Daily Darfur: A "Low Intensity" Tenderbox

by Michelle

category: Daily Darfur

Published April 28, 2009 @ 04:09AM PT

The head of the UNAMID peacekeeping force told the UN Security Council yesterday that Darfur is now a "low intensity conflict," with the number of violent deaths down substantially, but still is at risk for "serious escalation."

Rodolphe Adada pinned the number of (mostly civilian) deaths from violent conflict at about 150 a month, but recognized that this number only tells part of the story:

"We are deeply concerned about the risk of humanitarian catastrophe, not least because we are the most visible representatives of the international community in Darfur," Adada said.

The decline in outright violent conflict is certainly a good thing, but is little cause for celebration: With 2.7 million internally displaced and 4.7 million dependent on humanitarian aid, increasingly splintered rebel factions that seem to spend as much time fighting each other as they do the government, the presence of the military and government-backed Janjaweed militia, a litany of more local conflicts, and a host of other complications, prospects for lasting peace seem more complicated by the day.

Despite still being severely under-resourced and only at 69% deployment, Adada reported modest success in protecting civilians and "speaking with authority on the situation on the ground."

A couple of morning "WTF?" moments:

First, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is in talks with his Somali counterpart about supporting the formation of a Somali national army:

"The spokesman of the Sudanese president Mohamud Fadil told AFP that both presidents had a meeting in Khartoum and talked more about the formation of security forces for the Somali government and how the peace and the stability of Somalia would be restored."

Given that Sudan's approach to peace and stability has been, let's say, less than successful, this cannot be a good sign of things to come from Somalia, if this is the model they seek to emulate.

Second, the Herald of Zimbabwe, my favorite dictatorial propaganda rag, reports that three Zimbabwean prison officers were deployed to Khartoum "on a peacekeeping mission":

"The officers will be responsible for providing advice and support to the country's prison service personnel, developing local training capacity and providing training to personnel at senior management and institutional levels."

In case you're curious about the Zimbabwean approach to criminal justice, as they now seem to be exporting their tactics, the prisons have recently been described as "death camps" and  "hell on earth."

Quickies

John Norris points out on the ENOUGH blog that US Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration needs a staff of more than four in order to pull off his mighty large task at hand, while Nick Kristof offers a cautionary word about any move towards premature appeasement:

"I wasn't at that meeting, and I haven't spoken to Gration recently, so I don't know if the article got it right. In theory, I can see an argument for offering Khartoum carrots as well as sticks. But in practice, Khartoum always buffaloes new envoys - if they don't have experience in Sudan, and Gration has none - and it takes them about a year to realize that they are being lied to and that nothing will happen."

The issue is, of course, that the U.S. cannot normalize relations with Sudan before seeing any real moves towards peace by Khartoum, lest we fall victim to the old adage: "Fool me once, shame on you..."

Five members of Congress and three prominent Darfur activists were arrested yesterday at a protest in front of the Sudanese embassy in DC.

The Justice and Equality Movement rebuffed Qatar's attempt to lead peace negotiations, so Qatar brought five smaller rebel factions to Doha for talks.