuja peace talks on Darfur, had been deported by Saudi authorities from Jeddah to Khartoum, where he was re-apprehended on arrival by the State Security Department on Thursday, September the 28th, 2006.

The Saudi authorities had not informed the SLA peace negotiating member of the reason of the arrest or deportation, despite his expatriation over two decades in the Kingdom. The arrest, immediate deportation, and security reception at the Khartoum Airport entailed serious violations of the internationally recognized right of a deported person to enjoy legal consultation, appeal, and personal safety above all.

The Organization asks the GONU authorities to release Abulgasim Ahmed immediately from jail, [to] guarantee his constitutional right to move freely inside the country, as well as his right to appeal, and to press for legal compensation for all the damages incurred by his sudden arrest and deportation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Sudan.

SHRO-Cairo reiterates grave concerns about the abusive performance of the State Security Department, which fuels the hostilities and the warring climates between GONU and the rebel groups of Darfur, and the repressive measures that suppress unlawfully the constitutional activities of the civil society and political groups.

Following the popular unrest that demonstrated lately against government’s policies in both interior and foreign affairs, the State Security Department has been excessively acting as a worst violator of the Interim Constitution, which prohibits clearly the unlawful apprehension, abduction, or incarceration of citizens.

It is time for GONU to take effective measures to end the Security unlawfulness towards the civil and political rights of citizens.

Specialists urge US to focus on Somali strife: Islamist advance seen to threaten a wider conflict

A recent "Boston Globe" feature...

Africa specialists criticized the Bush administration yesterday [Wednesday] for not paying more attention to the increasingly volatile situation in Somalia, saying that senior officials were consumed by their efforts to stop the fighting in the Darfur region of Sudan.

In Somalia, Islamist militias have taken one town after another in the south-central part of the fractured nation since capturing the de facto capital Mogadishu in June. Now, they appear poised to attack the small town of Baidoa near the country's western border with Ethiopia.

Baidoa is the base of the increasingly powerless Somali transitional federal government, which is backed by the United States and Ethiopia. Analysts predict that if the Islamists attack the town, which appears likely, the conflict could evolve into a wider war with Ethiopia.

``We're completely distracted by Sudan," said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies and a State Department official during the Clinton administration. ``We should be engaging the Islamists . . . and find out what their intentions are."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday delivered a major speech on Sudan before the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, calling on the government in Khartoum to end hostilities immediately and unconditionally accept a UN peacekeeping force. The fighting in Darfur has led to the deaths of several hundred thousand people and displacing an estimated 2.5 million people since 2002.

Rice talked about Somalia only in response to a question from Melvin P. Foote, president of Constituency for Africa, a Washington-based advocacy group, who asked what the administration was doing about problems in nearby Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea.

On Somalia, Rice said, ``We have been trying, despite the difficulties there, to support a transitional government that might be able to . . . help the country come together." She said the United States would not negotiate with any group that works with terrorists, a veiled reference to the Islamists who form the Consultative Council of Islamic Courts, the formal name of the extremist militia that is rapidly consolidating its grip on the country.

Somalia's interim Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Ghedi earlier this week appealed for outside help, saying it was needed to ``protect the region from the expansion of this Al Qaeda network, these terrorists."

It is unclear whether Al Qaeda has recently made serious inroads in Somalia. CIA officials had been traveling extensively to Somalia before June under the protection of warlords, to whom the intelligence officers paid tens of thousands of dollars for information. The warlords are generally rivals of the Islamists. The CIA has been seeking three men in Somalia believed to have organized or participated in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Most analysts say that small terror cells exist in the country, but that the chaotic nature of the country -- it hasn't had a functioning government in 15 years -- also poses a risk that Somalis could turn in members of a terror group for a ransom.

The question now is whether the Islamists, which appear to be led by members of Al Itihad Al Islamiya, a radical group that is part of the Islamic courts and led by hard-liner Hassan Dahir Aweys, want to provoke a war with Ethiopia, and what would trigger an Ethiopian decision to fight.

Among the worrisome factors: Aweys has said his movement aims to take over all historic Somali areas, including those in Ethiopia; Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who is ruthless and pro-West, views Somali Islamists as a threat; and the tiny country of Eritrea, which has a recent history of bloody border wars with Ethiopia, is sending arms and money to the Ethiopian opposition movements in Somalia.

``My principal worry now is the Islamic hard-liners are creating conditions in which war with Ethiopia is increasingly likely," Kenneth J. Menkhaus, a Somali specialist and professor of political science at Davidson College, said in a telephone interview from Davidson, N.C. ``A war would be bad for everyone -- the Ethiopians, the Somalis, the region, the US. The only people to benefit would be the [Islamic] jihadists."

Robert I. Rotberg, director of the [Program] on Intrastate Conflict at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, said Ethiopia is clearly worried about Eritrea's involvement and also wants to ``nip separatism in the bud. If Ethiopia adopted half a Bush [administration] mentality, they would want to strike a blow to maintain their power. Ethiopians would like nothing better than an all-out direct battle for Baidoa."

