Darfur: UN Humanitarian Convoys Come Under Attack

From the UN News Center

United Nations convoys bringing humanitarian assistance to war-torn South Darfur have come under attack by armed men in two separate incidents in recent days, a UN spokesperson said today.

A driver and two passengers suffered minor gunshot wounds when their truck was fired on yesterday while travelling in South Darfur, according to information relayed from the UN Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS). The injuries were not life-threatening and they were being treated in El Geneina hospital.

Over the weekend, another convoy of three UN trucks en route to Zalingei from Nyala, was ambushed by a group of armed men but it was not immediately clear what injuries were sustained in the attack.

Meanwhile, in West Darfur, UNMIS said it has received reports that about 500 Arab militia members, riding horses and camels and supported with Land Cruisers mounted with machine-guns, carried out attacks in several areas there. The African Union Mission in Sudan will investigate reports, the spokesman’s office said.

Darfur: Sudan, UN Clash Over Conditions

From VOA

The Sudanese Minister of Culture says the humanitarian situation in conflict-ridden Darfur is not as serious as it is usually painted in the media or by the United Nations. But U.N. aid agencies say they are not backing off from their grim assessment of conditions for civilians in Darfur.

Sudan Culture MInister Mohamed Yousif Abed Allah acknowledges conditions in Darfur are not great. But, he says the situation is far better than before.

For example, he notes infant and crude mortality rates are below the emergency level as set by the World Health Organization.

"This is a great success," he said. "The malnutrition rates also remain below the normal. In certain places, the malnutrition rates are higher in some parts of the Sudan, than in Darfur. Also, the area of providing clean water to the affected population in the camps was up 70 [percent] in certain areas and up to 65 percent in certain areas, which is the normal level of the capital of Sudan, of Khartoum."

The Sudanese minister says the situation is calm and peaceful in most of Darfur's 23 provinces and people there are leading normal lives. He says northern Darfur is the worst affected area.

Allah repeats his government's position that a U.N. peacekeeping force is both unnecessary and unacceptable. He says the African Union force is doing a good job in protecting security and should remain.

"We feel that African Union is doing fine and will continue to do well. The only problem it has is the resources. And we believe that the resources that could be provided for the U.N. peacekeeping forces should be provided for the African Union to carry out its activities," he said.

The World Food Program and U.N. Children's Fund have been providing humanitarian assistance to more than two million displaced people since the start of the Darfur conflict in 2003. They agree that aid agencies have managed to improve the nutritional situation of many of these people during the past two years.

But, WFP spokesman Simon Pluess, says it is extremely difficult for humanitarian agencies to work in Darfur.

He says some places are totally inaccessible.

"There were people who actually could not be served with food for about three months. So, you can imagine what this has as an impact on the nutritional situation of these people. So, the situation is far from being great," he said.

U.N. Human Rights spokesman, Jose Diaz, says reports by his office show the situation in Darfur is pretty awful and getting worse.

He said, "The situation where you have more than two million people displaced, where you have ongoing attacks against civilians, where you have women being raped and sexually assaulted regularly, where there is almost a generalized climate of impunity in relation to these human-rights violations, I think that speaks of a pretty dire situation."

Diaz says the African Union forces are doing a good job within their limited means, but he says a larger U.N. peacekeeping force should be sent to Darfur.

Darfur: UN Aid Workers Fear Worsening Access To Civilians

From the AP - via POTP

U.N. aid workers fear their precarious access to the suffering people in Darfur could get even worse, officials said Tuesday, despite a top Sudanese official saying most parts of the region were secure.

"Our biggest concern right now is that our hard-won gains could be easily lost if the situation continues," said Michael Bociurkiw of the U.N. Children's Fund.

The situation is "extremely difficult" for aid workers and "insecurity often prevents us from being able to access people," said Simon Pluess, a spokesman for the World Food Program. He said aid workers had been unable to get access to some 350,000 people in northern Darfur during September.

But Sudanese Culture Minister Mohammed Youssef Abdullah told a separate news conference the humanitarian situation wasn't that bad.

He said 14 of Darfur's 23 provinces were peaceful, with the south and west calmer than the north.

"We believe the security in Darfur is OK," he said.

Pluess told reporters that aid workers and the local population were constantly exposed to security threats, banditry and other criminal acts.

"The biggest victims are the civilians, the displaced, in Darfur who suffer almost on a daily basis from violations and attacks," Pluess added.

Abdullah, who was in Geneva to attend a cultural week organized by the Sudanese community, visited the U.N.'s European headquarters to talk to reporters. He conceded there was a problem if people were driven from their homes, but he said the main indicators of well-being - mortality and malnutrition rates, as well as the amount of clean water provided to the population - show the situation was normal.

"Mortality rates are below the threshold of an emergency situation," he said. The rate of access to clean water was "up to 65% in certain areas, which is the normal level of the capital of Sudan," he added. "And we believe this is a big success for all of us in the humanitarian process."

These indicators don't take into account sexual violence against women and children, the minister said when asked about widespread reported rapes of civilians.

Jennifer Pagonis, of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said violence and insecurity were severely hampering the aid workers' job.

"We have reduced access," she said. "Sometimes we just simply can't get out to (displacement) camps because of security constraints."

She added the agency's assessment of the humanitarian situation in Darfur wouldn't "tally with that of the Sudanese minister."

"It's very, very difficult for us," Pagonis said.

Darfur: Bush Hears Grim Report

From Reuters - related to the previous post

President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he heard a grim report about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and the United States would work to come up with a plan to deal with it, but he offered few details.

Bush spoke after meeting Andrew Natsios, his new special envoy for Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes during a 3 1/2 year conflict that has spawned a severe humanitarian crisis.

The conflict has pitted mostly non-Arab rebels against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government and Janjaweed militia. All sides have been accused of grave human rights violations in the fighting.

"He came back with a grim report," Bush told reporters after meeting Natsios, who visited Sudan earlier this month. "He also understands we've got to do something about it."

The United States has been pressing Sudan without success to accept a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a U.N. peacekeeping force of roughly 22,000 military and police to restore security to the region.

Sudan has repeatedly refused to allow the peacekeepers to replace a 7,000-strong African Union force that is strapped for money and equipment and has been unable to maintain peace in Darfur.

"The United States is going to work with the international community to come up with a single plan on how to address this issue and save lives," Bush said. "The government of Sudan must understand that we're serious."

Bush provided no details on the plan other than to repeat U.S. calls for the deployment of a larger international force.

"One element of the plan is something that I strongly supported all along, and that there needs to be a credible and effective international force to go into Darfur to save lives," he said.

Darfur: Bush Warns Sudan to End Conflict

From the AP

President Bush warned Sudan's government on Tuesday that it must move soon to end the deadly conflict in its wartorn Darfur region.

