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Darfur peacekeeping force to be cut back amid accusations of incompetence
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One of the world’s largest peacekeeping forces is being cut back and revamped as it has been failing to protect civilians in the vast Sudanese region of Darfur.
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Last week, the UN security council received a report on a strategic review of the mission conducted by the UN peacekeeping department. Reuters obtained a copy.
It said the mission is slimming down its ranks, sending home incompetent units, cutting unnecessary jobs, redeploying troops stationed at dozens of outposts around Darfur and working to improve its capacity to protect civilians. The exact number of peacekeepers to be reduced will be decided in the coming months.
Diplomats and UN officials feel a smaller version of the joint United Nations-African Union (Unamid) force could be more effective, but question marks over its future terrify some of the millions of people caught up in nearly 12 years of bloodshed.
Highlighting Unamid’s flaws, UN officials and diplomats said one group of soldiers sent home from Darfur had surrendered without firing a single shot when confronted by armed militants.
“In light of several incidents in which military units failed to respond effectively to armed attacks, Unamid has introduced measures that provide for the sanctioning and repatriation of relevant contingent members,” the strategic review said, without offering details.
Khartoum’s Operation Decisive Summer has given the army an upper hand in the Darfur conflict, the review added.
The Darfur conflict began in 2003, when mainly non-Arab tribes took up arms against the Arab-led government in Khartoum, accusing it of discrimination. The mass killings of a decade ago have eased, but the insurgency continues and Khartoum has sharply escalated attacks on rebel groups over the past year.
In sprawling camps for people displaced by the fighting, residents describe being driven from their homes by Arab fighters from a government militia that western officials and activists say is a new form of the feared “Janjaweed” Sudanese militia brigades. “They entered houses made from straw and grass and looted all our money and livestock,” said Ezdeen Salih, a 37-year-old in Zam Zam, the biggest camp for the displaced in Darfur, of an attack she blamed on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Related: Don't abandon Darfur, UN whistleblower says
Almost half a million people were displaced last year alone, the highest annual total since the height of the conflict in 2004, UN figures show.
“They beat the men with sticks and burned our homes,” Salih said. “They told us to never come back, saying that the area had become an Arab area and that we are supporting rebel movements. We fled with our children.”
Late last year Khartoum ordered Unamid out of the country after it began investigating an alleged mass rape by Sudanese soldiers in Darfur. The government denies any wrongdoing by either the soldiers or the RSF.
UN peacekeeping chief Hervé Ladsous said it was unlikely the mission would simply pull out of Darfur. But the UN says discussions with Khartoum on an eventual exit strategy for the force have begun, even as efforts to make the force more efficient proceed.
Unamid has faced allegations by western powers that it has not done enough to protect civilians and has withheld information on the scale of violence against civilians and peacekeepers by the Sudanese army and allied militias. UN officials acknowledge shortcomings and note that this is one reason for their push to overhaul the mission and improve its effectiveness.
“What is happening at the moment is not working,” a security council ambassador said. “It’s expensive. The mission is dysfunctional in a number of ways.” The ambassador added that the goal was “a sharp refocusing and contraction of the mission”.
According to several UN officials, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, grew so frustrated with Unamid last year that he said it should be shut down. The comment was more an expression of exasperation than a recommendation for policy, the officials said.
Ladsous has been calling for improvements to Unamid for years, though council diplomats say previous success was marginal. And if the latest attempt to restructure the force is unsuccessful, security council diplomats say they will consider other options – including a UN withdrawal from the mission.
Khartoum has always been reluctant to cooperate with the force, and civilians are paying the price: according to the UN, about 4.4 million people need humanitarian assistance in Darfur and more than 2.55 million remain displaced.
One of the biggest problems has been the joint nature of the force – the African Union and the UN together. “The hybrid mission experiment has proven to be an abysmal failure,” another security council ambassador said.
Despite Khartoum’s demands that Unamid should leave, Omer Ismail of the Enough Project, a Washington-based anti-genocide group, said he thinks the Sudanese government does not really want a complete withdrawal. It wants money from the mission’s $1.1bn budget to continue flowing into Sudan.