The two countries have frequently been on a war footing since Somalia's independence in 1960. Somalia has claimed that Ethiopia occupies a part of its territory, the Ogaden region. In 1977, the two countries waged a war over the Ogaden, which Ethiopia held after receiving substantial military assistance from Russia and Cuba.

The Humanitarian War Myth (by Eric Posner)

An opinion item from Sunday's "Washington Post" (thanks to "Sudan Watch")...

(In addition, while the "Washington Post" PostGlobal blog has moved on to other topics since its Darfur focus of a week ago, there has been one subsequent addition relating to Darfur: "International Community Paralyzed By Khartoum", by Ronan Farrow [on behalf of GI-Net].)

More than 40,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the rate at which civilians die has been increasing in recent months. Many thousands of innocent Iraqis have been detained, and some have been abused by American troops. Many others have been tortured or killed by Iraqi police. Basic services have been lacking in large portions of the country for three years. Civil war looms, conjuring memories of the 16-year Lebanese civil war, during which more than 100,000 people were killed out of a population of fewer than 4 million.

Yet, if the United Nations were to have its way, the Iraqi debacle would be just the first in a series of such wars -- the effect of a well-meaning but ill-considered effort to make humanitarian intervention obligatory as a matter of international law. Today Iraq, tomorrow Darfur.

Civilians suffer in all wars, but the suffering of Iraqi civilians in this war is particularly unfortunate because one of the main justifications for the war was humanitarian: to rescue suffering Iraqis from a tyrant. There were other justifications, of course, including the related but distinct idea that bringing democracy to Iraq would enhance America's long-term security. But the humanitarian justification was embraced by many who rejected the other justifications, including liberal elites as well as some conservatives, and it helped mobilize public opinion behind the war. Events have served the humanitarian justification poorly.

The idea that war can have a humanitarian as well as a national security justification has a long pedigree and surface plausibility. Some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century occurred in weak states whose governments could not have resisted a foreign military invasion. The genocide in Rwanda, which killed more than 800,000 people in a few months, was eventually halted by a force of Tutsi rebels; surely a Western army could have stopped it sooner. If nations can intervene at little cost to themselves because the target nations are weak and by doing so they prevent massive human suffering, then surely they should do so. The logic seems compelling.

But logic is no substitute for experience, and experience shows that humanitarian war is an oxymoron. The first blow to the idea was the failed intervention in Somalia in 1993. U.S. forces sent to maintain the peace while aid was distributed to millions of starving civilians were withdrawn after just 18 U.S. soldiers died. Policymakers drew the lesson that the American public will not tolerate casualties in a humanitarian war that has no clear national security justification. This lesson guided President Bill Clinton's refusal to authorize military intervention during the Rwandan genocide and his decision to limit U.S. military intervention in Kosovo in 1999 to high-altitude bombing, which ensured that no American pilots were killed -- at the expense of civilians on whose heads errant bombs fell. The Kosovo intervention, although regarded as a success in some quarters, has cost billions of dollars, required a seven-year occupation and could turn out to be a slow-motion version of Iraq.

The Iraq war itself has dealt the second blow. The problem with humanitarian intervention is not only that the costs are usually too high, but it turns out that the benefits usually are low. There are just too many risks and imponderables when war is used to prevent atrocities rather than to defeat an enemy. Military weapons inevitably kill civilians, and smart tyrants foil smart bombs by using their own civilians as shields. Dictators understand that a war premised on humanitarianism fails if they can make the invader kill their citizens. Removing the dictator risks civil war, which is almost always worse than the original abuses. Replacing him with another dictator only puts off the atrocities until another day. Long-term occupation breeds hostility, then insurgency and violence. In comparison with this, the original ruler might not seem so bad after all.

Saddam Hussein was an especially bad tyrant, and Iraqi civilian casualties attributable to the U.S. intervention do not yet equal what he was able to accomplish, albeit over a longer period. The Kurds and many Shiites are better off. And many Iraqis continue to think that the war was worth it, according to polls.

But polls do not reveal the opinions of dead Iraqis. The humanitarian effect of the war has been at best ambiguous against the baseline of the containment period that preceded it, and if current trends continue, the overall effect will be that of a humanitarian disaster.

Many people blame the humanitarian costs of the war in Iraq on the Bush administration's execution of it. This view is a psychological crutch that allows defenders of humanitarian intervention to keep the ideal alive for the next, presumably competent, administration of a President Hillary Clinton or John McCain. But complaints about this war are not noticeably different from complaints about earlier wars, where small mistakes (identifiable as such with the benefit of hindsight) resulted in enormous harm.

