THE AU AND THE CRISIS IN DARFUR: CHALLENGE OF REGIONAL PEACEKEEPING
Joseph Danladi Elvis Bot
September 12, 2006
INTRODUCTION
The situation in the Darfur region of Sudan threatens to become one of the most devastating humanitarian disasters of our time. Over one million people have been displaced from their homes by a systematic scorched-earth campaign carried out by the allied militias in the region. As many as 50,000 people have been killed or died from hunger or disease. Widespread rape has been reported. The physical and political barriers to reaching the victims—heavy rains, bureaucratic obstacles put up by the government of Sudan, long supply lines—make reaching those in need extremely difficult.
The African Union (AU), meanwhile, has been steadily but quietly putting pressure on the Sudanese government to halt the militias, convened talks between the warring parties in Abuja, Nigeria, and has initiated the sending in of thousands of African peacekeeping forces to oversee security in Darfur, protect civilians, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
However it seems like the international community is failing in its responsibility to protect the inhabitants of Darfur, many of whom are still dying or face indefinite displacement from their homes. New thinking and bold action are urgently needed. The consensus to support a rough doubling of the African Union (AU) force to 7,731 troops by the end of last year (2005) under the existing mandate is an inadequate response to the crisis. The mandate must be strengthened to prioritise civilian protection, and a force level increased immediately, not in nearly a year as previously envisaged. This requires more courageous thinking by the AU, NATO, the European Union (EU), the UN and the U.S. to get adequate force levels on the ground in Darfur with an appropriate civilian protection mandate as quickly as possible. Otherwise, security will continue to deteriorate, the hope that displaced inhabitants will ever return home will become even more distant, and prospects for a political settlement will remain dim.
A deteriorating political and security situation in neighbouring Chad complicates and worsens the violence. Chadian rebel groups, which were mobilising in Darfur for more than a year, escalated their incursions into the eastern part of that country in October 2005. The Rally for Democracy and Liberty (RDL), one of the Chadian insurgent groups based in West Darfur launched a spectacular but unsuccessful attack on Adre on 18 December, but is now regrouping in western Darfur as part of a broader rebel alliance, with the support of Khartoum. President Deby responded to the Adre attack by blaming Khartoum for supporting the RDL, declaring a “state of belligerence” with Sudan and seeking to strengthen his relations with the Darfur rebels, who are spending ever more time in N’djamena. As cross-border attacks continue by both sets of insurgents, the risk of a larger conflict between the two countries increases.
While the UN and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have taken the lead in responding to growing humanitarian needs and authorizing accountability measures against those responsible for atrocities, the AU has the lead for reaching a political solution to the conflict and monitoring the humanitarian and ceasefire agreements. The AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) has had a positive impact on security in some areas by often going beyond the strict terms of its mandate -- but its ability to protect civilians and humanitarian operations is hamstrung by limited capacity, insufficient resources and political constraints.
The assumption that the Sudanese government will fulfill its responsibilities and continued reliance on its cooperation as a pre-requisite for action against the militias with which it is allied are egregious self-deceptions. Khartoum's interest in seeking a lasting solution to the conflict is disingenuous, and it has systematically flouted numerous commitments to rein in its proxy militias - collectively known as the Janjaweed. It has consistently opted for cosmetic efforts aimed at appeasing international pressure, minimised the political dimensions of the conflict, and inflamed ethnic divisions to achieve military objectives.
Equally flawed is the concept that the atrocities are African-only problems that require African-only solutions. The well-documented abuses that continue to occur demand broader and more robust international efforts aimed at enhancing the AU's ability to lead. In view of the Sudanese government's abdication of its sovereign duty and to the extent that the AU cannot adequately protect Sudan's civilians, the broader international community has a responsibility to do so.
This paper therefore intends to look at what exactly is happening in Darfur? What are the dynamics of the conflict? Is it merely a humanitarian crisis, or is the humanitarian disaster simply a symptom of a much more profound, if inchoate, political and social struggle that should be addressed at its roots? The aim of this paper is to provide a brief, but broader perspective on the nature of the conflict in Darfur - a conflict which is much-discussed, but often over-simplified - and to outline the role of the African Union in solving this conflict, particularly against the backdrop of the very many challenges stacked against it and the dilemmas emerging from a situation where there seems to be an amorphous international effort at protecting civilians there and bringing peace to the area. Despite the complexities involved, the paper concludes with strategies to managing conflict and a call for urgent and robust action to meet this responsibility.
The origins of the crisis
Darfur is a sprawling and largely arid region in western Sudan, with a population of about 6 million. Until recently, it was known, if at all, for its occasional droughts and, almost always following that, severe food scarcity and conflict between the region’s mainly pastoral ‘Arab’ and largely arable farming ‘African’ communities over its limited fertile land. Even this dynamic, however, is a fairly recent one. It flowed from a familiar but nonetheless sedulous contrivance: the militant politicization of the region’s ethnicity.
Darfur was absorbed into Sudan by the British in 1922. At the time, Sudan was ruled by Britain and its then client state, Egypt. There are about thirty ethnic groups in the region, all of whom have lived there for centuries, and all of them Muslims. As the British scholar Alex de Waal has noted, “Despite talk of ‘Arabs’ and ‘Africans’, it is rarely possible to tell on the basis of skin colour which group an individual Darfurian belongs.” He notes further that “there is such a long history of internal migration, mixing and intermarriage that ethnic boundaries are mostly a matter of convenience.”
However, it should be noted that, limited, low-intensity conflict between the pastoral and arable farming groups in Darfur after its occasional droughts has been a feature of the region’s recent history. One such drought occurred in the mid-1980s, to be followed by famine that lasted for a year. The famine precipitated violent conflict between the two groups over land that lasted for years, barely noticed. A ‘reconciliation’ conference was held in 1989 to settle the matter, but it was largely unsuccessful. The conflict, however, ended soon afterwards, partly as a result of a series of ruthless measures taken by Sudan’s military strongman, Omar al- Bashir, who staged a successful coup in 1989; and partly out of sheer exhaustion. Unfortunately, by this time two toxic factors had entered the already deformed socio- political landscape: Libyan military adventurism and, stemming from this, a militant Arabism. The Libyan leader Muammar al Gaddafi had enmeshed his country in a disastrous war with Chad over the Aouzou Strip, a place rich in gas and other resources, and which rightly belonged to Chad. French troops joined the Chadians in beating back the Libyan forces, and pursuing them into Libya. Gaddafi forged an ‘expansive’ formula for fighting back, collecting discontented Sahelian Arabs and Tuaregs in the region (Darfur shares long borders with both Libya and Chad) arming them, and forming them into an ‘Islamic Legion.’ Some of the ‘Arabs’ were from Darfur and followers of the Mahdist sect, a cranky mock-millenarian outfit. By the late 1980s, after suffering crushing defeat, Gaddafi dismantled the Legion, but its members, well-trained and armed, as well as possessed of a new ‘virulent Arab supremacism’, did not completely demobilize. Leaders of the marauding Janjawiid (among those now causing havoc in Darfur) were among those recruited and trained by Libya.
For over 20 years the Arab-dominated Sudanese government had been locked in a brutal civil war with secessionists in the south, which is peopled by non-Arab, largely non- Muslim groups. Intense US negotiation, backed by the UK (the largest bilateral aid provider to Sudan) and other governments led to the Naivasha Agreement, signed in Kenya, which officially ended the conflict in May 2004. For much of the period, Darfur was a neglected backwater; its people mired in poverty. After the 1989 coup, the more radical and inclusive Islamist elements in the new government, the most prominent being Hassan al-Turabi, tried a more evenhanded approach that would reconcile the ‘Arab’ and ‘African’ groups in Darfur, even though few economic benefits accompanied this. In 1999, however, Bashir dismissed Turabi from his powerful post as Speaker of the National Assembly, and had him arrested.
The Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), the group spearheading the secessionist movement in the south, attempted to widen its support base and international appeal by depicting its war as a wider struggle of the majority ‘African’ population against an oppressive ‘Arab’ minority government. This was helped by the increasing militancy of some Arab supremacists in the al-Bashir government, as well as those who had participated in the failed Libyan expansionist war. The Fur, Massalit, Tungur and Zaghawa, now more or less racially accreted ‘Africans’, became restive. Some of their leaders, who had been brought into the al-Bashir government by al-Turabi, quit the government. Mostly likely some of them were part of the anonymous group-calling itself ‘The Seekers of Truth and Justice’-which, in May 2000, issued The Black Book, a well-detailed tract which ventilated long-held grievances of the region. In spite of its grim title, The Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in Sudan is not chiliastic or even irredentist. Rather, it is a carefully-documented catalogue of woes which Darfur had endured at the hands of the national government since Sudan gained independence in 1956 as Africa’s largest state. The Black Book reveals systemic discrimination by the ‘Arab-run’ state against the ‘black African majority’. It contains some truly stunning statistics. It meticulously chronicles the skewed power and economic imbalance between Sudan’s Arab population, which is largely based in the north of the country and its African peoples. It shows that three Arab-speaking ethnic groups-the Shaigia, Jaaliyeen, and Dangagla-have dominated Sudan’s political and economic life since independence
To be sure, this lopsided policy was inherited from the British colonial authorities, who favoured the ethnic Arabs over the Africans, partly as a result of the fact that they were ruling Sudan in alliance with Egypt, and partly because the Colonial Office in London was dominated by Orientalist romanticisers. The post-colonial rulers, true to form, invested all efforts in perpetuating the status quo. Crucial to this dominance was their control of the state’s security apparatuses: no one outside these charmed circles have ever headed Sudan’s military or police. This is important, since Sudan is one of the chronically coup-prone countries in Africa. No successful coup has been organized by anyone outside these three favoured ethnic groups. These groups, representing about 5 per cent of Sudan’s population, according to the official census, have occupied 47 to 70 per cent of cabinet positions since 1956, and the presidency for all that period. They have further tried to impose a uniform Islamic culture on the country, one of the most heterogeneous societies in the world.
