Darfur Remains Adrift: A Skeptical Assessment of Resolution 1769

By: Eric Reeves

The chances for effective deployment of civilian police and well-trained military forces to Darfur continue to be compromised by excessive international accommodation of the National Islamic Front (National Congress Party) regime in Khartoum. A key actor forcing this compromised diplomatic response to massive ongoing atrocity crimes, as well as to the continuing threat of humanitarian collapse, is the African Union---and most particularly African Union Commissioner Alpha Oumar Konaré. If there is to be any chance for expeditious and meaningful deployment of the force specified by UN Security Council Resolution 1769, then there must be very near term and consequential pressure on both Khartoum and Addis Ababa. The latter serves as headquarters for the still-nascent African organization that is fast squandering its meager political and military credibility in Darfur.

Moreover, it remains the case that China has only begun to use its singularly powerful leverage with Khartoum to produce changes in the regime’s military behavior on the ground in Darfur, and to adopt a reasonable negotiating posture. This is so despite glib optimism in some reporting quarters on the “genocide Olympics” campaign, which despite significant successes in compelling China’s attention has yet to exert enough pressure to force the needed changes in diplomatic, political, and economic policies toward Sudan.
Nor can this stubborn fact be changed simply with expedient assertions that somehow Beijing has been especially helpful on Darfur. Here, Ban Ki-moon, head of UN peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno, US Special Envoy for Sudan Andrew Natsios, British officials, and others are all guilty. They would encourage the international community to believe what is so far conspicuously and mainly an international public relations effort is actually a major Chinese policy change toward Sudan. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>