U.N. approves up to 26,000 troops, police for Darfur

This is a story that Lawhawk has been all over the past year or even more. However, he probably missed this as it came out while was probably on his way home. I am sure you will see a whole article from him on this shortly. So here is the teaser article:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council authorized on Tuesday up to 26,000 troops and police for Darfur and approved the use of force to protect civilians in Sudan's arid western region.

Expected to cost more than $2 billion in the first year, the combined "hybrid" U.N.-African Union operation aims to quell violence in Darfur, where more than 2.1 million people have been driven into camps and an estimated 200,000 have died over the past four years.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who conducted months of talks with Khartoum, described the resolution as "historic and unprecedented" and said the mission would "make a clear and positive difference."

The resolution, number 1769, invokes Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, under which the United Nations can authorize force. The measure allows the use of force for self-defense, to ensure the free movement of humanitarian workers and to protect civilians under attack, but acknowledges Sudan's sovereignty.

But the resolution, which has been watered down several times, no longer allows the new force to seize and dispose of illegal arms. Now it can only monitor such weapons.

I am not sure that this is anything more than symbolism over substance. The U.N. is not sending a peace keeping force, it is sending a baby sitting squad with power to observe. They can't seize and dispose of illegal weapons, only monitor them? Monitor them doing what...shooting and killing innocent civilians. "Yup, that was an illegal weapon that killed that baby over there...good monitoring troops!"

I am tired of this. The U.N. is a useless agency that is mired in its own mediocrity and irrelevance. U.N. peace keeping forces have failed to keep peace since its founding. U.N. peace keepers themselves have been almost as bad as the forces they are supposed to protecting civilians from.

Its about time the United Nations authorizes a peace keeping force with authority to actually keep the peace. Who will actually make a difference rather than "monitor" illegal weapons. Take the illegal weapons! They don't want to give them up, use force. Monitoring the situation is only going to allow the status quo to continue. All we will be left with is another acronym, UNAMID or the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, and another failed peace initiative, more innocent lives lost and a bad situation made worse by inaction and failed action.

Rally for Action on Darfur

Protests have taken place around the world to demand intervention to end the fighting in Sudan's Darfur region.

Organisers of the Global Day for Darfur said events were taking place in 35 capitals to mark the fourth anniversary of the conflict.

Protests included a rally in Downing Street in London, as well as a march on Rome's Coliseum and a demonstration in the German capital Berlin.

Some 200,000 people have died since the conflict began, according to the UN.

Celebrities backing the campaign, such as George Clooney and Mick Jagger, have signed a statement accusing the international community of apathy.

It's not apathy. It's willful and calculated scheming by China and others to block any action that would bring UN peacekeepers to the region because of China's insatiable need for energy. Sudan refuses to permit peacekeepers to operate throughout the affected region and has had a hand in the genocide by backing the janjaweed in their ethnic cleansing of the region.

And there's yet another difficult question to ask - what should the US do about Darfur? Should the US intervene? And if you say yes, then what about the ethnic cleansing in Iraq that resulted in hundreds of thousands killed at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his thugs? Such is the difficult slippery slope of selectively demanding action by the US to deal with massive and overwhelming human rights abuses.

Frankly, I have no problem with the US intervening in Darfur because that region, like Iraq and many other places around the world simply become an incubator for terrorists and thugs to run rampant and cause mayhem and violence. Trying to impose some kind of governance is preferable to the alternative - anarchy fueling terrorism and those who would be open to terrorism because they lack any alternatives.

Kofi's Stone Throwing

His last official appearance is December 19. To the end, he refused to call the Darfur situation genocide, which would have mandated action by the UN to intervene. And that he can even see to mention Darfur at all is seen as an accomplishment since he's tried to avoid any discussion of the matter for fear of offending the thugs in Khartoum. Meanwhile the violence continues as Khartoum dickers over the terms of a UN/AU peacekeeping force.

He personally refused to intervene in Rwanda and his butcher's bill exceeds 800,000 from that debacle. Tragic comedy that is more tragedy than comedy.

Then there's the failures listed at Hot Air; ones we're all familiar with, even as Kofi wonders where he's going to spend his retirement and ill gotten gains (perhaps in a country without extradition with the US?).

What do we learn from this? Kofi has never been held accountable for his actions. UNSCAM blows up and he's not held accountable. Peacekeepers engaging in sexual misconduct with those they were sent to protect. Inadequate action taken, and the misconduct continues on missions around the world, including in Haiti and in Africa. Members of the Secretariat are implicated in sexual harassment scandals. No action taken.

The list is endless, yet Kofi feels the need to talk about American accountability yet he feels that the UN should have no accountability for all the pain, misery, and suffering it has inflicted on the downtrodden around the world. From the inability to send peacekeepers to Darfur until hundreds of thousands were slaughtered to Rwanda where the slaughter was complete before uttering a phrase even remotely close to the word genocide, Kofi has sat on his hands while butchers, thugs, and despots slaughtered the innocents. He coddled Saddam Hussein, all the while he slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shi'ites - and for which he now stands on trial for crimes against humanity and genocide - not because the UN took action, but because the US and a coalition of nations realized that something had to be done following all those UN resolutions demanding Iraqi compliance meant nothing.