Bush spoke to reporters after meeting with Andrew Natsios, the United States' special envoy to Sudan. Bush said Natsios delivered a "grim report about the human condition" in Darfur after a 10-day trip to the area.

"The government of Sudan must understand that we're serious, when you deliver a message to them on behalf of our government, that we're earnest and serious about their necessity to step up and work with the international community," the president said.

The vast, remote western province of Darfur has suffered from a 3-year-old war that has left some 200,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Sudan's government is accused of unleashing brutal militiamen known as Janjaweed to quell a tribal rebellion against the government.

The U.N. has authorized 20,000 troops to replace an ill-equipped and underfunded force of 7,000 African Union troops in Darfur to enforce a peace agreement, which has not held. But the Sudanese government has rejected the U.N. force, and last week expelled the U.N.'s Sudan envoy, Jan Pronk.

Bush said a "credible and effective" international force is crucial to bringing peace to the region.

"The United States is going to work with the international community to come up with a single plan on how to address this issue and save lives," he said.

Chad/Darfur: Villages Hit by Echoes of Ethnic War Across Border

From the New York Times

The account Halima Sherif gave of her family’s ordeal was chillingly familiar in this part of the world. Arab men on horseback rode into her village, shouting racial epithets over the rat-tat-tat of Kalashnikov gunfire.

“They shouted ‘zurga,’ ” she said, an Arabic word for black that carries the connotation of a racial slur. “They told us they would take our land. They shot many people and burned our houses. We all ran away.”

Scenes like this one have been unfolding in the war-ravaged Darfur region of western Sudan for more than three years, and since the beginning of this year Sudanese Arabs have also been attacking Chadian villages just across Sudan’s porous border.

But the attacks on Djedidah and nine villages around it in early October took place not in Darfur, or even on Chad’s violent border with Sudan. It took place relatively deep inside Chad, about 60 miles from the border, a huge distance in a place with few roads, where most travel by horse, donkey or foot.

Beyond that, the attack was carried out not by Sudanese raiders from across the border but by Chadian Arabs, according to victims of the attack.

“They were our neighbors,” Ms. Sherif said, as she hurried to collect a few goats from the charred remains of her family compound. “We know them. They are Chadian.”

The violence in Darfur has been spilling over into Chad since at least early this year, when cross-border attacks by Sudanese bandits and militias chased more than 50,000 Chadians living in villages along the border from their homes.

But the violence around one of the other interior villages that was attacked, Kou Kou, is different and ominous, aid workers and analysts say. It appears to have been done by Chadian Arabs against non-Arab villages in Chad, and was apparently inspired by similar campaigns of violence by Sudanese Arab militias in Sudan. The villages are inhabited primarily by farmers from the Daju tribe.

“This is not a cross-border conflict — it is a local interethnic conflict,” said Musonda Shikinda, head of the United Nations refugee agency’s office in the area. “The perpetrators are their neighbors, not people from abroad.”

About 3,000 people have fled their homes because of the recent attacks, and about 100 have been killed, according to United Nations officials.

Accounts of the attacks from displaced people, most of them living in makeshift camps around Kou Kou, are strikingly similar to the accounts given by non-Arab Darfurian refugees of attacks on their villages by Darfur Arabs.

Yusuf Adif, a 29-year-old farmer from Djedidah, said he heard gunshots while tending his crops in early October. Mr. Adif was ready with a group of other village men to fight off the attackers.

Grabbing their traditional weapons — spears with hand-forged blades, bows with poison-tipped arrows — the men ran toward the gunfire. But they soon fled when they saw dozens of men on horseback with automatic rifles. Some wore white robes, like almost all Muslim men here do, while others wore khaki uniforms of a militia he could not identify, Mr. Adif said.

Abdel Karim Gamer, the sheik of Djimese, a nearby village, said that 20 people had been killed in the attack, among them women and children. Five women were abducted, he said, and he feared they had been raped, as so many women in Darfur have been.

“These are Arabs we know,” he said as he sat on a mat near the cobbled-together shelter where he and his family have been living for the past two weeks. “We trade with each other, depend on each other. We never had any problem in the past.”

[edit]

The latest violence here raises fears that Darfur’s troubles could ignite a broader conflict between nomadic Arab tribes and mostly settled non-Arab tribes across this broad swath of the sub-Saharan region.

If the racial and ethnic conflict that has infected Darfur is being copied by Chad’s Arabs, then the violence spreading beyond Darfur’s borders could presage even further regional conflict, said David Buchbinder, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who specializes in Chad.

“The racial ideology is spreading, and that is very dangerous,” Mr. Buchbinder said.

Zachariah Ismael, who fled Ambash, one of the villages that was attacked, with his wife and six children, said of the conflict across the border, “Now it has come for us, too.”

He was building a bigger, sturdier shelter to replace the one he had constructed when they arrived two weeks earlier. His crop of maize and dura wheat would soon need to be harvested, but he despaired of being able to reach his fields, half a day’s walk away.

“I think we will be here for a long time,” he said. “We cannot go home.”

CAR: Gov't Calls for UN Peacekeepers After Rebel Attack

From VOA

The Central African Republic says armed forces crossed the border from Sudan and took control of the northern city of Birao Monday. The government is calling on the United Nations to send peacekeepers to the region. International concern is growing that violence in Sudan's Darfur region is spilling over into neighboring countries. Jordan Davis reports from VOA's regional bureau in Dakar.

Officials in the capital Bangui say rebel forces entered the city of Birao early morning Monday and took control of the city and its airport.

They say the attack caused both civilian and military casualties, but did not give specific numbers.

The city of Birao is situated approximately 50 kilometers from the Central African Republic's border with Sudan.

Government spokesman Cyriaque Gonda says the fighters who attacked Birao arrived from across the Sudanese border. Speaking from Bangui, he urged the United Nations to send peacekeepers to prevent future incursions.

U.N. officials presented a plans to the Security Council late last week to send peacekeepers to Chad and Central African Republic.

There has been growing concern in the region that rebels are using the war-torn Sudanese province of Darfur to launch attacks on neighboring countries.

The United Nations says hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced from eastern Chad and the northern Central African Republic.

The Central African Republic's Union of Republican Forces rebel movement is led by loyalists of former President Ange-Felix Patasse.

Patasse was overthrown by current president Francois Bozize three years ago. Over the past year the security situation in the Northern CAR has worsened with increasing roadside attacks that Bangui has blamed on the rebel movement.

From IRIN

The government of the Central African Republic (CAR) has called on the international community to help it restore peace and order in its northern town of Birao. The town was captured by a rebel coalition calling itself the Union des Forces Démocratiques pour le Rassemblement on Monday.