The Iraq war, consistent with experience, suggests that humanitarian wars will rarely yield humanitarian results. Why, then, is there a so-called "responsibility to protect" movement to make humanitarian intervention obligatory as a matter of international law? And why was this idea endorsed by the United Nations during its millennium summit?

The best humanitarians of our day recognize that we face a painful dilemma: to tolerate atrocities in foreign states or to risk committing worse atrocities in the course of ending them. From Rwanda, many people drew the lesson that failure to intervene is the worse option. The Iraq war may be the first step in unlearning this lesson. If not, an intervention in Darfur surely will be.

The writer is a professor of law at the University of Chicago and co-author of "The Limits of International Law."

Senator slams sparse Canadian military presence in Africa / Peacekeeping has "failed" in this era, says Dallaire

Two separate (but still somewhat related) CBC stories from a few days ago:

"Senator slams sparse Canadian military presence in Africa"...

(See also a related CP story.)

Canada's meagre military contribution in Africa is a disgrace, longtime Liberal Senator Peter Stollery charged on Tuesday.

Stollery said he believed the limited presence of Canadian troops in the continent was a result of military officials believing it was not as "sexy" as helping the U.S. by fighting in Afghanistan.

His remarks came after Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier appeared at a Senate Foreign Affairs committee meeting about the military's involvement in Africa.

Currently there are 64 Canadian staff officers, ceasefire observers and military trainers serving in operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Sierra Leone.

Hillier told the committee that the Canadian military is stretched by its overseas deployments.

"We are now at the extreme limits of what we can contribute anywhere," said Hillier. "There are many poor places around this world that need desperate help from a whole variety of countries, and obviously Canada is not the sole source to provide that help. Maybe some of those other countries have to step up to those other places."

More than half of Canada's approximately 4,000 troops serving overseas are in Afghanistan.

Stollery called Afghan President Hamid Karzai "a stooge" in May, drawing criticism from the Conservative government.

His [Stollery's] comments Tuesday were rebuked for their "scandalous language" by fellow Liberal Senator Roméo Dallaire, who commanded UN peacekeepers in Rwanda in the 1990s.

"Nothing is sexy in war," said Dallaire. "The whole concept of war is perverse, and the reason we're in one area and not another is because political decisions have been taken."

Dallaire said he disagreed with Hillier's contention, arguing that the military could provide at least 600 troops in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Earlier this year, NDP Leader Jack Layton called the situation in Darfur "genocide in slow motion," and urged the Canadian military to take a lead role.

Layton has been one of the most vocal critics of the increasing combat role in Afghanistan, arguing that the military should return to the peacekeeping function it has been known for internationally the past several decades.

Before being appointed to the Senate by former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Stollery served as an MP for nine years in Toronto's Spadina riding [district].

"Peacekeeping has 'failed' in this era, says Dallaire"...

Senator Romeo Dallaire, the retired Canadian general who led the ill-fated United Nations force during the genocide in Rwanda, says the concept of peacekeeping has disappeared in this new era of warfare.

"The concept of peacekeeping has failed in this era. The Canadian army hasn't been in peacekeeping for the last 15 years," said Dallaire, who spoke at the University of Saskatchewan Wednesday, said the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

Warfare is no longer country against country, he said during the lecture, which was sponsored by the university's law faculty.

Wars now deal with tribalism, ethnicity and economics, said Dallaire.

He pointed to the 1993-1994 UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda as a failure of peacekeeping. Rwanda's International Criminal Tribunal has concluded 800,000 to one million Tutsis and Hutu moderates were killed by Hutu extremists during the massacre.

UN forces must follow strict international laws while rebel forces don't, said Dallaire.

"They don't play by these rules. We do, and our greatest threat is when we stop doing so," Dallaire said.

Dallaire, who said the world needs a leader to usher in a new era of global justice, criticized Canada for ignoring the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

He also offered support for the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, saying the country must follow through with its commitment and accept that there will be casualties.

Teaching Canadian police tactics in Darfur

A recent CBC feature...

(See also "Coming to Darfur's aid".)

David McGuffin is the CBC's Africa correspondent, based in Nairobi. Previously, he was bureau chief in Moscow for Feature Story News (FSN), a British broadcast news service with clients that include CBC Radio, National Public Radio, PBS and ABC News [U.S., I assume - EJM]. He reported from across the former Soviet Union during the last turbulent years of the Yeltsin administration. He went on to open FSN's Beijing bureau in 2000 before joining CTV News as their Asia correspondent. He also spent two years in Rome, reporting on Vatican and European affairs for ABC News and NBC News. He got his start in journalism at PBS's MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour in Washington, D.C., where his last job was as foreign editor of the show's award-winning website. An Ottawa native, he graduated from Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., and from the journalism program at the University of King's College in Halifax.

A young woman winces from the pain of an insect bite. The man next to her wipes his sweaty brow. In all, about 80 African Union police officers swelter in the confines of a large white tent in the Darfuri capital El Fasher in western Sudan.

