http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article2562676.ece
Darfur peacekeepers killed and bombing resumes as Mandela envoys arrive in Sudan
Darfur peacekeepers killed and bombing resumes as Mandela envoys arrive in Sudan
(Mohamed Nureldin Abdalla/Reuters)
Archbishop Tutu and Jimmy Carter arriving in Sudan. They will go to Darfur later this week
A weekend of heavy fighting greeted Nelson Mandela's band of roving diplomats, world leaders and entrepreneurs – The Elders – who arrived in Sudan today in the latest attempt to bring peace to Darfur.
Militias attacked an African Union base in the town of Haskanita on Saturday killing 10 peacekeepers, the heaviest casualties suffered by the AU mission. Fifty peacekeepers were still missing.
Hours later a government Antonov plane resumed bombing, attacking a rebel town in northern Darfur, despite promises of a ceasefire.
Although Mr Mandela is too frail to travel, Jimmy Carter, the former US president, Desmond Tutu, Nobel laureate, and Sir Richard Branson are among the team due to visit Darfur later this week.
They will also meet the Sudanese President, aid groups and diplomats in Khartoum in an attempt to ease the deployment of a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force and lay the groundwork for peace talks in Tripoli later this month.
But they will find a conflict that is rapidly spiralling into anarchy. Aid agencies say they will be forced to withdraw if security does not improve.
Several rebel factions have said they will not attend next month's talks unless the joint United Nations and African Union force is deployed first.
Commander Ibrahim Abdullah Al "Hello", who holds the tiny village of En Siro for his branch of the Sudan Liberation Army, claimed the Government was pouring arms into Janjawid encampments in northern Darfur.
He said his leader Abdulwahid Mohamed el-Nur – who commands huge support among civilians in Darfur's aid camps – would not be attending the talks.
"If he goes to Libya without peace then we will still be here, we will still be fighting," he said sitting on a lopsided bench in the village's disused school hut. "The root of the problem is still here - the insecurity."
An AU force of some 7,000 soldiers and monitors has failed to bring peace to Darfur. It has found itself outgunned by rebels and the government's proxy army of Janjawid militias.
Rebel and government spokesmen accused each other of Saturday's attack on the AU. In the past rebels have more often been responsible for taking on the AU.
Hours later rebel targets around the town of Kuma in northern Darfur were bombed, according to aid workers and SLA commanders in the area.
Earlier this year the Khartoum government, under intense international pressure, agreed to allow a joint UN-AU force into its war-torn western-region. It has also agreed to attend peace talks in the Libyan capital beginning on October 27.
President Omar al-Bashir has told both Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, and Pope Benedict that he will declare a ceasefire before negotiations. Doubts remain, however, about his commitment to the process.
Bombing of rebel and civilian targets resumed in September after the annual rains. Government Antonovs have been spotted overflying En Siro's tumbledown mud huts earlier in the day.
Days before my visit, an Antonov had bombed rebel-held villages elsewhere in northern Darfur, in an attack confirmed by African Union monitors.
At the same time, a rising tide of insecurity and lawlessness is hampering aid operations in Darfur. En Siro, like many other villages, is cut off from emergency supplies of food and medicine.
Aid agencies can make only fleeting visits by helicopter as the roads are too dangerous.
Carjackings have become a daily occurrence throughout Darfur. Last week World Vision withdrew all non-essential workers after three members of staff were shot during an attack on an aid convoy.
The head of Oxfam in Sudan, Caroline Nursey, said the charity would consider pulling out altogether if security worsened.
There is little chance of security improving before peace talks, according to analysts.
"Every time we have had talks before it has been preceded by a build-up of government and rebel activity," said a United Nations official in Darfur. "We see no reason why this wouldn't be the case again."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The gloom over Darfur
Joel Brinkley
Sunday, September 30, 2007
As Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, works to convene a Darfur peace conference in Libya next month, the history of the last few years holds such a stench of failure that I fear his effort is doomed before it begins.
In fact, looking at the facts as they stand today, my advice to the secretary-general: Cancel the whole enterprise!