Cyriaque Gonda, spokesman for President Francois Bozize, said the appeal had been made to the security councils of the UN and the African Union (AU), the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, the Central African States Economic Community, France and other friendly organisations and countries.

In a statement broadcast on national radio on Monday, Gonda said the government suspected that the attackers who captured Birao came from neighbouring Sudan. Birao is a town of at least 30,000 inhabitants near the border between the two countries.

"We are not accusing Sudan of attacking the CAR, but we are wondering why such an attack may have come from a neighbouring and friendly country," Gonda said.

The Sudanese ambassador in the CAR capital, Bangui, could not be reached for comment on the allegation.

Birao lies on the major trade routes to Chad and Sudan. It is vital to the region’s commerce and is essential for the delivery of social services. Accessing the town from Bangui is only possible by air after the road network in the north was damaged after of several years of civil war.

Gonda appealed to the UN to implement the Security Council's Resolution 1706 on the deployment of UN troops to the border between CAR and Sudan to restore security.

The rebel group - believed to comprise three factions opposed to Bozize's leadership - attacked government soldiers stationed at Birao and captured the town.

"Many people, including soldiers and civilians, died as the result of the attack," Gonda said.

He added that serious damage to property also occurred during Monday's attack.

However, in a telephone interview on Tuesday, the spokesman of the rebel coalition, Abakar Saboune, said the group had no connection to Sudan. It is thought the coalition is mostly made up of former mercenaries and fighters who supported Bozize during his 2002-2003 rebellion, which led to him taking power in March 2003 from President Ange-Felix Patasse.

"We are operating from our territory and we have been controlling the northeast end since we arrived in Tiringulu in April this year," Saboune said.

[edit]

The government's accusation against Sudan complicates further the relations between the two countries. The CAR closed its border with Sudan in April after Chadian rebels coming from Sudan crossed its border to attack N'djamena, the Chadian capital. The CAR rebels allegedly helped their Chadian counterparts to attack N'djamena, hoping to get weapons in return for their support.

The latest attack on Birao occurred while Bozize and his prime minister were out of the country. Military officials said reinforcements had been sent to Birao.

Gonda claimed the armed attackers came from Sudan's Darfur region. A lieutenant in the CAR army, who declined to be named, said the attackers, numbering at least 300 men, were militarily well-equipped.

There are several armed groups operating near Birao. In April, aeroplanes, as yet still unidentified, landed in the Tiringulu to offload military equipment and personnel. Military officials in Bangui acknowledged that the armed men dropped into the region were still operating there.

In June, a rebel attack on an army position in Gordil, an area near Birao, left 13 soldiers dead.

The capture of Birao is a clear sign that rebel activity has reemerged in the country since Bozize took power. The town has an airport could be used to supply the rebels.

CAR: Govt Protests to Sudan Over Raid, Rebels Deny Bases in Sudan

From Reuters

Central African Republic has protested to Sudan about a cross-border attack by rebels who seized a northeastern town, the government said on Tuesday of the latest escalation of violence in the conflict-torn region.

Officials in the landlocked former French colony, one of the poorest nations on earth, said the armed group on Monday stormed Birao, more than 800 km (500 miles) northeast of the capital Bangui, after crossing from Sudan at Am Dafok on the border.

Central African Republic, like Chad, has in the past complained of being the victim of the spillover of violence from Sudan's western Darfur region, where political and ethnic conflict has raged since 2003.

A spokesman for the rebel coalition which claimed the capture of Birao, the UFDR, said its fighters controlled the town on Tuesday and were advancing towards Bangui.

The rebels accused President Francois Bozize of "holding the country hostage" and demanded he start talks about power sharing.

"We've taken up arms to restore justice ... we demand the creation of a round-table to debate the problems of the country," UFDR spokesman Capt. Abakar Sabone told Reuters by telephone. He said he was speaking from Birao.

Central African Republic's government summoned the Sudanese ambassador in Bangui on Monday to ask why the raiders had come from Sudanese territory.

"We condemn this barbarous attack, which came from the territory of a brother nation," presidency spokesman Cyriaque Gonda told Reuters on Tuesday.

"We're not accusing Sudan directly ... we're asking for explanations," he added, saying the government did not know the precise identity of the attackers.

In Paris, the French government expressed its support for Bozize's administration and said the attack showed the conflict in Darfur was affecting neighbouring countries.

"These events demonstrate once again the importance of including the Central African Republic in any thinking about solving the crisis in Darfur," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said.

Gonda said Central African Republic's Prime Minister Elie Dote had on Monday asked the U.N. Security Council in New York to deploy U.N. peacekeeping troops in the Chad-Central African Republic-Sudan border area to guarantee security.

[edit]

Rebel spokesman Sabone said 20 government troops were killed in the Birao attack, while the rebels lost two fighters.

But the situation remained confused in the remote north, which borders both Chad and Sudan and is a lawless area where armed raiders regularly loot villages and terrorise civilians.

Sabone denied the UFDR, whose name in French means Union of Democratic Forces for Unity, had crossed from Sudan.

He said many of the rebel fighters previously served under Bozize, who seized power in March 2003 with the help of armed recruits from Chad. He then held and won elections in 2005.

Humanitarian officials in Bangui said the latest violence in the north would mean more suffering for civilians there. Some 50,000 have sought refuge in southern Chad in recent years.

"I am very worried about the armed groups operating along the border with Darfur ... After 10 years of instability in the Central African Republic, the last thing the population needs is instability spilling in from outside," Toby Lanzer, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Bangui, told Reuters.

From the AP

A spokesman for shadowy rebels in Central African Republic denied his fighters have bases in Sudan and vowed to oust the president of this volatile nation in the heart of Africa.

Government spokesman Cyriaque Gonda said Monday that armed fighters based in Sudan's troubled Darfur region crossed into Central African Republic a day earlier and attacked the northern town of Birao in fighting that killed both civilians and army troops.

Contacted by telephone from Birao, rebel spokesman Abakar Saboune confirmed his fighters assaulted the town and claimed they now control it.

"We are in full control of the town of Birao and its surroundings," Saboune said, adding that rebels planned to use Birao as a base to push toward the capital, Bangui, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the southwest.

Saboune said the rebels had been in Central African Republic since April, when they entered from a neighboring country he declined to name. Central African Republic has borders with Sudan, Chad, Congo, Republic of Congo and Cameroon.

Little is known about the rebels. Unidentified armed groups, have launched sporadic attacks on military installations in remote regions of the Central African Republic over the past year, displacing tens of thousands of refugees.

Saboune was once a well-known army captain who served with rebels led by President Francois Bozize, who swept to power in a bush war that culminated with a rebel assault on Bangui in 2003.

Bozize's forces ousted former President Ange-Felix Patasse, and Bozize later held elections and won the presidency in May 2005.