Even under the shade of the canvas it's more than 50 C, but their attention is unwavering.

In the tent, Bud Snow from Dartmouth, N.S., is delivering a lecture on identifying and responding to crisis situations. It's a lesson the assembled Nigerians, South Africans and others will carry forward when they fan out across Darfur as front-line police officers with an almost impossible mission: To protect the millions of civilians who so often become the victims during three years of fighting.

As all sides in the Darfur conflict — government forces, state-sponsored militia, and an ever-fracturing array of rebel groups — continue to battle, the African Union mission limps along. It has now been extended just until the end of the year.

The 7,000-strong force of soldiers and civilian police is pledged to enforce a faltering peace agreement between the government and one rebel group, but they are badly outnumbered and under-resourced.

That's where Bud Snow comes in. Retired from the Halifax police department and one of four Canadian police officers deployed to Darfur as part of the African Union mission, he and his colleagues are assigned specifically to train the Africans in Canadian ways.

"I think we make a difference," Snow says. "We talk about human rights. Just to make people aware that certain activities aren't allowed, that certain behaviours by males or females aren't acceptable and they don't have to take that. We bring that to the table. And I think we have an impact."

The numbers of this conflict are staggering, but fairly well known. Years of fighting in Darfur have left more than 200,000 dead, and more than 2.5 million seeking refuge in camps, where disease and hunger run rampant.

What's less known are the further horrors that so often follow refugees into the camps — banditry, murder and rape.

The thin blue line

Thirty kilometres from El Fasher are the sprawling refugee camps of Tawilla, home to 30,000 Darfuris and growing each day.

The camps hug a small African Union base where police officer Mary Awuni from Ghana agonizes over what little she can do. She's had training, but fights her battle to bring justice to one small corner of Darfur virtually alone, limited by both support and mandate.

Bomb attacks by the Sudanese air force, rebel raids and other violence have edged closer. As a result, every aid group that was there to deliver medicine, food and other humanitarian support has pulled out.

At the same time, Awuni knows many refugees face an increasingly dangerous situation. She speaks carefully as she recounts the stories of refugee women who leave the camps to collect firewood.

"That's when they get them," she says, "Maybe five people decide to jump on one woman. It's a gang rape. They're happening right now as I'm talking."

For his part, Snow says the task facing the African Union's civilian police "is a very difficult job." He explains how the AU's mandate restricts civilian police to only assisting and advising the local Darfuri police. They can't actually arrest suspects. "Basically their hands are tied when compared to what their normal policing is back home."

Awuni is clearly frustrated. She describes how the local police operate when it comes to rape cases. "If you've been assaulted," she says, they would "rather charge you for adultery." As a result, Awuni says, victims have just stopped reporting rapes.

Still, her training has allowed her to make some inroads. She's been able to hold some women's forums in the refugee camps. A step forward, she believes, even though she and her translators have themselves been chased from the camps.

A camp is not a home

After serving 11 months in Darfur, Awuni will soon be returning home to Ghana. She knows the refugees, on the other hand, have no homes to return to. "It's not easy to live in this camp. For them to get food to eat, to clothe themselves and their children is very difficult."

Snow is proud of the work he's been able to accomplish with the African Union's civilian police. In the past six months, he and his Canadian colleagues have trained hundreds of officers just like Awuni.

They have also managed to streamline the huge amounts of information collected by the thousand or so AU police across Darfur. Before the Canadians arrived, the civilian police mission didn't have computers.

The Canadian officers remedied that, and have built up a database. So now there is an accounting at least of the murders, rapes and robberies taking place in the camps. This is important to help convince Western nations to bring in a large UN peacekeeping force to try to end the long conflict.

Canada is the third-largest contributor to the AU mission in Sudan. Canada has leased planes and helicopters for the mission, provided flak jackets and helmets and loaned AU commanders more than 100 armoured personnel carriers.

But despite this, the future of the Canadian police presence in Darfur isn't clear. Federal funding to continue the policing aspect of Canada's contribution to the AU mission is still awaiting approval. Two of the Canadian officers have already packed up and gone home. Snow and another Canadian will be gone by the end of September.

"We bring a lot, because they're now into the community-based policing, and gender-based violence is a big issue here." But, he laments, "We know once we leave, [our programs] will probably go by the wayside."

But he's optimistic that he will be able to return. "People want to feel safe and secure," he says. "We bring a positive attitude with us and that has an influence on the people we meet."

From Rwanda to Darfur (by Austin Bay)

His latest syndicated column (also here, among others)...

The demonstrators had extraordinary moral credibility. Last week in Kigali, Rwanda, survivors of the 1994 Rwanda genocide called on the United Nations and world leaders to act to end the continuing genocide in Sudan's western Darfur region.

"We survivors stand with the victims in Darfur," Rwandan Freddy Umutanguha told the Irish Independent. "We know what it is like to lose our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters."

