Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Update: UN-AU force takes over for AU.

Simon Warren

On the ground-- In a symbolic move yesterday, the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur became a United Nations one, swapping their green berets for blue ones, and gaining the promise of more troops, better equipment, and greater security mandate. 20,000 troops and 6,000 police from several nations are planned to be sent to the country, however, there currently are only 9,000, mostly from the previous AU mandate. In the next two months, soldiers from Egypt, Pakistan, and Ethiopia, and police from Nepal are expected to be deployed. The force will be the largest peacekeeping operation in the world.

After a meeting with Libyan president Moammar Gadhafi, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak announced that his country would be sending 1,200 troops in the next few days.

In the ceremony yesterday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasized the gaps in the UNAMID deployment, particularly the lack of logistical support. The new force is asking for 24 helicopters to patrol the Dafur region, and no country has yet pledged the transportation or other units needed to protect civilians. He also went on to discuss the troubling role of the UN as a peacekeeping force, rather than a diplomatic force, and urged both sides to negotiate and avoid violence.

In diplomacy-- An American diplomat, John Granville, and his driver, Abdel Rahman Abbas, were shot an killed early Tuesday morning in Khartoum. Granville had been working as part of the US international development agency, and had been part of a team working to bring peace to South Sudan. A U.S. Embassy spokesman said it is “too early to tell” if Granville and Abbas’s deaths were terror or al-Qaida related, or if they were random killings. The Sudanese government says the act had no political or ideological connotations.

On Monday, US President George Bush signed a bill that would allow state and local governments as well as private businesses to divest from companies with large ties to Sudan’s mining, oil, or military industries. The White House had reservations in regard to the bill as it allows non-federal governments to have a hand in foreign policy, however, decided to sign the bill given its humanitarian value, and under the condition that it not interfere with federal policy.