The Black Book is scathing about the lopsided economic opportunities in the country, noting that the country’s Ministry of Finance had become, in effect, a front for northern acquisitiveness. “Only 5 per cent of its staff,” the authors note, “come from outside of the northern region. Hiring of staff in the ministry is primarily reserved for northerners. People from other regions have to contend with the demeaning jobs of tea-making and cleaning offices and toilets. Even the drivers are recruited from among northern school dropouts whose family members are working in the ministry.” “People from other regions” obviously include ‘Arab’ groups other those from the three favoured groups- all the Arab groups combined constitute thirty per cent of Sudan’s population, whereas the favoured Arab groups constitute only five per cent of the country’s population-but the writers of the Black Book were not too concerned about such nuance. Although both Arab and African in Darfur had been the object of neglect and discrimination by the Sudanese state, ‘The Seekers of Truth and Justice’ were concerned with only highlighting the plight of the ‘black Africans’. In other words, as their critics have pointed out, they were clearly “motivated by political ambition and were prepared to stir up ethnic hatred to meet their ends.”
This criticism is not entirely fair, however. Darfur’s recent history had shown to ‘The Seekers of Truth and Justice’, and to anyone else interested in developments in the region, how difficult it had become to forge any unifying front among the regions competing groups: radical Arabism and external influences have served to undercut that possibility. An interesting and profoundly important twist in the Black Book’s analysis is the evidence it presents-of ministerial and other representations-showing that southern Sudan, which had the SPLA to advance its cause by force of arms, has had its share of state patrimony increased considerably over the years. By 1999, for example, its share of ministerial-level appointments was 16.4%, compared to the west’s 0%, the east’s 1.4% and the central region’s 2%. This was still paltry compared to the north’s 79.5%, but it was a considerable improvement over the previous decade, when there was hardly any such representation. This is of great importance to understanding the current crisis, because it goes to show that the authors understand that armed violence pays, and especially if it is calibrated on a carefully-choreographed ethnic or racial appeal. In quick order after the release of The Black Book, a group calling itself the Darfur Liberation Front (later renamed the Sudan Liberation Movement [SLM]), aggressively secular and ‘black nationalist,’ emerged in 2003 to champion the cause espoused in the document, claiming that it would fight the Sudanese government until the imbalances were redressed to ensure that Darfurians got their fair share of the national patrimony.
Another group, the moderately Islamist Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), emerged soon after, also in Darfur, and forged a loose alliance with SLM to fight the Sudanese government. Darfur was in a state of armed rebellion. Hardly anyone, however, including the Sudanese government, took the two groups seriously. The Sudanese government first tried to ignore them, and then later initiated half-hearted peace overtures to the rebels. In April 2003, however, the two groups mounted a spectacular offensive against Sudanese government forces, attacking the el Fasher airport and destroying half a dozen military aircraft. They also kidnapped a Sudanese air-force general. As de Waal has noted, this singular success was highly significant, for the SPLA ‘had managed nothing of the kind in twenty years,’ and it went to show that the Darfur groups had what it takes to make a successful guerrilla army: mobility, good intelligence, and popular support.
Sudan immediately realized that it had a serious crisis on its hands: this was a problem beyond its comprehension. It’s brutal and effete rulers had always taken Darfur’s quiescence, where relationship with the central state was concerned, for granted. That delusion was now shattered. The Sudanese government, still locked in an unwinnable war with the SPLA, feared the worst: they feared that the new rebel groups would form an alliance, based on ‘racial’ affinity, with the southern Sudanese rebels. Such a development looked plausible-and potentially fatal. There was, in the making, an existential crisis for the Sudanese state.
The stakes had become higher with the discovery, in parts of Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan, of oil. The government’s reaction to the crisis was ingenious. It became more amenable to Western pressure to reach a peace agreement with the SPLA, and on the Darfur front, it resorted to an age-old tactic: the recruitment of surrogates to fight the Darfur rebels on its behalf, and to fight with scorched-earth tactics. It was, as de Waal has noted, ‘counter-insurgency on the cheap.’ Fortunately for the government, it still had that close coterie of vicious and manipulative security officers who had been running Sudan’s wars since the early 1980s. This group had built many networks-of local militia groups, Jihadists and vigilantes-who they could call upon any time to do the dirty work for them. There were the Ben Halba fursan, a group of northern ‘Arab’ camel nomads, and the even more mercenary former Libyan Islamic Legionnaires to call upon. The two groups merged to form what has now come to be known as Janjawiid. Provided with supplies, arms and virtually unlimited freedom to do what they liked by the Sudanese government, the Janjawiid militias were unleashed on local peasants and the general civilian population. Relatively little fighting has occurred between them and the Darfur rebel groups, but unarmed civilians have been uprooted from their homes, which are often comprehensively destroyed by the Janjawiid, massacred, or driven across the border into Chad. Their campaigns have led to what the UN has described as the ‘world’s worst humanitarian disaster’, a situation that clearly called for urgent and appropriate emergency response. As exemplified by the efforts of the international community and the African Union in Darfur.
THE AU PEACE MISSION (AMIS) AND THE DARFUR CRISIS
Newly independent African states created the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 to protect the independence and promote the unity of Africa and rid the continent of the remnants of colonialism. The OAU charter emphasised the sovereignty of member states and noninterference in their internal affairs, principles which weakened the organisation's ability to prevent and manage conflicts, especially civil wars. Despite these limitations, the OAU did undertake limited peacekeeping operations, including sending a multinational force of 3,500 troops to end the civil war in Chad (1981-1982) and a peace-keeping mission to Rwanda (1990-1993). These suffered, however, from financial difficulties, logistical shortcomings and unclear mandates. A "Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution", created by the Cairo Declaration of 1993, was toothless.
The organisation's decolonisation mandate expired with Namibia's independence in 1990 and the demise of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, while the end of the Cold War brought its double image as what was sometimes called a "club of dictators" and "hub of populist and socialist ideologies" into higher relief and caused leaders like South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to worry that the West might disengage from the continent. The decision to establish the AU was taken at an extraordinary OAU summit in Libya (Sirte) in September 1999, and it came into existence as successor to the OAU at a summit meeting of African leaders in South Africa (Durban) on 9 July 2002.
The new organisation was endowed with much more ambitious peace and security architecture. The Constitutive Act of the Union, adopted in July 2002, paid deference to state sovereignty but empowered the AU to intervene in the internal affairs of a member state that faced the threat of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity and took a tough line on unconstitutional change of government through coup or mercenary activity. It pledged the AU to promote dialogue and peaceful resolution of conflicts as the only way to guarantee enduring peace and stability and build democratic institutions. The Durban summit also adopted a protocol creating a Peace and Security Council (PSC) as the main decision making organ for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts. Made up of fifteen elected member states, it came into existence in May 2004 with South Africa's Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as chairperson. Algeria, Ethiopia, Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa were elected for three-year terms; Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Senegal, Sudan, and Togo each have two-year terms.
The PSC is designed to work closely with civil society and other pan-African organisations which, like it, are new and still in the developmental stage, including the Pan-African Parliament (launched in May 2004) and the African Commission on Human and People's Rights. Progress in this direction has been correspondingly slow. A more significant problem stems from the fact that the African continent has a number of bodies with peace and security responsibilities, in particular its various subregional organisations like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The PSC is tasked with streamlining this multiplicity of mechanisms but the relationships between the AU and the sub-regional organisations are sensitive. Fortunately this aspect of competition is not a serious problem in Darfur since the sub-regional body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), has concentrated on negotiation and implementation of the agreement between Khartoum and the SPLM to end the civil war that has devastated the south of the country since 1983. Nevertheless, Darfur is only one, if perhaps the most dramatic, of the challenges that have presented themselves to the AU at a very early stage of its existence, well before it had developed the means with which to address most of them adequately on its own. It is to the organisation's credit that it has not shirked its responsibilities and has sought to cope with a range of internal conflicts that its predecessor almost surely would have sidestepped.
It should be noted however that when the war in Darfur began in February 2003, most attention was focused on the negotiations between the Sudanese government and the SPLM insurgency, which IGAD was facilitating in Kenya. Crisis Group was one of the first to call attention to the extreme brutality against civilians by which Khartoum and its allied Janjaweed militias were seeking to put down the new rebellion. The international community was slow to react, however,
in part out of concern that too much pressure on the government could derail the IGAD process. Chad, Sudan's western neighbour, was the first to react, out of alarm produced by a steady flow of refugees from Darfur. It brokered a ceasefire between Khartoum and the larger of the two main insurgent groups, the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA) in August-September 2003,14 which, however, collapsed before the end of the year, triggering a massive new government offensive.
Between March and June 2004, as humanitarian workers began spreading out in the region measuring the full extent of the humanitarian disaster, the devastation became harder to ignore. The international outcry that followed demanded action, fuelled by memories of the costly inaction during the Rwandan genocide ten years before. The AU was the obvious choice to take over. It was ill prepared for what eventually followed but at first matters went well. In response to growing demands for action, it assisted Chad in organising a new round of negotiations between the government and the rebels, to which European and U.S. observers were invited for the first time. On 8 April 2004 the Sudanese government, the SLA and the second major rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), signed the N'djamena Ceasefire Agreement, which established a Ceasefire Commission (CFC) to monitor implementation. The CFC was to be staffed by the signatory parties and observers from the EU, U.S. and UN.