It was on Kofi's watch that the irrelevance of the UN except as a debating society and to hamstring US foreign policy was made explicit. Attacking Israel became a daily chore for the General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission, which ignored real issues like Darfur, child soldiers, slavery, and a whole host of miseries inflicted on people around the world by the very members of the HRC itself. That such gross violators of human rights would sit in judgment on such a panel is itself a testament to the failures of the UN to deal with the structural and procedural failings - and Kofi's refusal to deal with reform in any meaningful way.

Instead, Kofi has the audacity to attack the US, which is the largest benefactor to the UN, provides the bulk of logistical support for UN peacekeeping operations, and puts the UN to shame when there's an international crisis such as a tsunami or earthquake by being able to provide aid immediately and without convening crisis groups and panels to determine what might be needed for the advance team to set up shop.

Others blogging: Charles at LGF, Stop the ACLU, The American Pundit, and Michelle Malkin.

UPDATE:
Dr. Sanity puts the curse of Annan to verse.

Others blogging: Macranger, Dan Riehl, Decision 08, American Thinker, It Shines For All, GOP and College, Kim Priestap, and Wizbang.

UPDATE:
The situation in Darfur is going to get a whole lot more complicated as AU peacekeepers shot and killed three Darfur refugees.

African Union peacekeepers killed three Darfur rioters when a crowd of angry refugees threatened to break into their base in the town of El Geneina, a U.N. official said Monday.

It was the first time peacekeepers have killed Darfur civilians, marking new deterioration in the war-torn region of western Sudan. In a separate incident, the African Union reported Monday that gunmen had kidnapped two of its peacekeepers the night before.

After the riot and shooting on Sunday, Sudanese police deployed around the African Union base to protect the peacekeepers, aid workers in El Geneina said.

The refugees protesting at the base were relatives of 30 civilians who were executed by pro-government janjaweed fighters on Saturday. They were protesting against the African Union for what they say is the peacekeeping force's failure to protect them.

Earlier coverage is here.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, janjaweed, genocide, crimes against humanity, kofi, failure, and Kofi Annan

International Human Rights Day Marked By Deaths In Darfur

Militiamen on horseback ambushed a refugee convoy in Sudan’s western Darfur region, killing some 30 civilians, the United Nations and aid workers said Sunday, and African Union peacekeepers called to investigate were briefly taken hostage by other refugees.

With violence in the region worsening, aid workers in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, and the U.N. said pro-government janjaweed militiamen ambushed a truck Saturday outside Sirba on a road near the border with Chad and executed about 30 civilians.

“Some of the passengers were shot by the attackers and others were burnt to death,” a U.N. statement said.

Some are claiming that the attacks were by anti-government forces to put the janjaweed, Sudanese government, and the African Union in a bad light. The AU Peacekeepers have come under fire and had to return fire in some of the latest incidents.

Peacekeepers returned fire when they saw their attackers were armed with rocket-propelled grenades, an African Union soldier said. It was not clear who the assailants were, said the soldier, who insisted on speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

In a sign of the African Union’s difficulties in Darfur, Sudanese police were deployed around the camp to protect the peacekeepers. The police presence suggested the attack was by civilians frustrated with the peacekeepers and not the janjaweed, a U.N. official said.

UN and other relief agencies have withdrawn their people from some of the areas because of the increased violence. That only makes a bad situation worse, and distrust between the refugees and those who are trying to help them. Darfurian refugees have no reason to trust the regime in Khartoum, for their support of the janjaweed, so seeing the police operating with the AU adds to the distrust.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan

Tragic Comedy at UN

Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, now states that the UN is not doing enough to protect the people of Darfur Sudan.

Speaking with unusual candor, Annan said he feared the U.N. was once again not fulfilling its promise to "never again" stay silent in the face of genocide and war crimes.

"Sixty years after the liberation of the Nazi death camps, and 30 years after the Cambodian killing fields, the promise of 'never again' is ringing hollow," he said in a speech Friday to mark International Human Rights Day, which is Sunday.

In a reference to the protracted negotiations between the United Nations and the government of Sudan, Annan said blame for the continuing "horror" of Darfur could be shared among "those who value abstract notions of sovereignty more than the lives of real families, those whose reflex of solidarity puts them on the side of governments and not of peoples."

In August, the Security Council called for more than 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers to replace an overwhelmed African Union force, but made their deployment contingent on Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's assent.

Last month, al-Bashir agreed in principle to allow a "hybrid" AU-U.N. operation, though he later reiterated his opposition to U.N. troops in Darfur.

Many have criticized the international community for inaction in responding to the crisis in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced by three years of fighting between rebels and government forces.

If his words weren't so tragic and accurate, they would be comic. Annan has done everything imaginable to avoid dealing with the crisis in Darfur. He has refused to call the events there genocide, despite the fact that the Sudanese government and janjaweed were responsible for murdering hundreds of thousands of people, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and has refused to take a greater role in putting together a peacekeeping force to deal with the ongoing threat posed by the regime in Khartoum.

By failing to utter the key words genocide, he has refused to invoke the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which would have demanded immediate international action to stop the violence.

That China and others have stymied Security Council action because of their close ties to Khartoum cannot go unremarked upon either. Annan, knowing that the situation in Darfur was dire, did not take steps to demand that China relent on the issue - making way for Security Council action to deal with the situation, nor did Annan engage in sufficient diplomatic actions to pressure Sudan into accepting peacekeepers.

