Africa Action Releases New Report On International Failure To Protect Darfur

Main Category: Aid / Disasters
Article Date: 01 Feb 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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Half a year after the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1769 on July 31, 2007, Africa Action releases new analysis detailing the failure of the international community to deploy the peacekeeping force for Darfur authorized by this resolution. Africa Action calls on the Bush administration to put its words into action and move from rhetorical opposition to genocide to proactive engagement with the United Nations to achieve the fully resourced deployment of the complete "hybrid" UN-African Union force (UNAMID) that the Security Council called for six months ago.

Over the past months, UN officials and humanitarian groups operating in Sudan have warned that UNAMID is on the brink of collapse, and recent estimates caution that it may take most of 2008 to deploy the complete mission. For a chronology assessing the missed deadlines and analysis of the current status of this operation, please see the latest Africa Action report at http://www.africaaction.org.

"What the people of Darfur need now is less rhetoric and more sincerity from the international community including the United States," said Gerald LeMelle, Executive Director of Africa Action. "History will remember this administration not for its statements of 'opposition to genocide in Sudan' but for the concrete steps it took to put an effective peacekeeping mission in place and the vigor of its diplomatic efforts. The U.S. must provide international leadership to combine the expedited deployment of this protective force with an inclusive political peace process for Darfur as well as progress in implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between North and South Sudan."

Less than 1,500 of UNAMID's allocated 6,000 police officers and 7,000 out of 20,000 troops are currently in Darfur. No country has yet to offer to provide the two-dozen tactical and transport helicopters the mission requires. The government of Sudan has yet to accept a UN Status of Forces Agreement that would allow UNAMID personnel the operational freedoms, such as freedom of movement and communications and the ability to conduct flights after dark, that they need to fulfill their mandate.

"300,000 people were newly displaced by the violence in Darfur in 2007," said Marie Clarke Brill, Deputy Director of Africa Action. "The UN and aid agencies report that the situation on the ground is the worst since widespread hostilities broke out in 2004. Yet the new US special envoy for Sudan announced earlier this week that he would indefinitely postpone his visit to the country for unspecified reasons. After the premeditated January 7 attacks on a clearly marked UN convoy by Sudanese military forces, the U.S. and the international community can no longer hide from the fact that Khartoum bears the primary responsibility for the suffering of Darfur's civilians. It is unacceptable for the U.S. to prioritize 'War on Terror' intelligence interests in Khartoum over the lives of Sudan's people."

Africa Action has been working to stop genocide in Darfur since early 2004. For the latest analysis on the crisis in Darfur, please see http://www.africaaction.org/darfur.

http://www.africaaction.org

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