In April 1994, Hutu-led mobs and militias began slaughtering 800,000 mothers, fathers, sons and daughters -- mostly Tutsi tribespeople, though Rwandan Hutus who opposed the killers were also slain. The murder campaign continued for three months. Since February 2003, at least 250,000 people have been killed in Darfur. Another 2.5 million have been displaced.

In February 2004, reflecting on Rwanda's genocide, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said: "There can be no more binding obligation for the international community than the prevention of genocide. ... The events in Rwanda ... were especially shameful. The international community clearly had the capacity to prevent those events, but failed to summon the will. ... We must ensure that we never again fail to summon the will." Lack of political will and lack of credible military power contributed to the Rwandan disaster.

A U.N. peacekeeping force was deployed to Rwanda in 1993 to monitor a cease-fire agreement between the Rwandan government and a Tutsi rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). I am not convinced that small and lightly armed force could have done much -- they were too few, and the genocidal attacks quickly spread throughout Rwanda. However, Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the U.N. force commander, now believes early, decisive action against the Hutu extremists who led the genocide would have thwarted their plans. Gen. Dallaire's U.N. troops would have been intervening in a Rwandan civil war, but in retrospect he thinks that was the least-terrible choice.

But the peacekeepers did not intervene. Belgium withdrew its contingent when 10 soldiers were killed. U.N. leaders dithered for weeks before voting to reinforce the mission, sending too little, too late.

The mounting death toll in Darfur tests Mr. Annan's stirring words. But when it comes to ending genocide, words require swords. Fine words cannot protect the vulnerable from dedicated killers -- that job demands soldiers.

Mr. Annan knows this and, with the support of the United States and Great Britain, wants to reinforce the hapless, ineffective African Union peacekeeping force now in Darfur. In August, the Security Council approved a U.N.-led force. But the resolution "invites" the consent of the Sudanese government in Khartoum to approve deploying U.N. troops.

Khartoum interpreted the diplo-speak "invites" to mean it could nix a U.N. force. Sudan said, "No, thanks," and called a U.N. force in Darfur "a European imperialist invasion." Scratch "imperialist," and Khartoum's killers have the trace of a legitimate case, for a credible U.N. military force entering Darfur would be invading to halt Khartoum's state-sponsored policy of ethnic cleansing.

Mao Tse-tung's rule of thumb -- people are like water, and a guerrilla army like fish swimming in the human pool -- influenced Rwanda's Hutu radicals. The genocidaires believed mass murder would eliminate "the ethnic pool" supporting rebel Tutsis. Pursuing a similar goal with similar means, Khartoum has its "Janjaweed" militia proxies ravage, then torch, villages it suspects support Darfur rebel factions.

Ending the Darfur genocide means terminating Khartoum's savage policy. That means peacekeeping forces combating the militias would be waging war against allies of the "host" Sudanese government. Rwanda's pro-intervention demonstrators have moral credibility borne of unspeakable suffering.

Credible combat power -- well-armed, well-led, well-supported soldiers with full authority to use decisive, deadly force -- can be deployed in Darfur.

That credible combat power must be backed by credible leaders. That means leaders with the spine to intervene despite Khartoum's intransigence and leaders with the grit to continue this difficult mission when (it is inevitable) the fighting gets dirty, good soldiers die and tragic mistakes occur.

Despite Mr. Annan's fine words, outside of London and Washington such leadership is not in evidence. Until it appears, "the international community" deserves to be shamed.

UN's straws in the wind spell disaster for Darfur

An analysis feature by Ian Mather for "Scotland on Sunday" (the Sunday version of the "Scotsman")...

PROMPTED by a host of celebrities, the world has finally woken up to the disaster of Darfur, three years after the Janjaweed militia first went on the rampage, forcing millions from their homes.

But the crisis appears to have again left the UN paralysed. Despite voting to send a peace-keeping force, the Khartoum government's refusal to allow the new troops into the country has left many diplomats sitting on their hands.

Darfur is the biggest single humanitarian crisis that will face the new UN Secretary General, who will be chosen this month. He - or she - will have to decide what to do about Khartoum's refusal to let a larger, better-equipped UN force take over from the inadequate African Union force which is there now, and which is powerless to stop the slaughter.

The crisis is being pushed on to the world stage by mounting pressure from international opinion, led by stars such as Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Bob Geldof, who have taken up the cause of the millions of displaced and starving people.

But rejecting the UN has become the central plank of Sudan's foreign and domestic policy. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has dubbed the UN mission re-colonialisation and offered to resign and lead the armed resistance himself.

The EU, too, seems equally unlikely to succeed in persuading Khartoum to change its mind, despite being a major donor. EU President Jose Manuel Barroso was this weekend preparing to visit Sudan, in yet another attempt to put pressure on Khartoum.

Meanwhile, as the biggest job in international diplomacy comes up for grabs in the next few weeks, the leading candidates are virtually silent on this most pressing issue. Indeed, the candidates seem unwilling to offer any policy choices at all, except vague promises of "reform" of the UN's institutions.