Annan has been a colossal failure as Secretary General, and Darfur is only the latest genocide to occur during his tenure at the UN. Perhaps he realizes too late what he has wrought by his inaction, though I doubt it.

Annan also complained about the disproportionate focus of the UN's Human Rights Council in the six months since it was created. The panel has picked on Israel as the sole focus of its gaze, ignoring every other country and their rampant violations of human rights laws - from Darfur to China to Iran. Funny, but it would have been useful if Annan commented about the disproportionate focus months ago - or years ago - considering that the General Assembly engages is disproportionate action on Israel annually and the UN could rightfully be called the Nations United against Israel.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan

Saudis Funding Terror in Africa

Just as I've been warning for some time now, the failed states of Africa will be used as breeding grounds for international terror groups, including al Qaeda:

Refugee camps in the Sudanese region of Darfur are being infiltrated by Al Qaeda, Chad said yesterday.

Backed by wealthy Saudi Arabians and the Sudanese government, mercenaries are gaining power in Darfur, Chad said. A neighbor of Sudan, Chad is strongly advocating a U.N. force for Darfur, though Sudan rejected a U.N. Security Council proposal yesterday to boost the small African Union force now in the region.

The U.N. proposal would have added more troops and equipment for a new force operating under the command of the United Nations. Chad hosts millions of Sudanese refugees who have crossed the border from Darfur to escape the murder, rape, and pillaging committed by Sudanese government-backed Arab militias known as the janjaweed, in a campaign described by the Bush administration as genocide.

When American officials offered recently to involve NATO in stopping the violence in Darfur, Sudanese officials said the presence of Westerners in their mostly Muslim country would only inspire the militants, including Al Qaeda, who would unite to fight the foreigners.

But the Chadian ambassador to the United Nations, Mahamat Ali Adoum, wrote to the president of the Security Council yesterday that unless foreign troops are sent to control the refugee camps, Al Qaeda will join forces with anti-government rebels there.

That the AU, UN, and even the US are reluctant to deal with the problems associated with failed states, peacekeeping, or peacemaking, the failed states in Africa will continue to be a breeding ground for al Qaeda and other terror groups that will have the space and opportunity to plot attacks against neighboring countries and the West.

The situation in the camps is going to be exploited by the terrorists and few are willing to take action. Terrorists exploit failed states to set up shop, they rely on chaos and a lack of governance to provide cover, and to recruit foot soldiers in their campaign against the West. They'll find common cause among the dispossessed.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan

The Sudan Wars Continue

If it isn't the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur, it's the Sudanese government going after its opponents elsewhere in the country. Hundreds die in the process, and the world issues a collective yawn; the UN shrugs its shoulders, and the General Assembly is probably busy preparing yet another anti-Israel resolution as I write this:

Hundreds of people may have been killed in the heaviest fighting between northern Sudanese forces and their former southern rebel foes since they signed a peace deal last year, a top southern officer said on Thursday.

In Nigeria's capital Abuja, the African Union decided to extend for six months the mandate of its peacekeeping force in Sudan's western Darfur region, where a separate conflict has killed an estimated 200,000 people since early 2003.

In the southern town of Malakal, terrified civilians reported looting and dead bodies in the streets after three days of clashes, and U.N. officials in New York said 240 civilian personnel had been temporarily evacuated from the town.

"More than hundreds have been lost. The Sudan army sustained very heavy casualties and civilians were caught in the crossfire," Elias Waya Nyipuocs, a senior officer in the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army, told Reuters.

Flagrant violations of 2005 peace deal. Silence from the UN.

Meanwhile, Khartoum is playing games over whether they're going to let the UN take over for the AU forces. Some reports say that Khartoum is refusing to go along with UN control, while others say that they're going to accept the plan for the UN to lead AU peacekeepers.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan

Darfur Decimation Continues

The Sudanese government, operating in conjunction with janjaweed militias, continue their devastation of Darfur. Villages emptied and razed. Villagers are murdered.

A senior U.N. official in North Darfur said international observers were receiving daily reports of raids and casualties throughout this vast semidesert pastureland north of the state capital of El Fasher.

"The campaign is ongoing, and we are being given very limited access to investigate or treat casualties," the official said by phone from North Darfur. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur said in a statement Saturday it had received reports that the Sudanese air force twice bombed Birmaza last week. The attacks took a "heavy toll on the civilian population," the A.U. said.

The Sudanese military was not immediately available for comment Sunday. Last week, however, the army denied it was conducting an offensive in North Darfur.

As many as 450,000 people have been killed by disease and violence and 2.5 million displaced since fighting began three years ago, when rebels stemming from ethnic African tribes rose up against the Arab-led central government.

Children dragged from their mothers and murdered.

The Washington Post article does have a few of its facts wrong. The Darfur genocide - and it is a genocide, together with ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity - began as the janjaweed, the Arab militias, began their terror campaign against the residents of Darfur by forcibly displacing them from their land. The conflict intensifed in 2003 when local militias began fighting back against Khartoum's policies.