The Darfur conflict began in early 2003, but it was not until two years later that foreign leaders began trying to mediate a settlement. The story of one of these efforts, in November 2005, may well foretell the outcome of next month's event.
Robert Zoellick, who was deputy secretary of state at the time, took on the Darfur portfolio because his boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, simply didn't want it. She preferred to spend her time on higher priority issues, like North Korea and Iran.
Zoellick took up the challenge by researching the issue all the way down into the weeds and making detailed lists and charts of the players and the problems. Then, after a couple of visits to Sudan, he summoned the leaders of the various Darfur rebel groups to a conference at a resort hotel in Nairobi.
Unfortunately for Zoellick, just a few days earlier, Minni Minawi, one leader of the main Darfur rebel group, had himself elected chairman while the longtime incumbent chairman, Abdul Wahid Nur, was away. With that, the rebel group splintered into two, and the two men formed an enduring bitter hatred.
Zoellick said his strategy was to get all of the rebels, including these two, to speak with one voice and offer one strategy. Otherwise the government in Khartoum would continue to play on their differences. He invited both men to Nairobi.
Zoellick set himself up in a conference room overlooking the pool, and the faction led by Nur filed in first. A short time later Minawi and his acolytes walked in, feigned surprise and indignation, then turned on their heels and marched out. Nur's people left, too - leaving Zoellick alone in the room. He sat quietly, looking down at his notes.
Only after Zoellick's aides threatened and cajoled the two men did they finally agree to sit in the room, where Zoellick told them: "We want to help, but you need to help us by speaking with a unified voice." Two hours later, he could not get them to sign even a bland statement of goals.
Fast forward to the spring of 2006. Zoellick convened a major Darfur peace conference in Abjua, Nigeria, co-hosted by Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian president. In attendance were representatives of the Sudanese government and all the rebel factions.
After a week of hard bargaining they reached tentative agreement on a far-reaching peace treaty. But just as the signing ceremony was about to begin, Nur stormed out of the room saying he would not sign. Minawi and some other less important rebel leaders signed. Back in Darfur, Nur kept fighting, and within a few weeks Darfur had descended into carnage and destitution every bit as severe as before the treaty signing.
Now we have the secretary-general of the United Nations planning still-another peace conference of his own - and in just one month. Wouldn't you know it, Minawi has agreed to attend, but Nur has not, saying he won't attend a peace conference until, effectively, the war is over. Another rebel leader, Ahmed Abdel Shafi, says he will not attend until a cease-fire takes hold.
The Sudanese government has, of course, agreed to attend. What could be better than to be seen as the only reasonable party to this conflict? Just to verify the absurdity of that, last week Sudan formed its own committee to investigate human-rights violations in Darfur, such as ethnic cleansing, genocide, mass rapes and unspeakable carnage. This was billed as a complement to the International Criminal Court's Darfur investigation. To head this new committee, President Omar el-Bashir appointed Ahmed Muhammed Harun, Sudan's interior minister from 2003 to 2005. In that job he recruited, funded and armed the militias responsible for the mass murder in Darfur.
So if Bashir says he is interested in peace, understand that his interest is to participate in a process that will fall apart because his enemies cannot agree. Then he is free to continue the ethnic cleansing in Darfur for another few months, or years.
Ban is new in his job. He is certainly eager to make his mark. But can't he see? He's walking into a trap. Under the current circumstances, a Darfur peace conference cannot succeed. The true winners will be Bashir and his murderous henchmen. And with another failure barely a year after the last one, this conference is poised to serve only as another major setback for peace.
>>>
24 Hours for Darfur
+++++++++++++++++++
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
YouTube Link=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET1cYvmHvag&NR=1
>>>
STOP DARFUR GENOCIDE
++++++++++++++++
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
YouTube Link=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcrD2WKrkAg
>>>
Joel Brinkley is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and a former foreign policy correspondent for the New York Times.
This article appeared on page E - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Come Together and Create!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka:Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
Peter S. Lopez ~aka:Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
http://www.networkaztlan.com/
First Blogged 9/30/07
Update 10/31/07 with video clips
C/S
First Blogged 9/30/07
Update 10/31/07 with video clips
C/S
No comments:
Post a Comment