The choice of Secretary General is made behind firmly closed doors against a backdrop of horse-trading and secret deals. Members of the Security Council conduct a series of straw polls, in which they vote to "encourage" "discourage" or "have no opinion on" each candidate. Then the General Assembly is expected to rubber-stamp their choice.

Of the seven current contenders, only one is running on a platform of using the UN to take decisive action to end the suffering in Darfur. And he stands little chance of winning.

The front runner, Ban Ki-Moon, South Korea's foreign minister, is highly discreet about his policies. But he still has to be careful. In a straw poll last Thursday, Ban gained 13 of the 15 Security Council members' votes. But he lost one vote, that of Qatar, from the previous poll. The next straw poll will take place tomorrow [Monday]. This time the five permanent members of the Security Council will use different-coloured ballots than the other 10. That will show whether any of the five permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the US - have given a veto, thus dooming a candidate.

The reason for the silence of the straw poll men is international geopolitics. It is Asia's turn to choose a UN Secretary General, and the chief power-broker is China, a permanent member of the Security Council, with an absolute veto over any candidate.

No candidate will back the idea of armed intervention in a sovereign country because China opposes the principle.

China's motivation is twofold. It is against any moves that would set a precedent for opening up the question of Tibet, which it seized by force in 1950 to international scrutiny.

Secondly, it has embarked on a strategic diplomatic and commercial initiative in Africa, in which its partnership with the Khartoum government is fundamental. Beijing is desperate for oil to fuel its booming economy, and Sudan has huge reserves.

China has invested heavily in Sudanese crude oil production, and is not regarded with suspicion by the Islamist government in Khartoum in the same way that Western countries are.

China has recently signed energy and minerals deals with Sudan, Chad, Angola and Zimbabwe. Beijing also has construction projects in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia. It does not want an interfering UN Secretary General.

Ban Ki-Moon has good relations with the US, having served twice in the Korean embassy in Washington. The Bush administration is much more interested in UN "reform" than in direct action over Darfur.

As the largest contributor to the UN, it has threatened to withhold funding and has launched Congressional investigations into the financial fiasco of the UN's oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

Washington says it wants more emphasis on the Secretary General's responsibility as the chief administrative officer managing an organisation with an annual budget of more than $2 [billion]. US forces are far too stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan for Washington to contemplate another foreign military adventure.

Without a push from Washington the UN will fail to act over Darfur, as happened in the past when the UN did nothing about Kosovo until Washington acted, and nothing at all about Rwanda because Washington was indifferent to the genocide taking place there.

Shashi Tharoor, India's candidate, currently in second place, summed up the prevailing mood among the candidates when he described Darfur as a "blot on the human conscience", while adding that he could not advocate the UN going into Darfur without the Sudanese government's consent.

"We're not going to be in a position to make war in Sudan in order to impose peace in Darfur," Tharoor said. "The UN has no standing capacity of its own. It has to turn to countries to give us soldiers, and there isn't one country on this planet that has offered soldiers for a war with Sudan over Darfur."

Similarly Dr Vaira Vike-Freiberga has pledged to face "the challenges posed by UN reform and promoting human rights, freedom and democracy, including gender equality". No mention of Darfur.

Only one candidate, Jayantha Dhanapala, from Sri Lanka, insists that something must be done to stop the slaughter in Darfur.

"The violence in Darfur stands as an indictment against the United Nations," he says. "For three years, the suffering civilians there received little but hand-wringing, stopgap humanitarian efforts and an African Union peacekeeping force."

He said that the lack of action over Darfur "exposes the glaring absence of a rapid response mechanism for humanitarian disasters".

The Khartoum government, however, is determined to resist the insertion of a UN force into Darfur as a violation of its sovereignty. It also says that it fears that it would be a bridgehead for the removal of its own Islamic-oriented government, and that a UN force might attract Islamic fighters to combat it, because Osama bin Laden has already identified Darfur as a battlefield.

But the chances of a strong new UN Secretary General willing to take on Khartoum look slim. James Traub, author of a book on Kofi Annan and the UN, says he believes the Security Council, where the real power lies, will want someone far more discreet - "more secretary than general".

It was meant to bring peace. Instead, British-brokered deal has rekindled war.

A recent feature by Jonathan Steele for the UK's "Guardian" (thanks to Eugene)...

Hawa Salih Ali sits on the sand with one of her grandchildren, their heads protected from the broiling sun by plastic sheeting draped across wooden poles. Around them sit thousands of other displaced people, the latest victims of Darfur's three-year-old tragedy.

Hawa Salih fled her village once before, forced out when Janjaweed militia backed by the Sudanese government attacked the area because it harboured rebel fighters. The war moved on to other parts of this huge region of western Sudan, and two years ago she and her family felt safe enough to go home and restart their lives.