On 28 May, the parties signed a further agreement in Addis Ababa on implementation modalities, which acknowledged the AU as the lead international body in Darfur and the operational arm of the N'djamena agreement, with the right to appoint the chairperson of the CFC while the EU appointed the deputy. The AU was responsible for fielding a team of 60 military observers, and Khartoum agreed to allow it to send up to 300 troops from member states to protect that team.
Wide-spread violence continued, however, leaving some two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees insecure, and causing frequent disruptions in delivery of humanitarian assistance. As international outrage increased, expectations for the AU mission grew. It was quickly understood that a much larger force was required, combined with more serious international pressure on Khartoum to rein in the Janjaweed militias and end its ethnic cleansing campaign. Despite a series of UN Security Council resolutions - most notably Resolutions 1591 and 1593 of March 2005, which banned offensive military flights in Darfur and referred jurisdiction over atrocity crimes to the International Criminal Court respectively - the pressure has never been sufficiently strong or credible in Khartoum, which has largely failed to comply with its repeated commitments, particularly those related to the neutralisation of its allied militias.
On 27 July 2004 the PSC requested the chairperson of the AU Commission, Alpha Oumar Konaré, to prepare a plan for the possible conversion of The AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) into a fullfledged peacekeeping mission. In doing so, it correctly outlined the key objectives -- prioritise civilian protection, disarm and neutralise the Janjaweed militia, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance - and the size and mandate required to ensure implementation of the N'djamena agreement. Over the coming months, however, it retreated from its initial assessment due both to lack of capacity and to the realisation that deployment of such a mission required the cooperation of the Sudanese government, which thus in effect had a veto over its scope. Khartoum was strongly opposed to both a larger force and a stronger mandate.
When the PSC finally approved the revised mission (AMIS II) on 20 October, it limited the force expansion to 3,320 soldiers and police, who were tasked primarily with monitoring and verification and provided with a significantly weaker mandate than had been proposed in July. The expanded force was given the mandate only to monitor and verify IDP returns and IDP camps, militia activity against the civilian population, efforts by the government to disarm allied militias, and the cessation of hostilities by all parties. The civilian protection mandate was cast in these limited terms: to "protect civilians whom it encounters under imminent threat and in the immediate vicinity, within resources and capability..."
The first three military observers of phase I of the AU mission (AMIS I) arrived in El Fasher, the historic capital of the greater Darfur region, on 4 June 2004, with no equipment, vehicles, or communications gear apart from a handheld satellite phone to speak with the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. The start of the mission was not preceded by a pre-deployment assessment, training or deployment of civilian support systems. This modest beginning suggests how far AMIS has come in its short existence but also illustrates the structural weaknesses that continue to hamper its effectiveness in the face of continued violations by all parties to the ceasefire. Despite the deteriorating situation on the ground, it took more than six months to deploy AMIS II fully: 450 military observers (MILOBS), 815 civilian police, a 2,341-strong military protection force, and 26 international observers and civilian staff. The main obstacles were delays by troop-contributing countries in generating forces and in establishing field accommodation and the AU's overall lack of expertise in planning and executing complex peace support operations.
Despite these handicaps, AMIS had some successes in the areas where it was deployed but its small size, limited capabilities and weak mandate severely limited its effectiveness. In March 2005, the AU led a Joint Assessment Mission (JAM) that included the EU, U.S. and UN to look at AMIS strengths and weaknesses. The subsequent report identified many gaps in the mission and recommended expansion of the force but not of its mandate. On 28 April 2005, the PSC approved expansion of AMIS personnel to 7,731. And as of 20 October 2005, some 6,773 were in country, including 4,847 soldiers in the protection force, 700 military observers, 1,188 civilian police and 38 international staff of various kinds.23 AMIS is still operating below full authorised capacity, and many key tasks remain unfulfilled. A diplomat involved in supporting the mission commented:
AMIS is currently fulfilling its reactive responsibilities such as verifying alleged ceasefire violations, but has yet to fully implement the proactive aspects of its mandate, such as troop verification and the identification of militias [aligned with the government].
If the ceasefire is to be stabilised (much less the more extensive steps taken that are necessary to resolve the conflict), the AMIS leadership in Khartoum and El Fasher needs to prioritise those elements.
It is premature to make a definitive judgment on AMIS. Darfur remains extremely insecure, with fighting intensifying again since early September of 2005, including deadly attacks on the peacekeepers themselves. The AU alone is not to blame. The largest problem stems from the actions of the parties to the conflict, not only the Sudanese government, which has yet to take meaningful action against the Janjaweed militias, but also the rebel movements, which are increasingly divided and appear to be descending slowly into warlordism and banditry. A point worth noting is that AMIS was born out of the N'djamena agreement, which lacked a true enforcement mechanism and was based on the assumption of compliance and goodwill by the parties. International pressure on those parties to respect their commitments has been ineffective, thus undermining the AU mission. The UN Security Council took more than eight months from its first ultimatum in July 2004 to Khartoum to disarm the Janjaweed before it finally applied limited sanctions in March 2005 and referred the Darfur situation to the International Criminal Court.
The AU Special Representative, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, has openly acknowledged the inability of AMIS to succeed in this environment:
the mechanisms in place…could have worked if the parties in Darfur were acting in good faith and if they were generally committed to their undertakings in the various agreements they have signed. However, in the light of our experience in the past fourteen months we must conclude that there is neither good faith nor commitment on the part of any of the parties.
This view is further exacerbated by the rebels' weak leadership and command and control and their increasing divisions which has continually contributed to delays in peace talks, producing more insecurity. Rebel attacks on humanitarian convoys and obstruction of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the African Union (AU) in the field have jeopardized delivery of life-saving food and other relief to the very people the rebels claim to represent. SLA-JEM clashes in Graida, South Darfur on 3 June 2005, indicating a struggle for control of territory ahead of the Abuja negotiations and while the AU was redeploying troops to the area, are further worrying signs. Khartoum tries to exploit these differences by talking quietly with JEM in hopes of luring it into the government of national unity to be established with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).
Another point is the government's continued use of proxy militias and incitement of ethnic violence. Rather than disarming its allies, the Janjaweed militias, as it has pledged numerous times, it continues to recruit, train, financially support, and arm ethnically-based militias and police forces. Because the government still supports and protects these militias -- responsible for more than 75 per cent of all verified killings in Darfur since the AU Ceasefire Commission started work in June 2004 -- the relative battlefield lull has not improved civilian security. Civilians continue to face systematic attacks, rape, and murder by the Janjaweed and the regular army. More than 2 million people are fearful of venturing outside IDP camps, let alone returning to their homes. The premise that Khartoum will act in good faith to protect its citizens, fulfil commitments to identify and neutralise the militias, and punish those responsible for human rights abuse is fundamentally flawed. This was demonstrated on 7 April 2005when a government-supported tribal militia ravaged Khor Abeche village despite assurances given to the AU days earlier.
Essentially, for the AU mission to succeed, one of two things must happen. Either the parties to the conflict must radically change their behaviour and respect their commitments, or the AU mission must be significantly enlarged and be given a much more specific Chapter VII mandate to protect civilians proactively. Given that the first of these alternatives has frequently been shown to be unrealistic, only the second offers a prospect that Darfur can emerge any time soon from its tragedy. However, for that second alternative to be realistic the AU and its key supporters in the international community, must be prepared to do more than they have yet done. There are certainly many hurdles and challenges ahead.
THE CHALLENGES FACED BY AMIS
It is becoming increasingly clear that AMIS as presently envisaged cannot adequately protect civilians. Its ability to monitor the ceasefire, protect civilians and provide security for humanitarian operations is severely limited. Civilian protection in an area the size of France or Texas requires a far larger force than AMIS presently has or anticipates having at least until well into 2006. Militias have attacked civilian targets, and the parties have attacked one another in AMIS's presence. The recent fighting in Graida between SLA and JEM demonstrates that when the parties are set on violence, AMIS can do little under its current mandate. In other instances, AMIS troops have come under fire. The challenges are partially a consequence of AU inexperience in peacekeeping and the nascent stage of its PSC mechanisms, particularly in mission management and force generation. But beyond these institutional problems, the AU military operations in Darfur face constraints that would hamstring even the most experienced peacekeeping force: an inadequate mandate, insufficient forces and capabilities, and political failure to acknowledge that the Sudanese government has consistently failed to meet its responsibilities to neutralise the militias and protect its citizens. With a restrictive mandate and limited forces, AMIS tries to establish security primarily by deploying across parts of the eight regional sectors. It does not routinely patrol those sectors but rather sends small groups of military observers (MILOBS) to selected outposts or areas of interest. These teams, which are
usually accompanied by squad or platoon-sized elements from the protection force, resolve local social or security disputes through diplomacy and interact with the community but cannot sustain operations without daily assistance from their sector HQ or local base. AMIS does not provide direct physical security for IDP camps. This is the responsibility of Sudanese police, who are widely distrusted by the IDPs. The AMIS response - to put unarmed CIVPOL into the camps to work alongside their Sudanese counterparts - has been hampered by slow CIVPOL deployment and lack of logistical planning. Yet even a larger, more permanent CIVPOL presence would have
virtually no effect on reducing attacks against civilians outside the camps, where most atrocities occur. The keys to improving security across the region and creating an environment where civilians feel safe to return home are a stronger mandate to protect civilians and more troops, with improved capabilities, to implement it.