Darfur: Stronger AU Force Could Bring Peace

From Reuters

A stronger African Union force in Darfur could help consolidate peace within a year and allow 2.5 million refugees to return home, a Sudanese minister said on Tuesday.

But deploying U.N. peacekeepers would "exacerbate the situation" in the region, said Mohamed Yusif Abdallah, minister for culture, youth and sports, who helped negotiate a peace deal signed in May by one rebel group and the Sudanese government.

Sudan rejects a U.N. Security Council resolution to send more than 20,000 U.N. troops to Darfur to replace a 7,000-strong AU force which has been unable to contain violence and prevent what the United Nations says is a deepening humanitarian crisis.

The only problem with the AU operation, which is due to wind up at the end of the year, was that it lacked resources, Abdallah told a news conference.

"We believe if the peace process is strengthened, within a year things would get completely normal and people would go back to their original places," he said.

"(But) an attempt to bring in the U.N. forces which is not agreed upon by the parties in Darfur will exacerbate the situation," he added.

Sudanese officials have said a U.N presence in Darfur would amount to an invasion by the West.

The Sudanese government last week expelled the top U.N. envoy for Sudan Jan Pronk, who accused Khartoum of violating the Abuja accord with renewed aeriel bombing and by mobilising militias accused of atrocities.

Abdallah said Pronk had a "one-sided and imbalanced view".

"In general, the situation in Darfur is far better than before," he said.

But in Geneva, U.N. humanitarian agencies said they faced immense difficulties in getting assistance to those in need in the western Sudan area, which is the size of France.

"I do not think our assessment would tally with that of the Sudanese minister," Jennifer Pagonis, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR), told journalists when asked to comment on his remarks.

Darfur: Blair Warns Sudan Close to "Crunch Point"

From Reuters

British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Sudan on Tuesday it was nearing the "crunch point" for Khartoum to enforce the peace in Darfur or risk isolation and unspecified action by the international community.

Blair met Sudanese Vice President Salva Kiir in London and told him "everyone must stop fighting and resume dialogue with the people who did not sign up to the peace agreement," Blair's spokesman told reporters.

"We are reaching the crunch point. It's important that the Sudanese government be in no doubt at all of our seriousness," he said at a briefing about the two leaders' talks.

Blair told Kiir there must be "clear progress" by Nov. 24 when African Union leaders meet to discuss Darfur.

[edit]

"The Sudanese government know they face isolation if they do not respond to the will of the international community," the spokesman told reporters, but would not be drawn on what that would mean in practice.

"It would be better to let the Sudanese government absorb the message before we talk in public about that," he said, adding "private messages" were better than public threats at this stage.

Darfur: Muslim Silence a Disgrace

An op-ed by Aijaz Zaka Syed in the Khaleej Times

Why then is the Muslim world silent, for God’s sake? Where is our conscience? Where is our moral outrage? Where are protesting Arabs and Muslims? Why is the so-called Muslim street silent over Darfur? Why doesn’t this mass murder of helpless and innocent people agitate us, just as those innocent Muslims dying in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan do?

Even if we didn’t know those dying in Darfur are indeed Muslims, shouldn’t we still raise our voice against the 21st century’s first and biggest genocide? Aren’t we supposed to stand up and speak for those who cannot do it for themselves?

We never lose an opportunity to blast the West for practising double standards, from Palestine to Iraq to Afghanistan. But what are we doing in Darfur? We turn away our collective gaze while people are dying out there right now, forgotten and forsaken by the rest of the world including the Arab and Muslim countries.

The Arab League refuses to confront Sudan on the shame of Darfur. In fact, it is the other way round. Sudan keeps complaining that League members do not support and stand by it in international forums. Support for what? For murder and rape of fellow Muslims?

The Organisation of Islamic Conference, which claims to represent the faithful everywhere, is yet to wake up to this continuing outrage. The League and OIC are too busy preparing those pointless, regulation resolutions to pay attention to the infinite suffering of the people in Darfur. To the Muslim world’s shame, if anyone has really forced Sudan to take some perfunctory steps on Darfur, it is the uproar and activism of human rights groups in the West.

When will the Arabs and Muslims wake up from their slumber of indifference to stop what is going on in Darfur? For if they do not, they will end up sharing the responsibility for the 21st century’s worst crime against humanity. As Edmund Burke warned, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

CAR/Chad/Darfur: Rebel Raid Shakes Region

From Reuters

rebel capture on Monday of a Central African Republic town near the border with Chad and Sudan shows the need for greater international attention to the volatile area, a U.N. envoy said.

The seizure of the northern town of Birao was "quite worrisome because this is a border zone," said Lamine Cisse, the U.N. special representative for the Central African Republic.

All three countries in the area have been shaken by conflict or civil war and the various rebel groups use the neighboring countries as bases to launch attacks into the others.

Rebel groups based in the troubled Darfur region in Sudan's west, for example, have marched into Chad to seek to topple President Idriss Deby and launched raids into the Central African Republic to drive out President Francois Bozize.

The large number of unemployed armed youths in the border areas makes the region "a breeding ground for recruitment for armed groups," Cisse told reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council on the area's troubles.

"This is why it is easy to find groups to destabilize a country," he said. "This is a threat for Sudan, for the Central African Republic and for Chad. This is a full-time danger."

DRC: Appeals for Calm Continue as Elections Wrap Up

From DPA

Sunday's run-off election in the Democratic Republic of Congo was applauded by observers and diplomats, but officials were still appealing for calm in the war-torn country after a few post-election incidents marred an otherwise peaceful vote.

The election marked the end of the country's historic first democratic vote in more then 40 years. Violence erupted weeks after the first vote in July between supporters of the rival presidential candidates Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba, leaving 23 dead.

The UN mission in the Congo continued its call for calm on Tuesday, asking supporters of the two candidates as well as Congolese to accept the results or else contest them through the courts.

The African Union on Tuesday also urged Congolese to show restraint.

Kabila and Bemba signed an agreement ahead of the election to accept the results if they are free and fair and encourage their camps to remain peaceful.

After Sunday's the vote, a drunken soldier shot dead two election helpers at a polling centre in Ituri early Monday morning. The incident sparked some unrest, with relatives of the victims attacking a number of other polling centres in response.

The EU and the UN's missions in the Congo will continue their patrols until the election results are announced. The EU force pulls out at the end of November.

About 20,000 people had to recast their votes in northern Bumba town on Tuesday, with new ballots rushed to the remote area after polling stations were ransacked and ballots burned because of alleged of fraud.

A total of 48 polling stations were attacked during Sunday's vote.

Election officials said all the votes have been tallied at each polling station and the arduous process of carrying the ballots to the capital Kinshasa for tabulation had begun.