Now they are homeless again, forced out this time by the very rebels who defended them before. Worse still, it happened after a peace deal was signed in May in a heavily trumpeted ceremony, which Hilary Benn, Britain's international development secretary, helped to broker along with top US and African Union negotiators.

Instead of bringing peace, the deal has only rekindled a war.

"There were three days of attacks," says the old woman. "On the first day they came into the village and killed some of our young people. The next day they took all our livestock. The third day they told us to leave or we would all be killed." Six hundred families of Diken in Korma district set off on foot on a 50-mile march eastwards to El Fasher, the capital of north Darfur. It took them five days, frightened, parched and hungry.

"Minni Minnawi [a leader of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army] was protecting us three years ago. Now he's started attacking us. We don't know why the Zaghawa are doing this," she says. Minni Minnawi is from the Zaghawa tribe and is leader of what used to be the main force fighting the government in Khartoum. Hawah Sali is a Tunjur, a branch of the Fur, the region's largest tribe, hence the name Darfur, which means "land of the Fur".

A few yards away in the vast new settlement of flimsy shelters that have sprouted in the desert since the peace deal, Moussa Adam Suleiman is tending his two donkeys. The people in his village, also in Korma district, managed to flee with their precious livestock. He put his five children on the animals, and he and his wife trudged beside them, carrying a few possessions.

"In the past Minni controlled the area and the government couldn't get in," he says. "Now he's with the government and they are killing people together. It has never been so bad before." Asked why things have turned out like this, he blames the peace deal. "That's why we're here. I don't know the details of what's in the agreement. But it's just created problems."

The main problem is that only one of the three opposition groups - Minnawi's - signed the deal, which was supposed to lead to the disarmament of the Janjaweed militia and the rebels and give Darfur a greater share of Sudan's surging oil wealth.

Aid agency observers here say the united front of Fur and Zaghawa, which had fought the government for three years, was already splitting before the Darfur peace agreement was signed. Tribal clashes erupted as groups sought to increase their areas of control, though the clashes after the deal were worse.

Propaganda

With bitter humour, the settlement of 20,000 people north of El Fasher is called As Salaam (Peace). Though the shelters are rudimentary, aid agencies worked fast to dig latrines and wells, and provide food and medical services.

The attacks on the ground are now being matched by a furious struggle for hearts and minds in Darfur's dozens of camps for displaced people. Those in favour of the peace deal and those against are trying to control opinion by any means.

"We used to take these camps as separate entities," says Thomas Linde, the director of protection for civilians in the United Nation's Khartoum office. "But since May one of the most marked tendencies is how networks have grown. Their capacity to mobilise people around topics in the Darfur peace agreement is amazing. You can't talk to young leaders in the camps without mobile phones ringing as they talk to colleagues in other camps."

The propaganda campaign has gone cyber. The National Redemption Front has already opened a website, where it constantly denounces the peace deal.

These new fissures on the rebel side plus the split over whether to sign the peace deal have added new complexity to Darfur. The old template of an Arab versus African conflict that prompted thousands of people in the west to denounce genocide and ethnic cleansing now looks even less accurate.

The confusion is producing ironies in the west as well. While Britain has joined the Bush administration in criticising Khartoum for refusing to accept UN troops in Darfur, it now emerges that Britain is working with the Sudanese government to try to sell the peace deal in the camps.

Hilary Benn's department is funding Simon Haselock and Andrew Harker, two British experts with Bosnian experience, to help develop a media campaign extolling the peace agreement. Although they are attached to the African Union, which is in charge of monitoring the faltering peace deal, they will be using Sudanese government resources.

A programme on the deal's merits will be broadcast on three state-owned radio stations, and focus groups will be invited to listen to them and discuss the topics raised.

Theatre groups will go round the camps, doing role-playing to say why the deal's opponents are wrong. Whether this will be enough to change the doubters' minds remains to be seen.

Diplomats are also offering talks in the hope of getting the non-signers to think again.

Getting support for the deal through spinning or offering small amendments will be an uphill struggle. "The displaced people in the camps took the peace deal as a complete imposition from the outside. The negotiations should have been linked to feedback from leaders in the camps," said one UN official.

For Hawa Salih and Moussa Adam and the tens of thousands of other Darfurians who have been forced out of their homes in different parts of the region since May, the notion that the peace deal was a step forward looks even flimsier than the hovels they now inhabit.

Stop investing in Sudan's genocide, MPs tell firms

From the UK's "Observer"...

MPs from the influential House of Commons foreign affairs committee are urging British businesses with investments in Sudan to withdraw from the war-torn African country.

The call for disinvestment is aimed at companies including Shell, Rolls-Royce and British Airways. It is intended to put pressure on the government in Khartoum, which is accused of supporting a civil war that has led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Darfur.