Meanwhile, leave it Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to call the insertion of UN peacekeepers into Darfur a "return to colonialism" and that the Sudanese military would be better suited to stop the conflict. Earth to Moammar - the Sudanese military is involved in the conflict; they're the ones involved in the ethnic cleansing and genocidal activities. One of the rebel leaders in Darfur has continued to call for international peacekeepers to get involved in stopping the violence. He's also claimed to have destroyed Sudanese government vehicles involved in attacks in Darfur:

Ahmed Abdelshabi Yagoub, leader of one of three wings of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), said Sunday fighting was ongoing and had been raging for days in northern and eastern Darfur.

"As we are speaking now, there is fighting around Jabel Mara and other areas," he told AFP in an interview in Nairobi, where he was en route to Darfur from the Eritrean capital Asmara.

Yagoub said that fierce clashes Saturday in the Sani-Aye area, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) north of Melliti town in north Darfur, had claimed dozens of fighters from both sides.

"In fighting yesterday, we lost seven fighters who were killed by an helicopter gunship, but we killed dozens of government troops who were backed by Janjaweed," he said, referring to Darfur`s Arab militia.

In addition, the rebel chief said his fighters had destroyed several government vehicles and captured others in hours of battles in sweltering heat.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan

Disaster in Darfur Continues

Sudanese forces and the janjaweed have renewed attacks in Darfur. The lede doesn't say attacks on who. Curious isn't it? You read the article, and you never do find out who they're attacking, killing, or injuring.

One would presume that they're going after rebel forces, but they're raiding villages and engaging in ethnic cleansing:

The Sudanese government together with the Janjaweed militia have launched new attacks in northern Darfur, the African Union (AU) has said.
The AU said the ground and air offensive was a flagrant violation of security agreements.

It said there had been a heavy toll on a civilian population. Rebels in the area said 70 people had died.

Earlier, Sudan welcomed the UN's support for AU peacekeepers in Darfur but denied the UN will take command.

The AU said in a statement that Birmaza, a much fought over village in Darfur, had been subject to ground and aerial assault.

The statement said there had been heavy casualties among the civilian population, but gave no figures.

Rebels in the area said the government troops and Arab militia were continuing on Saturday to burn villages and loot cattle.

Sudan is resisting pressure from the West to allow peacekeepers access to Darfur, let alone UN forces to replace the AU.

Jan Egeland warns that the situation in Darfur may get infinitely worse. Well, don't count on the UN actually stepping in and demanding access to the region, along with the peacekeepers to stop the violence and put down the Sudanese militias and janjaweed that have displaced millions, and killed hundreds of thousands of people.

A joint Sudanese army and pro-government janjaweed militia attack killed several civilians in the Jebel Marra mountain range late Friday, hours after he was barred from going there, Egeland said. He did not specify how many people had died in this rebel stronghold.

Egeland also hoped that the implementation of the agreement reached in Addis Ababa would be used "to turn the corner to something better" in the relations between Khartoum and humanitarian workers.

Sudanese government officials were threatening to ban any aid group or U.N. agency from working in Darfur next year, said Egeland, who stated that "the international right to humanitarian access is being ignored in Darfur."

More than US$1 billion (€0.78 billion) are being spent in humanitarian aid to Darfur this year, he said, stating that the single largest donor was the United States.

Far from being helpful, Khartoum is closing off access to Darfur. What is it that the regime doesn't want the world to know or see? That the genocide and ethnic cleansing continues - aided and abetted by Sudanese forces?

Where is the UN Human Rights Committees and international organizations decrying Sudanese actions, demanding investigations into war crimes, crimes against humanity, and a whole host of other related charges brought against the Sudanese government for condoning the actions in Darfur? They certainly seem to find the time to go after Israel when Israel goes after terrorists who seek to kill Israelis, yet they turn a blind eye to when Sudan goes after unarmed subsistence farmers - destroying their villages and chasing them clear into neighboring countries.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan

Deal on Darfur

The African Union and the UN have agreed on a way to continue ineffectual peacekeeping operations in Darfur, all while Sudan looks at ways to further marginalize the operations.

Sudan says it welcomes the United Nations' support for the African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur but denies the UN will take command.
Sudan has always rejected plans to replace the AU force with a larger, stronger UN mission.

On Thursday, UN chief Kofi Annan had said a compromise had been reached for a hybrid UN-AU force, to break the deadlock over the Darfur mission.

More than 200,000 people have died in three years of conflict in the region.

I don't fault the AU's efforts, mind you, because they're doing a thankless job that no one else wanted to do. The UN had to be pushed and prodded into taking action, despite the fact that we've been witnessing genocide in Darfur for more than two years now.

Even now, Kofi cannot utter the word genocide because that would require the UN taking immediate action. Thus, we get euphemisms for genocide and the mass murder perpetrated in the region. Some estimate the number of dead to be significantly higher than this tally - 270,000 being a number mentioned earlier this year.

The level of violence continues to escalate despite the fact that the janjaweed have essentially depopulated the region. The region has been ethnically cleansed by the janjaweed, which has lately been subsumed into Khartoum's militias. Now, the fighting has spilled over into neighboring Chad, which has threatened military action against Sudan if they don't begin controlling the border.

Of course, the millions of refugees are stuck in the middle.

But the diplomats at the UN can claim a diplomatic victory. That's cold comfort for the dead and displaced.