The incumbent Kabila is expected to win most of his votes from the country's Swahili-speaking east, whereas Bemba garnered most of his support from the west. Each presidential hopeful has gained backing from first-round candidates, which may boost their results.

The winner, who is slated to be announced on November 19, could be made public as soon as November 9 or 10, according to Desire Baere, a spokesperson for the Independent Electoral Commission.

From Reuters

European Union troops should be able to leave Congo as scheduled on Nov. 30 after a presidential run-off election last Sunday, European Union Foreign Affairs chief Javier Solana said on Tuesday.

"The situation allows us to maintain the existing timetable," Solana told reporters after meeting Spain's defence minister.

The EU has about 1,300 troops in Congo, backing United Nations forces to secure during the elections. They are due to leave on Nov. 30 but some EU members have said soldiers should stay given the risk of post-poll violence.

Results of the vote are still trickling in and the period before and after the election results are announced are expected to be tense.

To End Uganda's Nightmare

An op-ed by John Edwards in the Washington Post

At a moment of tremendous global hardship -- from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the killing fields of Darfur -- it is rare to find hope. So when there is the possibility for peace, we must seize it. That's why one of the world's great tragedies, the conflict in Northern Uganda, deserves our attention.

It is perhaps the worst humanitarian catastrophe to have gone practically unnoticed by most of the world. The two decades of violence in Northern Uganda have had devastating consequences -- nearly 2 million people have been run out of their homes and forced to live in overcrowded, squalid camps; tens of thousands have died; 30,000 children have been abducted by an organization called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and forced to fight as child soldiers or used as sex slaves. Hundreds of villages have been abandoned and destroyed.

To witness the ravaging of Northern Uganda is searing. But meeting its people inspires hope. During a recent visit, I went to the Palabek-Kal camp, where thousands have been crammed into a makeshift village. Hearing their stories of suffering and survival made two points abundantly clear: They are praying for peace every moment, and they expect the world community to do everything possible to help them achieve it. Their yearning was deeply moving, and their collective intensity and faith to build a better future in the midst of such hardship was powerful.

In areas where security is improving and people are beginning to go home, the challenges are just beginning. First among them is the need for adequate access to clean water and sanitation. The rehabilitation and reconstruction of schools, health clinics and other basic infrastructure are equally critical.

Yet before people will feel safe to go home, there must be peace. The talks between the government of Uganda and the LRA offer an unprecedented opportunity to secure a lasting peace in this long and deadly conflict. A cease-fire was signed at the end of August, but as was made clear during my discussions there, it is very fragile. As these African-led negotiations continue, the United States and the international community must step forward to support the talks -- not stand on the sidelines and hope for the best.

First, the United States and the United Nations should offer whatever support outside mediators, led by the government of southern Sudan, require. In particular, assistance in monitoring the cease-fire and the assembly of LRA fighters at two agreed-upon sites in southern Sudan would be critical to boosting the confidence of both sides -- while also holding them accountable to their commitments.

Second, the United States should publicly voice its support of the peace talks and encourage the Ugandan government and the LRA to maintain their commitment to the process. It's understandable that Uganda's government is skeptical of the LRA's intentions, given the atrocities that organization has committed. Yet this is the closest the two sides have ever come to a comprehensive agreement. Uganda needs to know that Washington stands behind the drive for peace and will be a supportive ally after an accord is signed.

Third, the key donors -- the United States, European countries and the United Nations -- must come together and make clear their commitment to providing the financial assistance necessary to help victims rebuild their homes and villages. This will create incentives for both sides and, just as important, lay the foundation for long-term reconstruction and reconciliation -- not only in Northern communities that have been terrorized by the LRA but also between Northern and Southern Uganda. Once the agricultural breadbasket of Uganda, the North has been marginalized and impoverished for decades. It must be integrated more fully into the country.

Finally, the United States and the international community must fulfill their pledges to help southern Sudan recover after more than 30 years of its own war. Peace and reconstruction in Northern Uganda have to be supported by reconstruction and development in neighboring southern Sudan, which is critical for regional economic recovery and cross-border trade.

In a world of unending troubles for the United States, few would argue that Northern Uganda's future is among the most urgent strategic challenges. But our actions in coming weeks will be a critical test of our global leadership. How we act -- and if and how we lead -- will send a message throughout Africa and the rest of the world about what America stands for. We must not sit idly by as Uganda's people strive for peace.

Chad/Darfur: Fighting on Two Fronts in Chaotic East

From IRIN

Even as the bloody fallout from fighting between the Chad army and rebels at Am Timan in southern Chad is still being counted, new clashes have erupted nearby, while further north the Darfur war has reportedly spilled into eastern Chad for the second time in a month.

Recalling fighting last week in Am Timan, a soldier who asked not to be named said: "The rebels came on Monday 23 October, the day of the Ramadan celebration. The combat started five kilometres north of the town and continued for 15 hours. Finally, the rebels infiltrated Am Timan, targeted the local administration, and stole munitions."

Documents and papers rebels thrown out of the windows of administrative buildings in Am Timan are still blowing through the streets. There have been more than a dozen skirmishes in as many months between rebels who have vowed to overthrow Chadian President Idriss Deby and government army loyalists. However, most of the fighting has taken place in remote areas and there are usually few civilian casualties.

Rebels with the Union of Forces for Development and Democracy briefly occupied Am Timan before leaving. Two civilians were killed and the sub-prefect was injured, Ahmat Mahamat Bachir, Chad's Interior minister, told IRIN on Saturday.

Colonel Nassour Nouki Charffadine, army chief of operations in Am Timan, said nine soldiers were killed and 10 injured in a firefight that also left 30 rebels dead and 80 injured. At Am Timan's only hospital, doctors said they were treating 32 soldiers and 10 rebels.

The rebels have engaged the government at another town, Saraf Bogou, according to a government statement on Sunday.

In a statement on Sunday morning, Chadian Defence Minister Bichara Issa Djadakkah said: "The defence forces have caught up with the attackers from Sudan who infiltrated at Goz Beida and Am Timan that they have been following since their departure from Am Timan. The clash took place Saraf Borgou, close to the Sudan border."

One hundred rebels were killed and several others taken prisoner, as well as several Chadian soldiers, including army Chief of Staff Moussa Sougui, the statement said.

[edit]

Adding further confusion to the mix for aid agencies working to service 12 refugee camps housing 220,000 refugees from Darfur, the Chadian government said in another statement at the weekend that Sudan's air force dropped bombs on the border towns of Bahai, Tine, Karyari and Bamina on Friday.

"The Sudanese air force has taken as targets Chadian towns... destroying houses and tranquil lives of Chadians," government spokesperson Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said.