Tony Blair has condemned Khartoum's refusal to allow a peacekeeping force into the area to prevent escalating violence, but has stopped short of imposing economic sanctions. This weekend, however, MPs on the foreign affairs committee called on British companies to consider taking the lead by pulling out of Sudan.

'The situation is so unacceptable that there would be merit in British companies disinvesting,' said Richard Younger-Ross, a member of the committee. 'There has to be a point where companies say: "You are not the sort of people we can do business with." We can't stand by and watch genocide.'

Fabian Hamilton, another MP on the committee, cited the success of boycotts against apartheid-era South Africa and said: 'If we can be sure that disinvestment would put pressure on those in power rather than hurt ordinary Sudanese people, we should do it.'

Mike Gapes, the MP who chairs the committee, added that disinvestment 'is something we should be looking at'.

British exports to Sudan were worth £140 [million] last year - up more than 50 per cent on the figure for 2004. Shell, one of a few western companies involved in Sudan's fledgling oil industry, declined to comment on the call for disinvestment.

The appeal echoes a celebrity-backed campaign in America, endorsed by several state governments, to persuade US companies to pull out of Sudan.

Warren Buffett, Schwarzenegger and Sudan

A recent post from the "Political Muscle" blog on the "Los Angeles Times" site (links are from the original)...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Monday requiring California to shed its pension investments with companies that do business with the murderous regime in Sudan, where genocide has claimed as many as 400,000 lives.

"We cannot watch from the sideline," he said, "and be content to mourn this atrocity as it passes into history. We must act, and we must act now.... It is an action that says we will not cooperate with them, with the horrors of Darfur."

Just a few hours before the choreographed event, Schwarzenegger attended a fund-raiser with his friend and economic advisor, Warren Buffett. The breakfast fund-raiser took place at the lavish Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill in San Francisco, at a cost of $25,000 a person.

What Schwarzenegger didn't mention was this: Buffett is the largest individual U.S. investor in a Chinese oil conglomerate that does business with the regime in Khartoum. Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, holds 2.3 billion shares of PetroChina, or 1.3% of the foreign ownership of the oil company.

Anti-genocide activists who stood with Schwarzenegger on Monday were well aware of the unspoken connection, and the contradictions inherent in the governor's day.

Adam Sterling, national policy director for the Sudan Divestment Task Force, said the Republican governor should now turn his attention to pressuring Buffett, just as he is demanding the state's massive pension funds to sever their relationship with companies propping up the genocidal regime.

"It goes along with the action Arnold made at the press conference Monday that he should encourage his friend to take similar action," said Sterling, who appeared with the governor at the ceremony.

This week, Sterling said, he his stepping up his campaign to pressure Buffett to change his relationship with PetroChina. The campaign can be followed on this link. Sterling said he did not mention the Buffett-Sudan relationship to Schwarzenegger on Monday, out of respect for his signing the landmark divestment legislation.

But in a report entitled "Berkshire Hathaway, PetroChina and the Darfur Genocide," Sterling's group reported substantial links between Buffett's investments and the government in Sudan. The Chinese oil business in Sudan is being directed by the China National Petroleum Co., the parent company of PetroChina, and is feeding the oil revenues in Sudan and thus the military.

"CNPC's operations in Sudan have also paved the way for a hugely concerning arms trade between China and Sudan. For example, Sudanese government troops and militias have used Chinese-made helicopter gunships, based at CNPC airstrips in the country, to conduct raids on civilians."

Sterling said requiring Buffett to divest his entire PetroChina portfolio would be a drastic measure that would likely sink the stock. Rather, he said, Buffett should use his financial clout to make changes from within PetroChina. "No single individual will have more of a voice in that company," Sterling said. "It's definitely something China would listen to."

This is happening more and more. "We are beginning to see a number of leading companies take seriously the actions and concerns of US investors," said Adam Pener, chief operating officer of Conflict Securities Advisory Group, a Washington research firm that specializes in identifying companies with ties to terrorist-sponsoring states.

California's largest pension fund, CalPERS, has investments in 39 companies that do business in Sudan, but PetroChina is not listed as one of those companies. But if CalPERS did invest in the oil company, it undoubtedly would be required to shed its holdings under the new law, anti-genocide activists said.

Sterling said his group has tried to contact Berkshire Hathaway, but their calls have been ignored. A secretary for Buffett told The Times that the billionaire investor was traveling and unavailable.

As for Schwarzenegger, spokeswoman Margita Thompson said: "Gov. Schwarzenegger signed historic legislation this past Monday that sent a clear message around the world that California would stand against murder and genocide." She referred calls about Schwarzenegger and his relationship to Buffett on this issue to Berkshire Hathaway.

Schwarzenegger made Buffett co-chair of his California Economic Recovery Council during the 2003 recall, and he remains an advisor. During the recall, Buffett appeared with Schwarzenegger and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, to promote his campaign. Shultz also showed up Monday to the divestment bill signing, along with actors George Clooney and Don Cheadle.