The JAM report described shortfalls, including "lack of clarity in the chain of command, lack of capacity and human resources, misallocation of tasks between Addis, Khartoum and El Fasher, and absence of standard operating procedures". The most glaring deficiency is lack of operational focus and command presence at the El Fasher force headquarters, most apparent in the absence of a 24-hour Joint Operations Cell (JOC) and appropriately trained personnel to staff it. Without a JOC, which should be the focal point for coordination and execution of its tasks, the mission cannot respond effectively to developing situations. There has been gradual improvement since the start of the operation in operational staff procedures but more is needed. These deficiencies should be corrected as a first priority as the mission is expanded. Otherwise, problems will be exacerbated and become more difficult to correct as the operational tempo and responsibilities increase.
Communication limitations severely curtail AMIS's ability to conduct operations. The mission lacks capability to transmit critical data such as operational orders or intelligence in a secure, high speed way. Communications are mostly passed from headquarters to units via voice transmission "in the open" or hard copy messages, which are liable to be intercepted by the Sudanese government. AMIS does not have an intelligence apparatus or collection capacity and does not actively analyse or disseminate intelligence. It is, therefore, unable to give critical information to sector commanders that would permit them to take timely measures, even though intelligence gathering and monitoring of government, militia and rebel forces are two key responsibilities granted it under the Abuja Security Agreement of November 2004. Troop mobility is also hamstrung by inadequate ground transport and air assets. AMIS has no large troop transport vehicles, though it does have approximately ten armoured personnel carriers (APCs), some with heavy machine guns, and a limited number of light armoured vehicles. Its numerous light trucks and 4x4 vehicles have limited combat value since they have no armament. Not all are capable of off-road movement. AMIS uses eighteen Mi-8 helicopters for most air operations. These are contracted, unarmed civilian aircraft without forward-looking infra-red (FLIR), tactical communications or night capability. AMIS ground facilities cannot communicate with or direct them in flight. The mission thus cannot send forces into a hostile environment or conduct sustained day or night-time patrols, including along likely avenues of approach to targets attackers may use or aid agency transportation routes. Nor can it do extended reconnaissance or tactical lift. Its aircraft perform limited patrols but not to the degree necessary to establish a presence throughout Darfur. They are not typically based at AMIS facilities, but rather at local facilities which close at dark due to inadequate lighting and, in all likelihood, government policy. To respond to calls for help, personnel must at times go several kilometres to the helicopters, which are bedded in the open though secured by AMIS forces. Once airborne, they can reach any location in their sector within two hours. However, without night flying, AMIS cannot ferry forces to suspect locations in pre-dawn hours when most violence occurs. The helicopters are also severely hampered by fuel shortages: expected to patrol at least 60 hours per month, they average 30 hours.
Slow force generation by AU states is another big problem. It took six months from the October 2004 decision to deploy about 2,400 troops, and CIVPOL is still under strength. Had it not been for the contributions of Nigeria and Rwanda in particular, it is unlikely the military component would be anywhere near strength. African militaries are stretched thin, with approximately 18,600 personnel assigned to UN peacekeeping operations, and additional commitments looming for the UN mission in southern Sudan (UNMIS) and the planned Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) mission to Somalia (IGASOM). The AU has also stated that it intends to prepare a force of 6,000 to 7,000 to deploy to the Congo (DRC). Expanding AMIS will also exacerbate training and equipment shortcomings. There is neither a standard force preparation package nor standard deployment equipment tables. Troop-contributing countries must make their own preparations. This has not yet been a major factor, as the majority of current troops are from Rwanda, Nigeria and other countries which have participated in earlier peacekeeping training and programs. If the AU seeks more contributions from across the continent, however, there will be even greater need to institute common standards. A more proactive mission will also require greater military cohesion. Once forces have been identified and prepared, there are still constraints in getting them to Darfur. Even though the current mission was transported by various donor countries utilising military aircraft, a number of problems impeded the force build-up.
THE WAY FORWARD
The AMIS mandate authorised by the PSC focuses on monitoring and verification, leaving to the Sudanese government the basic responsibility - which it has failed to discharge - for protecting civilians and humanitarian workers. The actions of the militias and Khartoum's refusal to fulfil its commitment to neutralise them constitute the greatest danger to civilians. AMIS's protection role is so qualified it is almost meaningless. Without a stronger mandate, no international force, regardless of size, can do much. There is a broad spectrum of activities involved in protecting civilians and humanitarian efforts in Darfur, ranging from static patrols of IDP camps and key transit routes to forceful engagement and neutralisation of belligerents involved in aggressive action. The best way to provide security would be prudent but deliberate application of force against those directly responsible for the insecurity and atrocities. AMIS needs both to act proactively against those elements and to station soldiers with convoys and at fixed locations where their presence can deter, and where they are better positioned for immediate response. For this to happen, the AU must strengthen the mandate so it prioritises civilian protection and gives AMIS the clear authority and will to carry out a full range of operations against both militias operating with the government and those opposed to it.
The government will resist any change of mandate. But its argument that it is not in full control of the Janjaweed, and above all the continuation of serious violence it has repeatedly pledged to stop, are sufficient justification. International insistence should be backed by a decision to begin planning for the deployment, should this become necessary, of a fully mandated protection force in a non-permissive environment. And to further strengthen the AU’s peace mission in Darfur, the following areas should also be looked at:
INCREASING THE FORCE SIZE
The approximately 7,731 AU soldiers and CIVPOL presently in-country is inadequate to deal with the security and humanitarian situation. The March 2005 JAM report and the 28 April 2005 report of Ambassador Konare concluded that an international force of 12,300 was needed. Apparently with an eye to the limited resources of AU member states, however, they proposed that this number be reached only in the second quarter of 2006 and then with many personnel whose training and preparation would be directed toward implementing the mission of facilitating the return home of IDPs and refugees, rather than providing the civilian protection necessary to create the environment in which such return becomes realistic. Going by the situation on ground, a force of 12,000 to 15,000 is a more realistic figure for what is required to implement adequately the first priority and more demanding task of civilian protection in what is still by no means a fully permissive environment. A force thus sized, trained and equipped is needed as quickly as it can be put in place - in order to protect villages and humanitarian operations against attack; IDPs against forced repatriation and intimidation; and women from systematic rape outside the camps; as well as to neutralise the Janjaweed militias.
CONCLUSION
It would be premature to judge the success or failure of the AMIS mission. At this moment, the achievements that Addis Ababa can point to are overshadowed by the continuing serious and in significant ways worsening situation on the ground. One way or another the international community simply has to do more and be prepared to do it in a tougher manner, if not by alternative mechanisms like the NATO bridging force that Crisis Group has recommended or the "double-hatting" of UNMIS as increasingly being discussed, then through the instrument at hand -- the AU's AMIS mission, assisted even more substantially and more effectively by the international community and other donors like the European Union (EU). This implies a much longer commitment and involvement by the AU in Darfur but also a significant increase in external support. Difficult decisions need to be taken quickly. The African Peace Facility, the primary mechanism for EU aid, is nearly depleted. The Commission should take the internal steps required to top up the Facility by the extra 20 per cent that its regulations allow and be prepared to commit most if not all that additional €50 million to maintaining and beefing up AMIS. It should also canvas member states about the prospect of providing additional funds before 2007 - when the Peace Facility's authorization expires - either to meet further AMIS expenses or to allow the EU to address some of the other tasks the mechanism was created for before it was hijacked by the urgency of the Darfur crisis.
The AU must accept that it needs more help in the short run, and the international community must work with it to deploy a force immediately - AU or NATO - that can end the atrocities. A stronger international effort to protect civilians and create a secure environment for humanitarian operations would not only save lives in the short term but also generate momentum towards a long-term solution to this conflict. Disturbingly, the daily death and suffering is already becoming "status quo" for some relief agencies, and the situation has the potential to become another never-ending "low intensity" conflict in which the international community spends large sums each year keeping IDPs and refugees alive but otherwise fails to protect civilians and to address the underlying political causes. The renewed political negotiations in Abuja are an opportunity for headway on a political solution. They have recently been bolstered by the appointment of Salim Ahmed Salim, former Secretary General of the Organisation of African Unity, as AU Special Envoy for Darfur, but initial signals from Abuja are not encouraging. They need broader international support, particularly from the U.S., but a prerequisite for political progress is a greater effort to end the atrocities and reduce the insecurity that fuels the crisis. That requires an appropriately sized and mandated international force, building on what the AU has done.
REFERENCES
1. Africa Briefing N°32, Unifying Darfur's Rebels: A Prerequisite for Peace, 6 October 2005.
2. Africa Briefing N°30, Garang's Death: Implications for Peace in Sudan, 9 August 2005;
3. Africa Report N°96, The Khartoum-SPLM Agreement: Sudan's Uncertain Peace, 25 July 2005.
4. Africa Briefing N°24, A New Sudan Action Plan, 26 April 2005
5. Africa Report N°89, Darfur: The Failure to Protect, 8 March 2005.
6. Monthly Report of the Secretary General on Darfur", 10 May 2005, S/2005/305; Opheera McDoom, "Darfur Rebels Delay Peace Talks -- UN Envoy", Reuters, 25 May 2005.
7. "Joint Statement by The African Union Mission in the Sudan and the United Nations Mission in the Sudan issued by Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe and Mr Jan Pronk on the destruction of Khor Abeche on 7 April 2005 by armed militia".
8. AU PSC Communiqué, 28 April 2005, op. cit. ; "Report of the Chairperson of the Commission on the Situation in the Darfur Region of the Sudan", PSC/PR/2 (XXVIII), Addis Ababa, 28 April 2005.