UPDATE:
This is what the UN had to say about the situation in Darfur and Chad:

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland returned to Khartoum today, two days earlier than scheduled, after he was denied permission to travel beyond Darfur’s state capitals by the Government of Sudan, for unspecified security reasons.

Gee, we've seen this before. The Sudanese government doesn't like it when outside observers get to see what's going on inside Darfur because the reality is just too damning.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports continuing displacement along the volatile Chad-Sudan border, with recent refugee arrivals from Darfur as well as thousands of Chadians being forced to flee ongoing violence. This morning, UNHCR staff in eastern Chad began moving the first of some 1,500 newly-arrived Darfur refugees away from the Sudanese border to a UNHCR camp near the Chadian town of Guereda.

Meanwhile, in Kenya, UNHCR will begin airlifting emergency supplies this Sunday for thousands of refugees made homeless by massive flooding in Kenya’s Dadaab region.

The UN is more than helpful after the fact, but with a swift intervention at the onset of the violence, the spread of violence into Chad could have been minimized, if not completely averted. Kudos to the UN once again for screwing the pooch.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan

Failed States in the News

So, now that the Dems are in charge of Congress, will they demand military action on Darfur? Or Somalia? Or are they going to ignore those human rights debacles just as quickly as they can? I fear they're going to ignore the problems as so much heavy baggage that needed unloading the moment they got back into power.

The Democrats don't care one whit about human rights, let alone in places where there was and is genocide ongoing. Or failed states that have turned into al Qaeda safe havens yet again. That's why the Democrats public statements have all be related to Iraq, and getting out of there as quickly as possible. The consequences of such a withdrawal are dire, but one only has to look elsewhere in the region to see what a hasty retreat can and will do.

The Horn of Africa is a very dangerous place, and it is all the more so because the US is ignoring the problems in Somalia because they don't want to deal with a problem that needed to be dealt with in the 1990s but one military engagement back then soured us on dealing with the problem (Black Hawk Down) through the inability to follow through on our stated policy at the time (to go after the Somali warlord Aidid after taking casualties).

We're still paying for that lack of resolve. Al Qaeda was emboldened by our withdrawal from Somalia without achieving our goals, and yet again al Qaeda will take advantage of our inability to deal with failed states. Failed states are the safe haven of choice for al Qaeda. With no government to go after them, they can operate openly and freely, recruiting from the militias and unemployed to be foot soldiers in their jihad.

Refusing to talk about these problems does not make them go away. The Democrats have said that they want to devote more intel to emerging threats in Africa, but the threats have been there all along, and they've done nothing to address them. The GOP hasn't done much better, choosing to let the undermanned African Union try to handle the issue in Darfur and hope that supplying the opponents of the Islamists in Somalia would be sufficient to deter their advances. That effort has been a failure, and Somalia is in the hands of Islamists who are likely to allow al Qaeda safe haven. That situation is intolerable and despite whatever misgivings Democrats and Republicans might have in reengaging the question, Somalia must be dealt with.

UPDATE:
Speaking of Sudan and Darfur, it looks like the situation has actually gotten worse. The violence has spilled over into neighboring Chad in a big way.

What has happened is that there is this firestorm of ethnic cleansing, which started as an effort to seize territory, that has spiraled out of control. The violence is widely blamed on the ambitions of the Arab government of Sudan to seize territory and squash a rebel movement. There has been a systematic burning of people’s homes, and now some 200,000 Darfurians are living in these squalid refugee camps in Chad and their lives are completely changed.

We focused on the children, and I asked them to draw pictures of their lives in Darfur, as well as pictures of what happened in the attacks. The pictures of their lives in Darfur are so full of colors, flowers, animals and happy smiles. And then the pictures of the day of the attacks are full of men with guns, fire and people dying. You can see that even though much of this was almost two years ago, they are still haunted.

This violence has now escalated. In the last ten days more than 20 villages in Chad have been burned in the same way as the attacks in the Darfur region of Sudan. The perpetrators have come from Sudan, wearing Sudanese military uniforms, and have joined forces with Arabs here in Chad. Now this Arab-on-African violence is moving deep into Chad.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the last ten days and thousands are fleeing. We are hearing every day about villages being lit on fire by these Arab militias, who locals believe have been uniformed and armed by the Sudanese government. The militants are shouting racial epithets, gang-raping women and killing the men.

And arms deals are a big problem in Somalia as all sides in the conflict are being supplied arms from neighboring countries, particularly Ethiopia and Eritrea (which themselves engaged in a long and bloody war). Iran makes its presence felt as well:

An advance copy of the report to the U.N. Security Council, obtained by Reuters on Monday, paints the most comprehensive picture yet of disparate foreign interests hardening into alliances with Somalia's interim government and its powerful Islamist rivals.

It also says Iran may have sought to trade arms for uranium from Somalia or elsewhere in Africa to fuel its nuclear ambitions.

Both groups vying for control of the Horn of Africa nation since Islamists took the capital Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords in June have extensive foreign state backing.

Ethiopia and Eritrea, backing the government and Islamists respectively, are the biggest violators of a 1992 U.N. arms embargo on Somalia, the report says, adding they have sent in vast quantities of weapons and equipment and provided training.