Earlier in the month, scores of wounded soldiers and rebels flooded hospitals near Oure Cassoni, north of Abeche, after unrelated fighting between Sudan and rebels opposed to it spilled over the border near Tine.

Chad has blamed Sudan for backing rebels opposed to it. After rebels attacked the capital N'djamena in April Chad broke diplomatic relations with its neighbour, but the two have since made up. After the occupation of Am Timan last week, Chad again accused Sudan of backing rebels.

Khartoum has denied it is supporting the anti-Chad rebels. And Sudanese armed forces spokesman Sawarmy Khalid in Khartoum told IRIN on Sunday that Sudanese warplanes had not bombed towns inside Chad.

"The Chadian accusations are not true," he said. "The Sudanese army and air force did not attack any cities in Chad. [Sudan does] not support any Chadian rebels."

While the fighting between army and rebels in the south of the country, and the alleged bombing near Tine in the north, is all taking place near humanitarian operations, aid agencies said their operations have not been adversely affected.

"Of course, we are threatened, but until now the fighting has been far enough away from our direct zone of operations," said Ann Maymann, spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) in N'djamena. "We hope they will stay that way with no direct fighting in civilian areas."

"The issue of the bombing cannot be confirmed and has not had an impact on our operations," Maymann added.

Nonetheless, the UN has been discussing the possibility of deploying peacekeepers on the ground in Chad at the same time as in Darfur to protect civilians and the dozen refugee camps housing 220,000 Sudanese refugees from Darfur.

[edit]

UN Under-Secretary for Peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, told reporters in New York on Friday that the UN is sending an assessment mission to Chad to again look into the possibility of putting boots on the ground.

"We are very concerned by the deteriorating situation in Chad," he said.

"We are looking at ways that a peace operation could prevent the tragedy of Darfur from expanding further in a bigger tragedy in Chad and the Central African Republic. We will be looking into different options," he said. "We will be sending a mission to Chad and the Central African Republic to look into greater detail into what could be done."

However, Roland Marchal, senior fellow at Sciences Po university in Paris said he does not think a military solution will work. "I would be extremely sceptical about any intervention if there is no political agreement on the ground first," he said. "We need a true political settlement that could enforced and agreed on by all actors, which is not yet the case."

France has a large military force in Chad and has provided surveillance, intelligence and logistical support to Chad's army and was also part of discussions with UN officials in June.

But Marchal said France should not be expected to take a more hands-on approach, either to protect Deby's government or civilians in eastern Chad, because of political sensitivities in France in the run-up to presidential elections next year.

"It would be extremely controversial for anybody in the French state to push for an involvement of this style throughout the electoral period as French people might ask why after 16 years of support are we still in this same situation," Marchal said.

CAR/Chad/Darfur: Rebels Seize Northern Town from Government Forces

From the AP

Unidentified armed fighters based in Sudan's troubled Darfur region crossed into Central African Republic and attacked a northern town here in fighting that killed both civilians and army troops, a government spokesman said Monday.

Armed men on Sunday attacked the northern town of Birao, located 800 kilometers (500 miles) northeast of Bangui, near the country's borders with Chad and Sudan, government spokesman Cyriaque Gonda said.

It was not immediately known if the attackers were Sudanese government forces or Sudanese rebels, or insurgents from Central African Republic who had set up bases in Sudan.

Gonda gave no details on who the armed men were or how many were killed or injured.

Gonda said the government "firmly condemns this unjustified, barbaric act from a friendly country" and appealed to the United Nations and the African Union to help restore stability to the region.

Earlier, an army lieutenant citing an official report issued by government security forces told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that rebels had captured Birao from government forces, and the army was dispatching troops to retake it on Monday.

The lieutenant declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Details were sketchy and little is known about the rebels, who have launched sporadic attacks on military installations in Central African Republic over the last year, sparking the flight of tens of thousands of refugees.

From VOA

Military officials in the Central African Republic say rebels have captured a northern town near the borders with Chad and Sudan.

Military sources said Monday that rebels seized the town of Birao from government forces.

Birao is located some 800 kilometers northeast of the capital Bangui, in a region that government forces do not fully control.

Security has deteriorated in the northern part of the country this year. Armed groups operate in the region and violence has forced the displacement of tens of thousands of people.

Some of the violence has spilled over from Sudan's Darfur region.

Chad/Darfur: Violence Threatens Regional Peace

From VOA

Rebels with the United Forces for Democracy and Development and Chadian army forces both declared victory Sunday after renewed clashes in the country's east.

Chadian authorities confirmed that the army's deputy commander-in-chief, General Moussa Sougui, died during the fighting.

Each side says it suffered few losses in its own camp, but killed hundreds of opponents. There are no independent observers in the remote scrubland to verify those claims.

The fighting is the latest flare-up in a conflict between Chadian President Idriss Deby and a growing number of rebel groups.

Analyst Roland Marchal with France's Institute for Political Science says the rebel numbers are growing because there is little room in Chadian politics for differing views.

"We are in a situation where the only opposition that seems to have any influence is the armed opposition," he said. "The problem is that we started last year with basically two groups, and now we are around six or seven."

Many of Chad's rebel groups are led by former top government officials. A number of those fighting the government defected from the Chadian national army.

Chad has long accused Sudan of funding the rebel movements and supplying them with arms. Last week, rebels fired a surface-to-air missile at a French reconnaissance plane.

Sudan has denied the charges and in turn accused Chad of aiding anti-government forces in Sudan's Darfur region.

A similar article from the AP

Fears are mounting that escalating violence in Sudan's volatile Darfur region is spreading.

A top Chadian army chief was killed in fierce fighting between government troops and rebels close to Darfur, officials said Monday.

Gen. Moussa Sougui, the army's deputy Commander in Chief, was killed during heavy fighting close to the Sudanese border in eastern Chad, a Defense Ministry statement said late Sunday.

In the statement, Defense Minister Gen. Bichara Issa Djadallah said the government had killed 100 rebel fighters and captured many more and were still pursuing other rebels. There was no way to immediately verify the claims.

He said four government soldiers, including the general, were killed during the fighting early Sunday near Hadjer Meram, a town 30 miles from the Sudanese border.

Chad has accused Sudan of bombing four towns along its eastern border.

Sudan denied the Chadian report, and there were no independent confirmation of the claims that Sudan's air force attacked the villages of Bahai, Tine, Kayarin and Bamina on Friday.

The United Nations announced Friday that it was sending a mission to both Chad and the Central African Republic to look for ways to keep the escalating conflict in Darfur from spilling into other countries.

Rebel groups are using various nations as rear bases to stage destabilizing attacks in both Chad and Sudan's western Darfur region, and "the humanitarian fallout is extremely serious," U.N. Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said in New York.