9. "Protocol between the Government of Sudan, the SLM/A and the JEM on the enhancement of the security situation in Darfur in accordance with the N'Djamena agreement", 9 November 2004.
The situation in the Darfur region of Sudan threatens to become one of the most devastating humanitarian disasters of our time. Over one million people have been displaced from their homes by a systematic scorched-earth campaign carried out by the allied militias in the region. As many as 50,000 people have been killed or died from hunger or disease. Widespread rape has been reported. The physical and political barriers to reaching the victims—heavy rains, bureaucratic obstacles put up by the government of Sudan, long supply lines—make reaching those in need extremely difficult.
The African Union (AU), meanwhile, has been steadily but quietly putting pressure on the Sudanese government to halt the militias, convened talks between the warring parties in Abuja, Nigeria, and has initiated the sending in of thousands of African peacekeeping forces to oversee security in Darfur, protect civilians, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
However it seems like the international community is failing in its responsibility to protect the inhabitants of Darfur, many of whom are still dying or face indefinite displacement from their homes. New thinking and bold action are urgently needed. The consensus to support a rough doubling of the African Union (AU) force to 7,731 troops by the end of last year (2005) under the existing mandate is an inadequate response to the crisis. The mandate must be strengthened to prioritise civilian protection, and a force level increased immediately, not in nearly a year as previously envisaged. This requires more courageous thinking by the AU, NATO, the European Union (EU), the UN and the U.S. to get adequate force levels on the ground in Darfur with an appropriate civilian protection mandate as quickly as possible. Otherwise, security will continue to deteriorate, the hope that displaced inhabitants will ever return home will become even more distant, and prospects for a political settlement will remain dim.
A deteriorating political and security situation in neighbouring Chad complicates and worsens the violence. Chadian rebel groups, which were mobilising in Darfur for more than a year, escalated their incursions into the eastern part of that country in October 2005. The Rally for Democracy and Liberty (RDL), one of the Chadian insurgent groups based in West Darfur launched a spectacular but unsuccessful attack on Adre on 18 December, but is now regrouping in western Darfur as part of a broader rebel alliance, with the support of Khartoum. President Deby responded to the Adre attack by blaming Khartoum for supporting the RDL, declaring a “state of belligerence” with Sudan and seeking to strengthen his relations with the Darfur rebels, who are spending ever more time in N’djamena. As cross-border attacks continue by both sets of insurgents, the risk of a larger conflict between the two countries increases.
While the UN and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have taken the lead in responding to growing humanitarian needs and authorizing accountability measures against those responsible for atrocities, the AU has the lead for reaching a political solution to the conflict and monitoring the humanitarian and ceasefire agreements. The AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) has had a positive impact on security in some areas by often going beyond the strict terms of its mandate -- but its ability to protect civilians and humanitarian operations is hamstrung by limited capacity, insufficient resources and political constraints.
The assumption that the Sudanese government will fulfill its responsibilities and continued reliance on its cooperation as a pre-requisite for action against the militias with which it is allied are egregious self-deceptions. Khartoum's interest in seeking a lasting solution to the conflict is disingenuous, and it has systematically flouted numerous commitments to rein in its proxy militias - collectively known as the Janjaweed. It has consistently opted for cosmetic efforts aimed at appeasing international pressure, minimised the political dimensions of the conflict, and inflamed ethnic divisions to achieve military objectives.
Equally flawed is the concept that the atrocities are African-only problems that require African-only solutions. The well-documented abuses that continue to occur demand broader and more robust international efforts aimed at enhancing the AU's ability to lead. In view of the Sudanese government's abdication of its sovereign duty and to the extent that the AU cannot adequately protect Sudan's civilians, the broader international community has a responsibility to do so.
This paper therefore intends to look at what exactly is happening in Darfur? What are the dynamics of the conflict? Is it merely a humanitarian crisis, or is the humanitarian disaster simply a symptom of a much more profound, if inchoate, political and social struggle that should be addressed at its roots? The aim of this paper is to provide a brief, but broader perspective on the nature of the conflict in Darfur - a conflict which is much-discussed, but often over-simplified - and to outline the role of the African Union in solving this conflict, particularly against the backdrop of the very many challenges stacked against it and the dilemmas emerging from a situation where there seems to be an amorphous international effort at protecting civilians there and bringing peace to the area. Despite the complexities involved, the paper concludes with strategies to managing conflict and a call for urgent and robust action to meet this responsibility.
The origins of the crisis
Darfur is a sprawling and largely arid region in western Sudan, with a population of about 6 million. Until recently, it was known, if at all, for its occasional droughts and, almost always following that, severe food scarcity and conflict between the region’s mainly pastoral ‘Arab’ and largely arable farming ‘African’ communities over its limited fertile land. Even this dynamic, however, is a fairly recent one. It flowed from a familiar but nonetheless sedulous contrivance: the militant politicization of the region’s ethnicity.
Darfur was absorbed into Sudan by the British in 1922. At the time, Sudan was ruled by Britain and its then client state, Egypt. There are about thirty ethnic groups in the region, all of whom have lived there for centuries, and all of them Muslims. As the British scholar Alex de Waal has noted, “Despite talk of ‘Arabs’ and ‘Africans’, it is rarely possible to tell on the basis of skin colour which group an individual Darfurian belongs.” He notes further that “there is such a long history of internal migration, mixing and intermarriage that ethnic boundaries are mostly a matter of convenience.”
However, it should be noted that, limited, low-intensity conflict between the pastoral and arable farming groups in Darfur after its occasional droughts has been a feature of the region’s recent history. One such drought occurred in the mid-1980s, to be followed by famine that lasted for a year. The famine precipitated violent conflict between the two groups over land that lasted for years, barely noticed. A ‘reconciliation’ conference was held in 1989 to settle the matter, but it was largely unsuccessful. The conflict, however, ended soon afterwards, partly as a result of a series of ruthless measures taken by Sudan’s military strongman, Omar al- Bashir, who staged a successful coup in 1989; and partly out of sheer exhaustion. Unfortunately, by this time two toxic factors had entered the already deformed socio- political landscape: Libyan military adventurism and, stemming from this, a militant Arabism. The Libyan leader Muammar al Gaddafi had enmeshed his country in a disastrous war with Chad over the Aouzou Strip, a place rich in gas and other resources, and which rightly belonged to Chad. French troops joined the Chadians in beating back the Libyan forces, and pursuing them into Libya. Gaddafi forged an ‘expansive’ formula for fighting back, collecting discontented Sahelian Arabs and Tuaregs in the region (Darfur shares long borders with both Libya and Chad) arming them, and forming them into an ‘Islamic Legion.’ Some of the ‘Arabs’ were from Darfur and followers of the Mahdist sect, a cranky mock-millenarian outfit. By the late 1980s, after suffering crushing defeat, Gaddafi dismantled the Legion, but its members, well-trained and armed, as well as possessed of a new ‘virulent Arab supremacism’, did not completely demobilize. Leaders of the marauding Janjawiid (among those now causing havoc in Darfur) were among those recruited and trained by Libya.
For over 20 years the Arab-dominated Sudanese government had been locked in a brutal civil war with secessionists in the south, which is peopled by non-Arab, largely non- Muslim groups. Intense US negotiation, backed by the UK (the largest bilateral aid provider to Sudan) and other governments led to the Naivasha Agreement, signed in Kenya, which officially ended the conflict in May 2004. For much of the period, Darfur was a neglected backwater; its people mired in poverty. After the 1989 coup, the more radical and inclusive Islamist elements in the new government, the most prominent being Hassan al-Turabi, tried a more evenhanded approach that would reconcile the ‘Arab’ and ‘African’ groups in Darfur, even though few economic benefits accompanied this. In 1999, however, Bashir dismissed Turabi from his powerful post as Speaker of the National Assembly, and had him arrested.
The Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), the group spearheading the secessionist movement in the south, attempted to widen its support base and international appeal by depicting its war as a wider struggle of the majority ‘African’ population against an oppressive ‘Arab’ minority government. This was helped by the increasing militancy of some Arab supremacists in the al-Bashir government, as well as those who had participated in the failed Libyan expansionist war. The Fur, Massalit, Tungur and Zaghawa, now more or less racially accreted ‘Africans’, became restive. Some of their leaders, who had been brought into the al-Bashir government by al-Turabi, quit the government. Mostly likely some of them were part of the anonymous group-calling itself ‘The Seekers of Truth and Justice’-which, in May 2000, issued The Black Book, a well-detailed tract which ventilated long-held grievances of the region. In spite of its grim title, The Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in Sudan is not chiliastic or even irredentist. Rather, it is a carefully-documented catalogue of woes which Darfur had endured at the hands of the national government since Sudan gained independence in 1956 as Africa’s largest state. The Black Book reveals systemic discrimination by the ‘Arab-run’ state against the ‘black African majority’. It contains some truly stunning statistics. It meticulously chronicles the skewed power and economic imbalance between Sudan’s Arab population, which is largely based in the north of the country and its African peoples. It shows that three Arab-speaking ethnic groups-the Shaigia, Jaaliyeen, and Dangagla-have dominated Sudan’s political and economic life since independence
To be sure, this lopsided policy was inherited from the British colonial authorities, who favoured the ethnic Arabs over the Africans, partly as a result of the fact that they were ruling Sudan in alliance with Egypt, and partly because the Colonial Office in London was dominated by Orientalist romanticisers. The post-colonial rulers, true to form, invested all efforts in perpetuating the status quo. Crucial to this dominance was their control of the state’s security apparatuses: no one outside these charmed circles have ever headed Sudan’s military or police. This is important, since Sudan is one of the chronically coup-prone countries in Africa. No successful coup has been organized by anyone outside these three favoured ethnic groups. These groups, representing about 5 per cent of Sudan’s population, according to the official census, have occupied 47 to 70 per cent of cabinet positions since 1956, and the presidency for all that period. They have further tried to impose a uniform Islamic culture on the country, one of the most heterogeneous societies in the world.