The consequences are dire for not dealing with failed states.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, somalia, ethiopia, eritrea, african union, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan

Spillover

The ethnic cleansing, genocide, and violence is spilling over into neighboring Chad. Sudan has tried to keep the UN out of this matter claiming that this was an internal matter. No longer:

Sudanese Janjaweed militia and Chadian rebels have attacked at least 10 villages in southeast Chad in the past two weeks, killing over 100 people and displacing more than 3,000, local and U.N. officials say.

The attacks are part of a spillover of violence from Sudan's western Darfur region, where violence has increased as seasonal riverbeds dry out after annual rains, becoming passable to rebel jeeps and Janjaweed on horses or camels.

"First we were attacked by local Chadian Arabs and the Janjaweed," said Usman Mucktar Hassan, sitting exhausted and dusty after fleeing his devastated village of Djimese Djarma.

"They came on horseback and used M14s to shoot at us. We managed to fight them off for a few days, but then they sent in the rebels. The rebels came in their Toyotas. They had heavy arms like bazookas. They killed many people," he said.

Where is the line to be drawn? How many hundreds of thousands more will be killed because the UN refuses to act to uphold its own charter and the Genocide Convention? Never Forget is nothing but an empty slogan to the diplomats at the UN. Sounds great, but when push comes to shove and actions need to be taken to stop a genocide before it the butchers' bill can be fulfilled, dithering and inaction rule the day.

Sure, many turn their eyes to the US to see if it will take action to save the people of Darfur. And the US has not done enough, even though it has done more than most - providing the logistical support for the African Union that wants out.

As this threatens to become a regional conflict, Chad and Ethiopia may end up taking matters into their own hands, and deal with the Sudanese government, which is behind much of the violence.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan

The Save Darfur Rally in Central Park

Gothamist and Brendan Loy have photos and roundups of the rally in Central Park, New York calling on the UN to take action on the Darfur genocide. Sudan has thus far refused to allow the UN to send in peacekeepers to the region to take over for the African Union, which is leaving at the end of the month.

There were quite a few prominent speakers at the rally, including former Sec. State Madeline Albright, who called on President Bush to pressure the Sudan to admit the UN peacekeepers.

President Bush will likely mention Darfur in his speech before the General Assembly, but don't expect to hear much about Darfur from any of the other member states, let alone Kofi Annan, who can't even bring himself to calling Darfur a genocide, despite the mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and more than 2 million people displaced. Kofi will not take any action on the matter, despite saying that more might be killed if there is no action, and he's already shown himself incapable of dealing with human rights abuses - as the UN's hideous inaction on Rwanda's genocide shows.

Sudan, meanwhile, says that Darfur needs development, not peacekeepers. Well, considering that you've run off all the former residents, I can see why the Islamists in Khartoum think that they only need development. Their janjaweed militias had no problems killing and scaring off all the former residents, leaving a devastated wasteland in their wake.

Darfur Death Toll Underreported

Well, this can't be much of a surprise. I've been using a figure of 270,000 people killed in the course of the Darfur genocide, but appearently that figure may still be too low:

By using scientific sampling techniques and data from camps for displaced persons, two researchers based in the United States estimated that as many as 255,000 people have died, though they believe the actual number may be much higher.

“We could easily be talking about 400,000 deaths,” said John Hagan, a sociologist at Northwestern University and an author of the article, along with Alberto Palloni, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin. “And when you’re talking about genocide, it’s essential to properly identify the scale of death,” Dr. Hagan said in a telephone interview.

In the past, American and United Nations officials have used a range of estimates, from 60,000 to 300,000, to quantify the killing in Darfur, which sank into chaos in 2003. The war started as an uprising of African tribes against Sudan’s Arab rulers but soon degenerated into a conflict with many warring parties and civilians bearing the brunt of the fighting.

The Sudanese government has not released comprehensive casualty figures, but health organizations working in Darfur have surveyed survivors at random about family members who were killed.

Sudan also refuses to let the UN take over peacekeeping duties from the African Union, and its ongoing support of the janjaweed in its fighting, which has been in an upsurge in recent weeks does not help matters.

Save Darfur has more, including a note about the rally being held this Sunday in NYC.

The Deteriorating Condition in Darfur

Whereas people living in Darfur once only had to worry about the Janjaweed running around on horseback or trucks, now they have to fear the Sudanese military flying helicopter gunships and bombers into the region to inflict yet more carnage.

The recent expansion of air attacks has familiarized Darfur civilians with the sights and sounds of military aircraft.

There is the white Antonov bomber that lumbers past, high in the sky, audible but not deafening. A long, high whistle is followed by tremendous boom. The hole left in the reddish Darfur sand is round and about three feet across. Generally, several bombs are dropped in a pass, and then the Antonov comes by again and, sometimes, again.

The aiming is crude, and rarely do the bombs land anywhere near the middle of a village. Also, they rarely seem to kill. What the bombs do, say those who have been near where they hit, is terrify with the force of their blasts and their seeming randomness.

Abubakar Ibrahim Hassan, a long-faced man in a white robe and knit cap who appeared to be in his sixties, said the Antonovs flew over Bellala Gorf several times that day in July. Residents fled their huts for trees at the edge of the village.

"We knew the fire would come and kill everybody," he said.

But far more frightening are the Mi-24s. The helicopters can be outfitted with machine guns, bombs and rockets designed to blast through heavy armor. Villagers in Bellala Gorf described the Mi-24s firing munitions that left a distinctive trench-like pattern, about 10 feet long and three feet across, the signature of rockets fired from close to the ground.

