Darfur Update: What UN force?

Kofi and Canadian politicians can keep dreaming. Note the Hezb and Lebanon factors at the end.

Up to half of Darfur's population has been trapped by renewed violence in the Sudanese province where the Khartoum government has stiffened its resistance to a United Nations peacekeeping force, the UN secretary general has warned.

The humanitarian crisis - once described as the world's worst by the UN - has become so alarming that Kofi Annan has alerted the Security Council to the deepening conflict which has been overshadowed by the war in Lebanon. In a letter, obtained by The Independent, Mr Annan says: "As a result of the fighting and direct targeting of humanitarians, only 50 per cent of civilians affected by the conflict can be reached by humanitarian organisations...

The Security Council will discuss today Mr Annan's gloomy assessment in which he also laments the fact that the African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission faces bankruptcy, despite a "relatively positive" outcome from a Brussels pledging conference last month. The AU mission's mandate expires on 30 September. At that time, it had been hoped that the Khartoum government would agree to a 24,000-strong UN force being dispatched to the region on 1 October, with a more robust mandate than the AU observers. The UN now hopes to deploy an international force in January, but the Sudanese government has steadfastly disrupted preparations for it.

On Tuesday, emboldened by the Lebanese conflict, Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese President, declared: "We are determined to defeat any forces entering the country just as Hizbollah has defeated the Israeli forces. We are opposed to the deployment [in Darfur] of American, British or other forces imposed by the Security Council."..

...But the aftermath of the Lebanese conflict will weigh heavily on the discussions. "It's true, there is heavy demand because of Lebanon," said one council diplomat...

As Norman Spector commented, "Where's Jack Layton?"

Mark C.

Update: This resolution ain't gonna happen.

...Britain and the United States introduced a Security Council resolution to send 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur over the opposition of Khartoum. China and Russia, however, suggested they would reject the resolution, and the Sudanese government reiterated its opposition to a U.N. force...

One reason:

The UN's capacity for peacekeeping, already strained by the proposed Lebanese troop deployment, moved closer to breaking point after Britain yesterday tabled a proposal for a 17,300-strong force for Darfur in Sudan...

Why are the Canadian media not covering this in any detail, if at all? I mean Jack Layton et al. might actually learn something about the real world.

Posted by markc at August 17, 2006 11:20 AM