The Black Book is scathing about the lopsided economic opportunities in the country, noting that the country’s Ministry of Finance had become, in effect, a front for northern acquisitiveness. “Only 5 per cent of its staff,” the authors note, “come from outside of the northern region. Hiring of staff in the ministry is primarily reserved for northerners. People from other regions have to contend with the demeaning jobs of tea-making and cleaning offices and toilets. Even the drivers are recruited from among northern school dropouts whose family members are working in the ministry.” “People from other regions” obviously include ‘Arab’ groups other those from the three favoured groups- all the Arab groups combined constitute thirty per cent of Sudan’s population, whereas the favoured Arab groups constitute only five per cent of the country’s population-but the writers of the Black Book were not too concerned about such nuance. Although both Arab and African in Darfur had been the object of neglect and discrimination by the Sudanese state, ‘The Seekers of Truth and Justice’ were concerned with only highlighting the plight of the ‘black Africans’. In other words, as their critics have pointed out, they were clearly “motivated by political ambition and were prepared to stir up ethnic hatred to meet their ends.”
This criticism is not entirely fair, however. Darfur’s recent history had shown to ‘The Seekers of Truth and Justice’, and to anyone else interested in developments in the region, how difficult it had become to forge any unifying front among the regions competing groups: radical Arabism and external influences have served to undercut that possibility. An interesting and profoundly important twist in the Black Book’s analysis is the evidence it presents-of ministerial and other representations-showing that southern Sudan, which had the SPLA to advance its cause by force of arms, has had its share of state patrimony increased considerably over the years. By 1999, for example, its share of ministerial-level appointments was 16.4%, compared to the west’s 0%, the east’s 1.4% and the central region’s 2%. This was still paltry compared to the north’s 79.5%, but it was a considerable improvement over the previous decade, when there was hardly any such representation. This is of great importance to understanding the current crisis, because it goes to show that the authors understand that armed violence pays, and especially if it is calibrated on a carefully-choreographed ethnic or racial appeal. In quick order after the release of The Black Book, a group calling itself the Darfur Liberation Front (later renamed the Sudan Liberation Movement [SLM]), aggressively secular and ‘black nationalist,’ emerged in 2003 to champion the cause espoused in the document, claiming that it would fight the Sudanese government until the imbalances were redressed to ensure that Darfurians got their fair share of the national patrimony.
Another group, the moderately Islamist Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), emerged soon after, also in Darfur, and forged a loose alliance with SLM to fight the Sudanese government. Darfur was in a state of armed rebellion. Hardly anyone, however, including the Sudanese government, took the two groups seriously. The Sudanese government first tried to ignore them, and then later initiated half-hearted peace overtures to the rebels. In April 2003, however, the two groups mounted a spectacular offensive against Sudanese government forces, attacking the el Fasher airport and destroying half a dozen military aircraft. They also kidnapped a Sudanese air-force general. As de Waal has noted, this singular success was highly significant, for the SPLA ‘had managed nothing of the kind in twenty years,’ and it went to show that the Darfur groups had what it takes to make a successful guerrilla army: mobility, good intelligence, and popular support.
Sudan immediately realized that it had a serious crisis on its hands: this was a problem beyond its comprehension. It’s brutal and effete rulers had always taken Darfur’s quiescence, where relationship with the central state was concerned, for granted. That delusion was now shattered. The Sudanese government, still locked in an unwinnable war with the SPLA, feared the worst: they feared that the new rebel groups would form an alliance, based on ‘racial’ affinity, with the southern Sudanese rebels. Such a development looked plausible-and potentially fatal. There was, in the making, an existential crisis for the Sudanese state.
The stakes had become higher with the discovery, in parts of Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan, of oil. The government’s reaction to the crisis was ingenious. It became more amenable to Western pressure to reach a peace agreement with the SPLA, and on the Darfur front, it resorted to an age-old tactic: the recruitment of surrogates to fight the Darfur rebels on its behalf, and to fight with scorched-earth tactics. It was, as de Waal has noted, ‘counter-insurgency on the cheap.’ Fortunately for the government, it still had that close coterie of vicious and manipulative security officers who had been running Sudan’s wars since the early 1980s. This group had built many networks-of local militia groups, Jihadists and vigilantes-who they could call upon any time to do the dirty work for them. There were the Ben Halba fursan, a group of northern ‘Arab’ camel nomads, and the even more mercenary former Libyan Islamic Legionnaires to call upon. The two groups merged to form what has now come to be known as Janjawiid. Provided with supplies, arms and virtually unlimited freedom to do what they liked by the Sudanese government, the Janjawiid militias were unleashed on local peasants and the general civilian population. Relatively little fighting has occurred between them and the Darfur rebel groups, but unarmed civilians have been uprooted from their homes, which are often comprehensively destroyed by the Janjawiid, massacred, or driven across the border into Chad. Their campaigns have led to what the UN has described as the ‘world’s worst humanitarian disaster’, a situation that clearly called for urgent and appropriate emergency response. As exemplified by the efforts of the international community and the African Union in Darfur.
THE AU PEACE MISSION (AMIS) AND THE DARFUR CRISIS
Newly independent African states created the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 to protect the independence and promote the unity of Africa and rid the continent of the remnants of colonialism. The OAU charter emphasised the sovereignty of member states and noninterference in their internal affairs, principles which weakened the organisation's ability to prevent and manage conflicts, especially civil wars. Despite these limitations, the OAU did undertake limited peacekeeping operations, including sending a multinational force of 3,500 troops to end the civil war in Chad (1981-1982) and a peace-keeping mission to Rwanda (1990-1993). These suffered, however, from financial difficulties, logistical shortcomings and unclear mandates. A "Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution", created by the Cairo Declaration of 1993, was toothless.
The organisation's decolonisation mandate expired with Namibia's independence in 1990 and the demise of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, while the end of the Cold War brought its double image as what was sometimes called a "club of dictators" and "hub of populist and socialist ideologies" into higher relief and caused leaders like South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to worry that the West might disengage from the continent. The decision to establish the AU was taken at an extraordinary OAU summit in Libya (Sirte) in September 1999, and it came into existence as successor to the OAU at a summit meeting of African leaders in South Africa (Durban) on 9 July 2002.
The new organisation was endowed with much more ambitious peace and security architecture. The Constitutive Act of the Union, adopted in July 2002, paid deference to state sovereignty but empowered the AU to intervene in the internal affairs of a member state that faced the threat of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity and took a tough line on unconstitutional change of government through coup or mercenary activity. It pledged the AU to promote dialogue and peaceful resolution of conflicts as the only way to guarantee enduring peace and stability and build democratic institutions. The Durban summit also adopted a protocol creating a Peace and Security Council (PSC) as the main decision making organ for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts. Made up of fifteen elected member states, it came into existence in May 2004 with South Africa's Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as chairperson. Algeria, Ethiopia, Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa were elected for three-year terms; Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Senegal, Sudan, and Togo each have two-year terms.
The PSC is designed to work closely with civil society and other pan-African organisations which, like it, are new and still in the developmental stage, including the Pan-African Parliament (launched in May 2004) and the African Commission on Human and People's Rights. Progress in this direction has been correspondingly slow. A more significant problem stems from the fact that the African continent has a number of bodies with peace and security responsibilities, in particular its various subregional organisations like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The PSC is tasked with streamlining this multiplicity of mechanisms but the relationships between the AU and the sub-regional organisations are sensitive. Fortunately this aspect of competition is not a serious problem in Darfur since the sub-regional body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), has concentrated on negotiation and implementation of the agreement between Khartoum and the SPLM to end the civil war that has devastated the south of the country since 1983. Nevertheless, Darfur is only one, if perhaps the most dramatic, of the challenges that have presented themselves to the AU at a very early stage of its existence, well before it had developed the means with which to address most of them adequately on its own. It is to the organisation's credit that it has not shirked its responsibilities and has sought to cope with a range of internal conflicts that its predecessor almost surely would have sidestepped.
It should be noted however that when the war in Darfur began in February 2003, most attention was focused on the negotiations between the Sudanese government and the SPLM insurgency, which IGAD was facilitating in Kenya. Crisis Group was one of the first to call attention to the extreme brutality against civilians by which Khartoum and its allied Janjaweed militias were seeking to put down the new rebellion. The international community was slow to react, however,
in part out of concern that too much pressure on the government could derail the IGAD process. Chad, Sudan's western neighbour, was the first to react, out of alarm produced by a steady flow of refugees from Darfur. It brokered a ceasefire between Khartoum and the larger of the two main insurgent groups, the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA) in August-September 2003,14 which, however, collapsed before the end of the year, triggering a massive new government offensive.
Between March and June 2004, as humanitarian workers began spreading out in the region measuring the full extent of the humanitarian disaster, the devastation became harder to ignore. The international outcry that followed demanded action, fuelled by memories of the costly inaction during the Rwandan genocide ten years before. The AU was the obvious choice to take over. It was ill prepared for what eventually followed but at first matters went well. In response to growing demands for action, it assisted Chad in organising a new round of negotiations between the government and the rebels, to which European and U.S. observers were invited for the first time. On 8 April 2004 the Sudanese government, the SLA and the second major rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), signed the N'djamena Ceasefire Agreement, which established a Ceasefire Commission (CFC) to monitor implementation. The CFC was to be staffed by the signatory parties and observers from the EU, U.S. and UN.