Villages have emptied as residents flee the new onslaught. But there will be peace. The peace of annihilation of all that stand in the way of the regime in Khartoum. Perhaps then will Khartoum allow the UN peacekeepers to come in and declare that there is no more war there.

And the hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced will quickly be forgotten by the UN that has chosen repeatedly to ignore the situation.

Darfur, Sudan, and the Islamists

Michelle Malkin notes that a leading journalist in Sudan was found decapitated. His crime? Offending hardline Islamists with his reporting.

Taha's decapitated body was found dumped on a dirt road on Wednesday. He had drawn protests from Islamic groups last year by reprinting a series of articles questioning the roots of the Prophet Mohammed.

Amid cries of "There is no God but God" and "God is Greatest", thousands attended his funeral, including government ministers who sat alongside journalists and Taha's family.

"The authorities have to get these people -- it's their responsibility," said Taha's uncle, Nasrallah Ali Mustafa.

Hundreds of riot police lined the streets of central Khartoum and near the cemetery in a show of force by the interior minister whose resignation was demanded by hundreds of mourners at the morgue on Wednesday after Taha's body was found.

Taha was himself an Islamist, but it appears that his criticism of other extremists got him in trouble. Some journalists have spoken out in his defense, but they too have to worry about their own safety.

Far from this being an isolated case of the Islamists killing their opponents in Sudan as posited by the media reports, it is part of the Islamists larger campaign centered on Darfur.

The Islamists in charge of Sudan have had no problem with the mass slaughter and wholesale dislocation of millions in Darfur, and have refused to allow the African Union turn over peacekeeping duties in Darfur to the UN, which only recently passed a resolution on handling peacekeeping in Darfur. Khartoum refuses to allow the UN to operate in Darfur in any fashion, and has been gearing up for a military offensive against rebels.

ReliefWeb notes that Sudan has called the world's bluff on Darfur. Khartoum knows that the UN doesn't have the willpower to get a peacekeeping operation in Darfur, and therefore can do as it pleases.

The international geopolitical weather could hardly be more favourable for Khartoum than right now. With negotiations continuing over a UN peacekeeping force for Lebanon, and the Iranian nuclear crisis unresolved, the Sudanese government has room to maneuver in confronting any international intervention in Darfur.

Even if a UN force was agreed to by the Sudanese, it remains unclear where troops would come from for such a remote and difficult region. In recent months, statements attributed to Osama bin Laden have cited Darfur as a location for jihad should western troops be deployed as UN peacekeepers. With a renewed Taliban offensive in southern Afghanistan and the Pentagon releasing a report last week speculating on an Iraqi civil war, Darfur remains low on the international crisis pecking order.

Despite the statement from then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell in September 2004 that genocide had taken place in Darfur, a UN commission that reported in January 2005 concluded that while there had been crimes against humanity and war crimes, the government of Sudan "had not pursued a policy of genocide." A finding of genocide would have perhaps forced the UN to intervene more strongly.

The Sudanese are backed at the UN by permanent Security Council members Russia and China, prominent investors in the Sudanese oil sector, who abstained from the vote on Resolution 1706.

The so-called peace deal between the various factions in Sudan is a farce, and the regime in Khartoum is operating in conjunction with the Janjaweed in Darfur.

Not only has the Sudanese government refused to give consent to a UN mission in Darfur and threatened to expel African Union (AU) peacekeepers, it has also renewed its military offensive in northern Darfur, apparently in alliance with the Janjaweed militia and the rebel faction that signed the May Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) – a peace agreement that is now basically defunct.

The French are trying to get the Sudanese government to accept a peacekeeping force, but the chances are slim that any such action is forthcoming.

What we are seeing is the Islamists in Khartoum alligning themselves more openly with the very thugs who directly perpetrated the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Previously, Khartoum could claim that they were not behind the attacks and slaughter in Darfur, but many suspected that the Janjaweed were being backed by Khartoum. Those links are becoming increasingly clear.

And the Islamization of Sudan was made part of Osama bin Laden's call to arms, as he specifically commented on Darfur in his last video. When will people realize that the Islamists have no intention of peaceful coexistence, but seek to supplant their enemies by force?

UPDATE:
So what did Taha actually say that got him beheaded? This is what I've been able to find thus far:

Taha was no stranger to controversy, having been tried for "blasphemy" last year after offending a Muslim fundamentalist group, Ansar al-Sunnah, with an article about an Islamic manuscript from over 500 years ago entitled "the unknown in the life of the prophet." The document, apparently originally written by Al-Maqrizi, a Muslim historian, cast doubt on the ancestry of the prophet Mohammad, saying that his father was not called Abdallah but Abdel Lat, or "slave of Lat," a pre-Islamic idol.

So, Taha tried to question the historical accuracy of Mohammad's ancestry, using manuscripts from 500 years ago. That will teach you to question anything having to do with Mohammad and the Islamist point of view on Islam.

UN Evacuates From Darfuri Refugee Camp

These are the saviors for the Darfuri refugees?

The United Nations evacuated aid workers and journalists visiting this vast, restive camp for displaced people in Darfur today amid a huge demonstration that suddenly turned violent during a visit by a top United Nations official.

