Darfur update: What UN Charter Chapter VII peacekeepers?

This sort of report is still not being carried in the Canadian media.

It is a month since a peace deal was signed between Sudan's government and the main rebel group. Yet the frustration among the people of Darfur, and among the 7,300 peacekeepers from 25 African countries they look to for protection, is growing each day.

Insecurity remains rife and the peacekeepers can do little to improve the situation.

"Monitoring this agreement with only the troops we have now will be a failure," said Lieutenant Colonel John Asabre, in charge of intelligence and security at the African Union Mission to Sudan (Amis) headquarters.

Most analysts say the Darfur force should be doubled in size, with the power to protect returning refugees and to disarm militia. Yet the western nations that sponsor Amis have made an increase all but impossible by holding back funding. Some soldiers have not been paid for three months.

Hands tied, the AU has agreed to hand over the mission to the United Nations at the end of September. But there are serious doubts that this will take place [emphasis added - MC] by then, if at all.

While Sudan's government has finally agreed to let a UN assessment mission into Darfur later this week, the president, Omar el-Bashir, remains strongly opposed to a "blue helmet" takeover.

A UN security council delegation arrived in Khartoum on Monday to try to twist his arm. But even if it is successful, analysts say Mr Bashir is likely to insist that the mission's scale and mandate remain largely unchanged. And if not, Amis will continue to limp along...

H/t to Norman's Spectator.

Update: A misleading headline, courtesy the CBC: "UN peacekeepers heading to Darfur, group agrees". Not quite, but such headlines just add to the almost complete absence in this country of a realistic understanding of what is going on.

The UN Security Council and the African Union have agreed that a UN force should take over peacekeeping in Sudan's Darfur region, once they have the approval of the Sudanese government [emphasis added - MC]...

The next step is the arrival Friday in Khartoum of a joint UN-AU team that will hold talks with the Sudanese government next week and then head to Darfur to make a technical assessment for a possible [emphasis added - MC]] UN peacekeeping mission...

Mark C.

Posted by markc at June 7, 2006 10:29 AM