Darfur: Government Still Seeking Military Solution

From IRIN

In his briefing to the United Nations Security Council on Friday, the UN’s top official in Sudan, Jan Pronk, highlighted the government’s gross violations of the Darfur Peace Agreement and stressed that Sudan was still looking for a military solution to the deepening crisis.

Pronk added that his ongoing criticism of the Sudanese government’s decision to seek a military solution, having signed a ceasefire agreement, had prompted his expulsion from his position of UN Special Representative for the Secretary-General in Sudan.

"The government is mobilising more and more forces in the region, amongst others, those coming from the south. Security Council resolutions forbidding offensive air operations are being neglected," he told council members in what he characterised as "probably" his last briefing to the council.

To illustrate, Pronk cited a meeting he had held with rebel commanders in Birmaza, where he implored leaders to stop looting aid vehicles, and to stop attacking the African Union Mission (AMIS), which is in Darfur until the end of December.

"Now that the UN is giving support to AMIS, I will consider any attack on AMIS an attack on the UN," he told the rebels. They immediately undertook not to attack government troops, but were bombed by the Sudanese government air force within 14 hours of his departure. "I consider this characteristic of the present attitude," he said.

The 7,500-strong AMIS force had its mandate extended until December 2006 by the AU Peace and Security Commission, as the Sudanese government has continually refused to accept UN peacekeepers in the region, even after a council resolution was adopted calling for UN troop deployment.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jean-Marie Guehenno, also briefed the council and spoke to reporters on the continuing UN efforts to strengthen AMIS.

"There has to be a political process, and the United Nations stands ready to engage as it has done, to engage further to promote the political process in Darfur and support the efforts of the African Union," said Guehenno.

During consultations, the council discussed the fear that the situation in Darfur would spill over to other parts of the region, including eastern Chad. Guehenno announced an upcoming UN mission to Chad and the Central African Republic to see what could be done to help more than 50,000 internally displaced people and 200,000 refugees in eastern Chad alone.

"We are looking at ways in which a peace operation could prevent the tragedy of Darfur from expanding further [to create] a bigger tragedy in Chad and the Central African Republic," said Guehenno.

Pronk, who was also concerned about the possible regional impact of Darfur, had been asked to leave Sudan by the government on 22 October due to his web-blog comments, in which he characterised the Sudanese armed forces as having low morale and indicated that the forces had recently lost several battles.

Addressing reporters after the council meeting, Pronk said he believed the government’s decision to expel him was due to his criticisms "of the fact that the government continued to fight, to seek a military solution, despite the fact a ceasefire agreement had been signed; despite the fact that the DPA [Darfur Peace Agreement] had been signed", adding that he was also critical of the ceasefire violations of the rebel movement. "My incessant criticism of this was the reason for them to silence me," he added. "I have one request for the council. Please stay alert and remain attuned. After all the sorrow in Sudan, in the south as well as in Darfur, the people over there, neglected and oppressed for decades, should not be forgotten in the turbulence of other world affairs. They are counting on you," he concluded.

Stéphane Dujarric, UN spokesman, outlined plans for Pronk’s return. "Following ongoing consultations with the Sudanese authorities, it is expected that Mr Pronk will return to Khartoum during November to organise an orderly handover to the officer in charge of the UN mission before returning to New York for debriefings and the completion of his mission," he said.

When asked whether the UN had received an official response from the Sudan government, Dujarric said, "We do not expect any problems with the scenario that has been laid out." No official date has been set yet for his trip.

Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, however, denied this, saying: "This issue for us is over and we are not backtracking from our decision; no arrangement was worked out with us," he said. "People should really respect our sovereign position."

Darfur: Khartoum Insists it Has Plan to Disarm Janjaweed

From AFP

Sudan said Monday that a plan had been set up to disarm Darfur's infamous Janjaweed - the pro-government militia accused by Washington of genocide - and all other militias within two months.

"We have put in place a plan for disarming the militias in Darfur in two months, in cooperation with the African Union," President Omar al-Beshir said in a televised speech marking the opening of the new parliamentary session.

Beshir did not say how the Janjaweed would be disarmed.

Government officials had told the Sudanese press two weeks ago that a two-month plan to disarm militias in Darfur had been drafted and submitted to the African Union.

[edit]

Commentators and experts have been sceptical of any plan to disarm militias in Darfur, a territory roughly the size of France, in the absence of an effective peacekeeping force on the ground.

Khartoum has vehemently rejected the August UN Security Council resolution calling for the deployment of up to 20 000 UN peacekeepers in Darfur.

Its relations with the international community further deteriorated earlier this month when it expelled the top resident UN envoy, Jan Pronk.

At least 200 000 people have died as a result of fighting, famine and disease, and more than two million fled their homes since rebels launched an uprising in Darfur in early 2003, drawing a scorched earth response from the military and the Janjaweed.

In his speech, Beshir praised the African Union and said that the peace deal signed earlier this month in Asmara with a coalition of eastern rebels was evidence that Sudan needed no western assistance.

"The Asmara agreement has given evidence that the Sudanese alone can solve their differences," he said.

Chad: Anti-Deby Rebels Say They Will Strike Again

From Reuters

Chadian rebels who fought government forces over the last week, briefly seizing two towns, said on Monday they were still inside Chad and would strike again against President Idriss Deby's army.

A fighting column of the newly formed rebel United Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD) pushed west last week towards N'Djamena before pulling back towards the eastern border with Sudan in the face of a government counter-attack.

Chad's Defence Minister Bichara Issa Djadallah said at the weekend that the government army in the landlocked central African oil producer had cornered the rebels, inflicting heavy casualties and taking many prisoners.

But the minister also said that the joint head of Chad's armed forces, Gen. Moussa Sougui, had died after being wounded in the fighting. This appeared to be a fresh setback to Deby's forces, which have been drained by desertions in the last year.

Speaking to Reuters by satellite phone, UFDD leader Gen. Mahamat Nouri, a former defence minister who defected from Deby's government in May, said his fighters were still inside Chad in the region of Goz Beida.

"There's no fighting today, we're OK here," Nouri said over a faint, crackling line. He added that, besides Sougui, other army officers were killed in heavy government losses.

Chad's government had said its forces had pushed the rebels over the border into Sudan.

Asked whether the UFDD planned further attacks against Deby's forces, Nouri replied: "Absolutely. We have our strategy to take on the government forces".

But Nouri, a former Chadian ambassador to Saudi Arabia who announced his defection days after May 3 polls that returned Deby for a third term, said his forces did not intend to advance on the capital N'Djamena for the moment.

Chad: Army Chief Killed in Clashes With Rebels

From Reuters

The joint head of Chad's armed forces was killed in fierce fighting with rebels near the Sudanese border on Sunday, the defence minister said, in a heavy blow to embattled President Idriss Deby.