On 28 May, the parties signed a further agreement in Addis Ababa on implementation modalities, which acknowledged the AU as the lead international body in Darfur and the operational arm of the N'djamena agreement, with the right to appoint the chairperson of the CFC while the EU appointed the deputy. The AU was responsible for fielding a team of 60 military observers, and Khartoum agreed to allow it to send up to 300 troops from member states to protect that team.
Wide-spread violence continued, however, leaving some two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees insecure, and causing frequent disruptions in delivery of humanitarian assistance. As international outrage increased, expectations for the AU mission grew. It was quickly understood that a much larger force was required, combined with more serious international pressure on Khartoum to rein in the Janjaweed militias and end its ethnic cleansing campaign. Despite a series of UN Security Council resolutions - most notably Resolutions 1591 and 1593 of March 2005, which banned offensive military flights in Darfur and referred jurisdiction over atrocity crimes to the International Criminal Court respectively - the pressure has never been sufficiently strong or credible in Khartoum, which has largely failed to comply with its repeated commitments, particularly those related to the neutralisation of its allied militias.
On 27 July 2004 the PSC requested the chairperson of the AU Commission, Alpha Oumar Konaré, to prepare a plan for the possible conversion of The AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) into a fullfledged peacekeeping mission. In doing so, it correctly outlined the key objectives -- prioritise civilian protection, disarm and neutralise the Janjaweed militia, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance - and the size and mandate required to ensure implementation of the N'djamena agreement. Over the coming months, however, it retreated from its initial assessment due both to lack of capacity and to the realisation that deployment of such a mission required the cooperation of the Sudanese government, which thus in effect had a veto over its scope. Khartoum was strongly opposed to both a larger force and a stronger mandate.
When the PSC finally approved the revised mission (AMIS II) on 20 October, it limited the force expansion to 3,320 soldiers and police, who were tasked primarily with monitoring and verification and provided with a significantly weaker mandate than had been proposed in July. The expanded force was given the mandate only to monitor and verify IDP returns and IDP camps, militia activity against the civilian population, efforts by the government to disarm allied militias, and the cessation of hostilities by all parties. The civilian protection mandate was cast in these limited terms: to "protect civilians whom it encounters under imminent threat and in the immediate vicinity, within resources and capability..."
The first three military observers of phase I of the AU mission (AMIS I) arrived in El Fasher, the historic capital of the greater Darfur region, on 4 June 2004, with no equipment, vehicles, or communications gear apart from a handheld satellite phone to speak with the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. The start of the mission was not preceded by a pre-deployment assessment, training or deployment of civilian support systems. This modest beginning suggests how far AMIS has come in its short existence but also illustrates the structural weaknesses that continue to hamper its effectiveness in the face of continued violations by all parties to the ceasefire. Despite the deteriorating situation on the ground, it took more than six months to deploy AMIS II fully: 450 military observers (MILOBS), 815 civilian police, a 2,341-strong military protection force, and 26 international observers and civilian staff. The main obstacles were delays by troop-contributing countries in generating forces and in establishing field accommodation and the AU's overall lack of expertise in planning and executing complex peace support operations.
Despite these handicaps, AMIS had some successes in the areas where it was deployed but its small size, limited capabilities and weak mandate severely limited its effectiveness. In March 2005, the AU led a Joint Assessment Mission (JAM) that included the EU, U.S. and UN to look at AMIS strengths and weaknesses. The subsequent report identified many gaps in the mission and recommended expansion of the force but not of its mandate. On 28 April 2005, the PSC approved expansion of AMIS personnel to 7,731. And as of 20 October 2005, some 6,773 were in country, including 4,847 soldiers in the protection force, 700 military observers, 1,188 civilian police and 38 international staff of various kinds.23 AMIS is still operating below full authorised capacity, and many key tasks remain unfulfilled. A diplomat involved in supporting the mission commented:
AMIS is currently fulfilling its reactive responsibilities such as verifying alleged ceasefire violations, but has yet to fully implement the proactive aspects of its mandate, such as troop verification and the identification of militias [aligned with the government].
If the ceasefire is to be stabilised (much less the more extensive steps taken that are necessary to resolve the conflict), the AMIS leadership in Khartoum and El Fasher needs to prioritise those elements.
It is premature to make a definitive judgment on AMIS. Darfur remains extremely insecure, with fighting intensifying again since early September of 2005, including deadly attacks on the peacekeepers themselves. The AU alone is not to blame. The largest problem stems from the actions of the parties to the conflict, not only the Sudanese government, which has yet to take meaningful action against the Janjaweed militias, but also the rebel movements, which are increasingly divided and appear to be descending slowly into warlordism and banditry. A point worth noting is that AMIS was born out of the N'djamena agreement, which lacked a true enforcement mechanism and was based on the assumption of compliance and goodwill by the parties. International pressure on those parties to respect their commitments has been ineffective, thus undermining the AU mission. The UN Security Council took more than eight months from its first ultimatum in July 2004 to Khartoum to disarm the Janjaweed before it finally applied limited sanctions in March 2005 and referred the Darfur situation to the International Criminal Court.
The AU Special Representative, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, has openly acknowledged the inability of AMIS to succeed in this environment:
the mechanisms in place…could have worked if the parties in Darfur were acting in good faith and if they were generally committed to their undertakings in the various agreements they have signed. However, in the light of our experience in the past fourteen months we must conclude that there is neither good faith nor commitment on the part of any of the parties.
This view is further exacerbated by the rebels' weak leadership and command and control and their increasing divisions which has continually contributed to delays in peace talks, producing more insecurity. Rebel attacks on humanitarian convoys and obstruction of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the African Union (AU) in the field have jeopardized delivery of life-saving food and other relief to the very people the rebels claim to represent. SLA-JEM clashes in Graida, South Darfur on 3 June 2005, indicating a struggle for control of territory ahead of the Abuja negotiations and while the AU was redeploying troops to the area, are further worrying signs. Khartoum tries to exploit these differences by talking quietly with JEM in hopes of luring it into the government of national unity to be established with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).
Another point is the government's continued use of proxy militias and incitement of ethnic violence. Rather than disarming its allies, the Janjaweed militias, as it has pledged numerous times, it continues to recruit, train, financially support, and arm ethnically-based militias and police forces. Because the government still supports and protects these militias -- responsible for more than 75 per cent of all verified killings in Darfur since the AU Ceasefire Commission started work in June 2004 -- the relative battlefield lull has not improved civilian security. Civilians continue to face systematic attacks, rape, and murder by the Janjaweed and the regular army. More than 2 million people are fearful of venturing outside IDP camps, let alone returning to their homes. The premise that Khartoum will act in good faith to protect its citizens, fulfil commitments to identify and neutralise the militias, and punish those responsible for human rights abuse is fundamentally flawed. This was demonstrated on 7 April 2005when a government-supported tribal militia ravaged Khor Abeche village despite assurances given to the AU days earlier.
Essentially, for the AU mission to succeed, one of two things must happen. Either the parties to the conflict must radically change their behaviour and respect their commitments, or the AU mission must be significantly enlarged and be given a much more specific Chapter VII mandate to protect civilians proactively. Given that the first of these alternatives has frequently been shown to be unrealistic, only the second offers a prospect that Darfur can emerge any time soon from its tragedy. However, for that second alternative to be realistic the AU and its key supporters in the international community, must be prepared to do more than they have yet done. There are certainly many hurdles and challenges ahead.
THE CHALLENGES FACED BY AMIS
It is becoming increasingly clear that AMIS as presently envisaged cannot adequately protect civilians. Its ability to monitor the ceasefire, protect civilians and provide security for humanitarian operations is severely limited. Civilian protection in an area the size of France or Texas requires a far larger force than AMIS presently has or anticipates having at least until well into 2006. Militias have attacked civilian targets, and the parties have attacked one another in AMIS's presence. The recent fighting in Graida between SLA and JEM demonstrates that when the parties are set on violence, AMIS can do little under its current mandate. In other instances, AMIS troops have come under fire. The challenges are partially a consequence of AU inexperience in peacekeeping and the nascent stage of its PSC mechanisms, particularly in mission management and force generation. But beyond these institutional problems, the AU military operations in Darfur face constraints that would hamstring even the most experienced peacekeeping force: an inadequate mandate, insufficient forces and capabilities, and political failure to acknowledge that the Sudanese government has consistently failed to meet its responsibilities to neutralise the militias and protect its citizens. With a restrictive mandate and limited forces, AMIS tries to establish security primarily by deploying across parts of the eight regional sectors. It does not routinely patrol those sectors but rather sends small groups of military observers (MILOBS) to selected outposts or areas of interest. These teams, which are
usually accompanied by squad or platoon-sized elements from the protection force, resolve local social or security disputes through diplomacy and interact with the community but cannot sustain operations without daily assistance from their sector HQ or local base. AMIS does not provide direct physical security for IDP camps. This is the responsibility of Sudanese police, who are widely distrusted by the IDPs. The AMIS response - to put unarmed CIVPOL into the camps to work alongside their Sudanese counterparts - has been hampered by slow CIVPOL deployment and lack of logistical planning. Yet even a larger, more permanent CIVPOL presence would have
virtually no effect on reducing attacks against civilians outside the camps, where most atrocities occur. The keys to improving security across the region and creating an environment where civilians feel safe to return home are a stronger mandate to protect civilians and more troops, with improved capabilities, to implement it.