Protestors demanding quick international intervention in Darfur tried to stab an aid worker they suspected of being a government spy. They then approached an African Union compound where eight unarmed soldiers barricaded themselves inside.

"Janjaweed, janjaweed!" the crowd shouted, grasping at a long-time employee of Oxfam, the British aid organization, as he tried to flee the melee in a car. Janjaweed is the term for the local Arab militias who have aligned with the government and carried out brutal attacks on non-Arab villages across the arid countryside of Darfur, a region in western Sudan the size of France.

One young man wielded a knife that sliced into the aid worker's shirt but did not injure him. Elderly women tugged at his legs. Boys wielding sticks and rocks smashed the windows of the United Nations car in which he was trying to flee.

The chaos engulfed one of the most troubled camps for displaced people caught up in the conflict in Darfur, as Jan Egeland, the United Nations' chief humanitarian official, visited the camp. He came to investigate deteriorating conditions after an aid group coordinating humanitarian assistance was evicted last month.

Darfuri refugees have good reason not to trust the UN, which has been an abject failure in dealing with the ongoing genocide in Darfur. The silence by Kofi Annan on the matter has been deafening and the janjaweed have frequently raided refugee camps in Darfur, and even crossing the border into Chad to attack refugees there.

Darfur On The Edge

CNN is reporting that a peace agreement is in the works that could end the violence in Darfur. Not a moment too soon.

The main rebel group has tentatively agreed to a peace deal with the government during talks in Abuja, Nigeria, according to a U.S. diplomat advising the talks.

The United Nations says 180,000 people have died from illness and malnutrition since rebels began attacking in February of 2003, and some 2 million have been forced from their homes.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who's attending the talks, told The Associated Press on Friday that participation by Minni Minnawi, who leads the largest rebel group, has been key.

"Today the largest group, Minni Minnawi's, has agreed to sign and the government of Sudan have agreed to sign as well," Zoellick told AP.

"Not all the movements are in accord, but we're already getting phone calls that people with (rebel faction leader) Abdel Wahid (Nur) believe he has made a mistake."

Two smaller rebel groups have not yet backed the deal which, AP reports, includes disbanding of the government-backed Arab "janjaweed" militias. The militias are blamed for killing and raping villagers and burning villages of mostly black Africans.

Shaking the Tree

Darfur is one of those clarifying moments in international affairs and public response. The same people who opposed acting against Iraq, despite Iraq's longstanding history of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and mass murder, all in addition to the WMD and terror-sponsorships, are now calling on the US to act in Sudan. As usual, Jewish groups are at the forefront of trying to stop yet another genocide.

This is one of those times when we shake the tree to see what falls. And hypocrisy abounds. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in particular should hold their heads in shame. Both anti-war in Iraq, they're calling for stronger action in Sudan, despite the fact that Saddam Hussein is widely acknowledged as having killed more than 300,000 Iraqis, Kurds, and Shi'a during his reign of terror. That's not counting the billions of dollars in environmental damage caused by torching thousands of oil wells in the first Gulf War or destroying the ecology of the marshes in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese militias are rejecting a deal with the government in Khartoum, although this deal would not end the ongoing violence in Darfur. Khartoum has no problem letting the janjaweed run wild over Darfur, and any deal should be seen as only permitting the government breathing room while it deals with Russia and China for continued backing against real action by the UN to end the violence.

Technorati: darfur, dafur, UN, sudan, chad, janjaweed, and Kofi Annan

Marching on Darfur Intervention

Talk is cheap, and the people who are marching have to come through with actions, not simply marches and statements that make them feel better rather than pushing for real action. One has to wonder whether those who are now marching and calling for an intervention in Darfur would take the next step and call for direct military action to stop the genocide. That's the next logical step, and one that would effectively eliminate the janjaweed and the Sudanese militias' capabilities to inflict more misery on the Darfurians.

Instapundit has more.

And that leads me to wonder, yet again, is why we must act in Darfur, but action against Saddam Hussein and Iraq was inappropriate. Genocide was a tactic used by the regimes involved. Mass murder, rape, and rampant violations of basic human rights were a hallmark of Iraq under Saddam and the current regime in Khartoum.

Then, there's the oil. Both Sudan and Iraq have significant reserves of oil. If going to war against Iraq was wrong because there's oil there, is it not wrong to do so in Sudan? What is the difference?

Well, to answer my own question - plenty. Iraq was consistently and regularly violating international agreements, UN Security Council resolutions, and the 1991 cease fire agreement. Iraq has been sanctioned throughout that time period since 1991. Sudan has no such action against it, and the UN is unable to gain the needed consensus to take any action stronger than imposing sanctions on four Sudanese leaders known to be involved in the actions in Darfur.

Here's the thing. I've been calling for action on Darfur for quite some time now. Acting to stop the humanitarian disaster will have collateral results that will improve and enhance US national security. Inaction on Darfur may enable al Qaeda to reestablish itself in the lawless regions of Sudan, and that is simply unacceptable. It is clear that the UN, EU, and NATO are unable or unwilling to stop genocide, despite the fact that all are bound to do so under international law. Thus, it is up to the US to take action, not only to stop the genocide, but to protect the US from the threats posed by allowing lawless regions become a breeding ground for terrorism.