Defence Minister Bichara Issa Djadallah claimed victory in Sunday's fighting and said more than 100 rebels were killed after government forces clashed with a convoy of insurgents which had briefly seized two Chadian towns this week.

But the death of General Moussa Sougui was a major setback to Deby, coming only months after the rebels killed his nephew and head of the army, Brigadier General Ababar Youssouf Mahamat Itno, in March. The armed forces have been drained by a steady trickle of desertions and relations with Sudan are tense.

"The (rebel) mercenaries sustained around 100 dead, several prisoners and 15 vehicles destroyed. ... On the side of the forces of defence and security, there were four dead, including General Moussa Sougui who fell on the field of honour," read a communique signed by the minister.

The fighting took place at Saraf Borgou, a village close to the border with Sudan, which Deby's government accuses of supporting and arming the rebels. With the rebel's escape route severed to Sudan's western region of Darfur, Djadallah said the army would mop up the remaining fighters.

"Surrounded in a area with no way out, the mercenaries at the service of Sudan have no chance of escaping this cleaning up operation," his statement said.

[edit]

Chad's rebels, divided into several ethnic factions, demand the resignation of Deby, who won a fresh five-year term in May at elections boycotted by the opposition as a farce. The opposition says only French support holds the regime in power, but French diplomats say the alternative to Deby is chaos.

"There is an urgent need for a political compromise with the political opposition, a military victory against the armed opposition, and the securing of the eastern border with Sudan for stability to return to Chad," political risk consultancy Global Insight wrote in a report on Friday.

Last week, the heavily armed rebel convoy of the newly formed United Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD) penetrated deep into Chad before melting into the desert -- Chad says into Sudan -- as government reinforcements arrived.

On Saturday, Chad accused Sudan of bombing the towns of Bahai, Tine, Karyari and Bamina, destroying homes and sowing panic among residents just a few kilometres (miles) from the frontier with strife-torn Darfur.

Khartoum, which alleges that Chad supports rebels in Darfur, denied its air force had taken part in any operation which would violate a deal in August to restore diplomatic relations after months of tension.

Darfur: Europe's Indifference

From Eric Reeves in the New Republic

When it comes to the failure of the world to stop Darfur's cataclysm of remorseless human destruction, there is blame to go around. There is the glaring duplicity of the U.N. Secretariat; the shameful hypocrisy of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference; the disorganized incompetence of the African Union; and the serene indifference of the various important nations in Asia. To many, it is the Bush administration that bears chief responsibility for international inaction.

Yet the nations and institutions of Europe also deserve special recognition for their complacency. Rhetorical performance is robust in some quarters, but, despite Europe's diplomatic, economic, and military power--and its own experience with genocide over the last century--there is no indication that Europe is considering any commensurate action. There is certainly much to criticize in U.S. policy during the past three and a half years of massive, ethnically targeted violence. But, as bad as the United States has been on Darfur, Europe has been worse.

In September 2004, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell declared unambiguously to Congress that the United States had determined "genocide has been committed in Darfur, and the government of Sudan and the jinjaweid bear responsibility." Still, Powell declared that this determination required "no new action" by the United States (beyond referring it to an obviously paralyzed and hopelessly politicized U.N. Security Council). Consequently, Powell's testimony may have marked the death knell for the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, at least as an international treaty that has any meaning for genocide prevention.

But, the same month, a much less well reported determination was rendered by the Parliament of the European Union, which declared in a resolution passed by a vote of 566 to 6 (with some abstentions) that realities in Darfur were "tantamount to genocide." This striking turn of phrase gets to the very heart of the European attitude toward Darfur. There is no meaningful distinction between a determination that a given set of realities are "genocide" and a determination they are "tantamount to genocide" ("tantamount" means, in fact, "equivalent in significance"). So why the circumlocution? Why any indirection if we are speaking of the ultimate human crime?

The reason is entirely legalistic: The various (if disputed) obligations that follow from a genocide determination by any nation that signed the 1948 Genocide Convention all fall away if the finding is "tantamount to genocide," rather than "genocide" itself. It is the perfect weasel phrase, and it does much to account for the lopsided nature of the vote. Invoking the word but not the contractual obligations, the Parliament of the European Union happily put itself on record as deploring, in a kind of ultimate language, the ultimate crime--but with no real entailments.

This disposition has defined European policy toward Darfur for the last two years. We may be hearing brave words from Tony Blair about troops to Darfur, but we heard the same talk last spring. And, in the summer of 2004, Great Britain's top military officer, General Sir Mike Jackson, declared that Britain could field a brigade to stop genocide in Darfur. But no one in the British government seemed interested.

France has been even less helpful on Darfur, especially at the United Nations. So it was particularly significant when, last month, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy became the first senior French official to speak of "genocide" in Darfur, declaring it unacceptable and explicitly contemplating nonconsensual deployment to protect civilians in the region. He was quickly and completely undercut by comments from French President Jacques Chirac.

Peter Struck, the German defense minister, also declared Darfur to be the site of genocide in September 2004; so, too, did British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in April 2005. But the actions of the Europeans--individually, within the European Union, and within nato (which moves by notoriously slow consensus)--have been dismayingly and consistently ineffectual, despite a determination that vast, ethnically targeted human destruction has been underway for years and is currently accelerating.

The strongest measure the Europeans seem willing to push for is continued deployment of an African Union mission in Darfur as the sole international response to catastrophic security conditions, threatening not only some four million conflict-affected human beings but the extensive humanitarian operations upon which they depend. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1706, passed on August 31, calls for a robust force of 17,300 troops, 3,300 civilian police, and 2,000 additional security personnel. But, instead of confronting Khartoum over its obdurate refusal to allow U.N. deployment, European officials have been perversely accommodating. EU policy chief Javier Solana recently declared that Khartoum's acceptance of a modest augmentation of the A.U. force--comprising logistics, a few advisory personnel, and some additional equipment (what has come to be called "African Union-Plus")--represented "progress toward a genuine U.N. force in the region." Such disingenuous incrementalism ensures that no effective force will deploy in time to avert the second phase of the Darfur genocide now underway, violence that now threatens to become as great as the initial wave of targeted ethnic destruction in 2003-2004.

When President Bush spoke of "natostewardship" in February of this year, his comments were quickly "corrected" by the Pentagon, which declared that any specific commitment of U.S. resources was "premature"--but not before European NATO officials in Brussels had sniffed contemptuously at the very idea of such "stewardship." And, while natohas provided some logistics and transport--critical for an African Union mission that has none of the appropriate resources for a Darfur mission--the current attitude from our European nato allies was recently summed up by natoSecretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who said, "Darfur will, as far as nato is concerned, continue to see a continuation of what we are giving now to the African Union."