Sudan Seeks to Thwart UN Force

Just a week into its Darfur mission this month, a clearly marked convoy of United Nations trucks was attacked by the Sudanese armed forces, seriously wounding a driver.



The UN Security Council promptly condemned the attack, which was a major setback for the 9,000 peace keepers who had only a month earlier been accepted by the Sudan government as part of a hybrid, African Union-UN force.



Although the Sudan military has accepted responsibility for the attack, claiming it was not notified of the convoy’s route, the attack has set a troubling precedent that could make the UN’s mission in Sudan one of it’s most difficult ever.



The attack has sent the UN scrambling to head off any further attacks and to help speed the dwindling relief supplies to refugee camps scattered throughout Darfur and other parts of Sudan.



This past week, UN Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno toured Sudan, visiting Khartoum government officials and Darfur refugees.



This visit followed one by UN Special Envoy to Sudan, Jan Eliasson, and his AU counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim, who spent a week in Sudan trying to jumpstart the stalled peace talks between Darfur rebel groups and the government.



In addition, generals commanding the UN Mission in Darfur, UNAMID, met Sudanese counterparts over the past few days in what was called a “confidence building” measure.



Finally, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be in Addis Abba this week to address the AU summit and discuss the Darfur situation.



“It’s a pretty bleak picture out there,” said Marie Okabe, spokeswoman for Ban Ki-moon. “The humanitarian operation is gasping and struggling.”



The UN military component remains woefully understaffed and ill equipped, specifically lacking helicopters, which if they had been in place, would have prevented the need for a the overland convoy that was attacked.



“It’s emerging,” Okabe said of the UNAMID force. “To get [to] full strength and have the capacity that it is mandated to have … we’re still a long ways away.”



A peace agreement between the fractious rebel groups and the Sudanese government remains elusive.



“We … need a peace to keep,” said Okabe. “We don’t have an agreement for that. It is not something that can be imposed.



“Mounting a peacekeeping operation is a huge undertaking that requires the absolute cooperation of the government.”



Okabe declined to comment on whether the Sudan government was cooperating sufficiently or blocking the peace efforts.



But others have not been so reserved. Shortly after the attack, Guehenno called the situation in Darfur “very dangerous” for UN peacekeepers. “We have a war on-going,” and in the future, “other actions will be repelled with necessary force.”



He complained that the Sudan government was clearly sending “mixed signals”, by agreeing to have a hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur, and then attacking it.



At issue, he told the Security Council in early January, was the unresolved Status of Forces Agreement, which details the composition of the UNAMID force, assigns land for the mission, and clears the way for it to operate 24 hours a day, not just during daylight hours. It also details the equipment and weapons for the UNAMID military and police.



Sudan has routinely rejected personnel from non-African countries, most recently from Norway and Sweden, Nepal and Thailand. “We … believe that there is no good reason that these issues should persist ad infinitum, especially in light of the adverse impact they are having on the deployment of the mission and implementation of its mandate,” Guehenno told the council on January 9.



Unfortunately, Khartoum’s non-cooperation is nothing new and does not look set to change any time soon.



Hafiz Mohammed, of the human rights group Justice Africa, told IWPR from his office in Sudan that the government’s intention is to derail the deployment of UNAMID.



“The people do not want the government to derail a force, but are seeing that happening now,” said Mohammed. “The government is lying to their people saying that UNAMID will be the same as the AU troops with no extra powers and cannot make a difference.”



Among the reasons offered for the denial of the Nordic troops was that news media there had reproduced caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.



"Anyone who spoke blasphemously about the Prophet will not set a foot on Sudanese soil," said Sudan president Omar al-Bashir in rejecting the Nordic troops, according to news reports.



Sudan is now insisting that their officials be allowed to disable UNAMID's communications network when its "security operations" are underway, and that UNAMID gives the Sudanese authorities advance notification of all troop movements.



Ahmed Gamal Eldin, an NGO worker from Sudan, says the reason Khartoum is opposed to non-African forces is because it suspects that they will be better at their job than troops from neighbouring countries.



“Forces coming from richer countries are better equipped and better able to carry out the mission effectively, and are not easily be manipulated by the government,” he said.



The authorities’ reluctance to accept a peacekeeping force may also be due to arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for Sudanese minister Ahmed Harun and allied janjaweed commander Ali Kushyb.



Others suggest that Sudan may fear that the hybrid force would be mandated to track down and arrest suspects on behalf of the ICC. Sudan rejects the jurisdiction of the ICC over crimes committed in Darfur, despite the fact that the Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, saying it considered the situation a threat to international peace and security.



Nicolas Burniat, Sudan expert from Human Rights First, accused the Sudan government of playing games with the international community.



“No-one is ready to take the steps necessary to enforce and impose upon Sudan the deployment of UNAMID, so each time it sees an opportunity, it takes it to stall the process,” he said.



The UN resolution said UNAMID forces should be mostly African, but says Burniat, under any legal interpretation this does not mean entirely African.



“It is outrageous that Sudan is blocking the deployment of UNAMID and has not given its approval to the true contributors, because it wants a force which is under equipped, ill-trained and easier to manipulate.”



Burniat says the Security Council should put its foot down.



“As with the arrest of Ali Kushyb and Ahmed Harun for the ICC, it is failing its mission to make sure the decisions it took for Sudan are enforced and the deployment happens.



“The [Security Council] can do a lot more to force the [Sudanese government] to accept the deployment, but each time it doesn’t do it, it sends a message to Khartoum to do whatever it wants.”



Mohammed of Justice Africa agreed, and said the lack of assertiveness could have lasting negative effects, not only in Darfur, but for UN as a credible institution.



“The [Sudan government] wants to control the hybrid force which cannot happen, otherwise people will not trust any more UN resolutions.”



Katy Glassborow is an IWPR reporter and Peter Eichstaedt the Africa Editor for IWPR.