The JAM report described shortfalls, including "lack of clarity in the chain of command, lack of capacity and human resources, misallocation of tasks between Addis, Khartoum and El Fasher, and absence of standard operating procedures". The most glaring deficiency is lack of operational focus and command presence at the El Fasher force headquarters, most apparent in the absence of a 24-hour Joint Operations Cell (JOC) and appropriately trained personnel to staff it. Without a JOC, which should be the focal point for coordination and execution of its tasks, the mission cannot respond effectively to developing situations. There has been gradual improvement since the start of the operation in operational staff procedures but more is needed. These deficiencies should be corrected as a first priority as the mission is expanded. Otherwise, problems will be exacerbated and become more difficult to correct as the operational tempo and responsibilities increase.
Communication limitations severely curtail AMIS's ability to conduct operations. The mission lacks capability to transmit critical data such as operational orders or intelligence in a secure, high speed way. Communications are mostly passed from headquarters to units via voice transmission "in the open" or hard copy messages, which are liable to be intercepted by the Sudanese government. AMIS does not have an intelligence apparatus or collection capacity and does not actively analyse or disseminate intelligence. It is, therefore, unable to give critical information to sector commanders that would permit them to take timely measures, even though intelligence gathering and monitoring of government, militia and rebel forces are two key responsibilities granted it under the Abuja Security Agreement of November 2004. Troop mobility is also hamstrung by inadequate ground transport and air assets. AMIS has no large troop transport vehicles, though it does have approximately ten armoured personnel carriers (APCs), some with heavy machine guns, and a limited number of light armoured vehicles. Its numerous light trucks and 4x4 vehicles have limited combat value since they have no armament. Not all are capable of off-road movement. AMIS uses eighteen Mi-8 helicopters for most air operations. These are contracted, unarmed civilian aircraft without forward-looking infra-red (FLIR), tactical communications or night capability. AMIS ground facilities cannot communicate with or direct them in flight. The mission thus cannot send forces into a hostile environment or conduct sustained day or night-time patrols, including along likely avenues of approach to targets attackers may use or aid agency transportation routes. Nor can it do extended reconnaissance or tactical lift. Its aircraft perform limited patrols but not to the degree necessary to establish a presence throughout Darfur. They are not typically based at AMIS facilities, but rather at local facilities which close at dark due to inadequate lighting and, in all likelihood, government policy. To respond to calls for help, personnel must at times go several kilometres to the helicopters, which are bedded in the open though secured by AMIS forces. Once airborne, they can reach any location in their sector within two hours. However, without night flying, AMIS cannot ferry forces to suspect locations in pre-dawn hours when most violence occurs. The helicopters are also severely hampered by fuel shortages: expected to patrol at least 60 hours per month, they average 30 hours.
Slow force generation by AU states is another big problem. It took six months from the October 2004 decision to deploy about 2,400 troops, and CIVPOL is still under strength. Had it not been for the contributions of Nigeria and Rwanda in particular, it is unlikely the military component would be anywhere near strength. African militaries are stretched thin, with approximately 18,600 personnel assigned to UN peacekeeping operations, and additional commitments looming for the UN mission in southern Sudan (UNMIS) and the planned Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) mission to Somalia (IGASOM). The AU has also stated that it intends to prepare a force of 6,000 to 7,000 to deploy to the Congo (DRC). Expanding AMIS will also exacerbate training and equipment shortcomings. There is neither a standard force preparation package nor standard deployment equipment tables. Troop-contributing countries must make their own preparations. This has not yet been a major factor, as the majority of current troops are from Rwanda, Nigeria and other countries which have participated in earlier peacekeeping training and programs. If the AU seeks more contributions from across the continent, however, there will be even greater need to institute common standards. A more proactive mission will also require greater military cohesion. Once forces have been identified and prepared, there are still constraints in getting them to Darfur. Even though the current mission was transported by various donor countries utilising military aircraft, a number of problems impeded the force build-up.
THE WAY FORWARD
The AMIS mandate authorised by the PSC focuses on monitoring and verification, leaving to the Sudanese government the basic responsibility - which it has failed to discharge - for protecting civilians and humanitarian workers. The actions of the militias and Khartoum's refusal to fulfil its commitment to neutralise them constitute the greatest danger to civilians. AMIS's protection role is so qualified it is almost meaningless. Without a stronger mandate, no international force, regardless of size, can do much. There is a broad spectrum of activities involved in protecting civilians and humanitarian efforts in Darfur, ranging from static patrols of IDP camps and key transit routes to forceful engagement and neutralisation of belligerents involved in aggressive action. The best way to provide security would be prudent but deliberate application of force against those directly responsible for the insecurity and atrocities. AMIS needs both to act proactively against those elements and to station soldiers with convoys and at fixed locations where their presence can deter, and where they are better positioned for immediate response. For this to happen, the AU must strengthen the mandate so it prioritises civilian protection and gives AMIS the clear authority and will to carry out a full range of operations against both militias operating with the government and those opposed to it.
The government will resist any change of mandate. But its argument that it is not in full control of the Janjaweed, and above all the continuation of serious violence it has repeatedly pledged to stop, are sufficient justification. International insistence should be backed by a decision to begin planning for the deployment, should this become necessary, of a fully mandated protection force in a non-permissive environment. And to further strengthen the AU’s peace mission in Darfur, the following areas should also be looked at:
INCREASING THE FORCE SIZE
The approximately 7,731 AU soldiers and CIVPOL presently in-country is inadequate to deal with the security and humanitarian situation. The March 2005 JAM report and the 28 April 2005 report of Ambassador Konare concluded that an international force of 12,300 was needed. Apparently with an eye to the limited resources of AU member states, however, they proposed that this number be reached only in the second quarter of 2006 and then with many personnel whose training and preparation would be directed toward implementing the mission of facilitating the return home of IDPs and refugees, rather than providing the civilian protection necessary to create the environment in which such return becomes realistic. Going by the situation on ground, a force of 12,000 to 15,000 is a more realistic figure for what is required to implement adequately the first priority and more demanding task of civilian protection in what is still by no means a fully permissive environment. A force thus sized, trained and equipped is needed as quickly as it can be put in place - in order to protect villages and humanitarian operations against attack; IDPs against forced repatriation and intimidation; and women from systematic rape outside the camps; as well as to neutralise the Janjaweed militias.
CONCLUSION
It would be premature to judge the success or failure of the AMIS mission. At this moment, the achievements that Addis Ababa can point to are overshadowed by the continuing serious and in significant ways worsening situation on the ground. One way or another the international community simply has to do more and be prepared to do it in a tougher manner, if not by alternative mechanisms like the NATO bridging force that Crisis Group has recommended or the "double-hatting" of UNMIS as increasingly being discussed, then through the instrument at hand -- the AU's AMIS mission, assisted even more substantially and more effectively by the international community and other donors like the European Union (EU). This implies a much longer commitment and involvement by the AU in Darfur but also a significant increase in external support. Difficult decisions need to be taken quickly. The African Peace Facility, the primary mechanism for EU aid, is nearly depleted. The Commission should take the internal steps required to top up the Facility by the extra 20 per cent that its regulations allow and be prepared to commit most if not all that additional €50 million to maintaining and beefing up AMIS. It should also canvas member states about the prospect of providing additional funds before 2007 - when the Peace Facility's authorization expires - either to meet further AMIS expenses or to allow the EU to address some of the other tasks the mechanism was created for before it was hijacked by the urgency of the Darfur crisis.
The AU must accept that it needs more help in the short run, and the international community must work with it to deploy a force immediately - AU or NATO - that can end the atrocities. A stronger international effort to protect civilians and create a secure environment for humanitarian operations would not only save lives in the short term but also generate momentum towards a long-term solution to this conflict. Disturbingly, the daily death and suffering is already becoming "status quo" for some relief agencies, and the situation has the potential to become another never-ending "low intensity" conflict in which the international community spends large sums each year keeping IDPs and refugees alive but otherwise fails to protect civilians and to address the underlying political causes. The renewed political negotiations in Abuja are an opportunity for headway on a political solution. They have recently been bolstered by the appointment of Salim Ahmed Salim, former Secretary General of the Organisation of African Unity, as AU Special Envoy for Darfur, but initial signals from Abuja are not encouraging. They need broader international support, particularly from the U.S., but a prerequisite for political progress is a greater effort to end the atrocities and reduce the insecurity that fuels the crisis. That requires an appropriately sized and mandated international force, building on what the AU has done.
REFERENCES
1. Africa Briefing N°32, Unifying Darfur's Rebels: A Prerequisite for Peace, 6 October 2005.
2. Africa Briefing N°30, Garang's Death: Implications for Peace in Sudan, 9 August 2005;
3. Africa Report N°96, The Khartoum-SPLM Agreement: Sudan's Uncertain Peace, 25 July 2005.
4. Africa Briefing N°24, A New Sudan Action Plan, 26 April 2005
5. Africa Report N°89, Darfur: The Failure to Protect, 8 March 2005.
6. Monthly Report of the Secretary General on Darfur", 10 May 2005, S/2005/305; Opheera McDoom, "Darfur Rebels Delay Peace Talks -- UN Envoy", Reuters, 25 May 2005.
7. "Joint Statement by The African Union Mission in the Sudan and the United Nations Mission in the Sudan issued by Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe and Mr Jan Pronk on the destruction of Khor Abeche on 7 April 2005 by armed militia".
8. AU PSC Communiqué, 28 April 2005, op. cit. ; "Report of the Chairperson of the Commission on the Situation in the Darfur Region of the Sudan", PSC/PR/2 (XXVIII), Addis Ababa, 28 April 2005.
9. "Protocol between the Government of Sudan, the SLM/A and the JEM on the enhancement of the security situation in Darfur in accordance with the N'Djamena agreement", 9 November 2004.
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