AFRICA: Deja vu in Darfur

Editorial


08/31/2005

FORMER NATO Commander Wesley Clark is urging the U.N. Security Council to dispatch about 12,000 NATO troops to Darfur to protect civilians and humanitarian operations until a large contingent of African troops is deployed there next year.

His idea may go nowhere, but it's a warning to the world to take its collective head out of the sand and confront a region where on average about 10,000 innocent civilians are said to die each month. The deaths result not only from malnutrition and disease but from indiscriminate killings by the Janjaweed militias. Enjoying government support for clearing civilians from areas considered disloyal to Sudan, the militias also have burned villages, raped women and displaced millions of people.

To rein in these excesses, an African Union force of 18,000 troops is expected to be on the ground in Darfur by next year. Mr. Clark says that timetable is much too slow, and that troops are needed now to prevent tens of thousand more deaths.

The Security Council has passed resolutions setting up a U.N. Mission in Sudan, expanding the arms embargo in Darfur to include the government and referring cases in Darfur to the International Criminal Court. Even so, according to a report by the International Crisis Group, a nonpartisan group, the situation remains grave and further deaths will occur in the absence of immediate measures to restore security.

Source: www.stltoday.com