Meanwhile, back in Sudan and its neighbors: peacekeeper deployments in Sudan, Chad, and Central African Republic, government resigns in Central African Republic, and other news
I haven’t blogged much about Sudan the past couple of weeks, since so much has been going on in Kenya. So I figure it’s time to look again at Sudan and the other countries that have been entangled in its conflicts.
The UN force in Darfur is said to be “virtually grounded even before it could take off.”
“It’s absolutely frustrating,” says a senior U.N. official, as the Secretariat makes little progress in finding troops and securing helicopters, armoured vehicles and other logistical equipment urgently needed for the full deployment of the force.
The government of Sudan, which is seeking an all-African peacekeeping force, has rejected the deployment of military units from Thailand, Nepal, Norway and Sweden.
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The peacekeeping mission, which officially came into force Dec. 31, has also remained crippled because of the lack of helicopters and other logistical equipment.
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Bill Fletcher, Jr., former president of TransAfrica Forum, told IPS that the United States should supply helicopters and other military equipment to ensure that the peacekeeping force is well-equipped.
Though the peacekeeping effort is getting off to a rocky start, the UN has been active. UN and AU envoys have met with a second rebel group to pave the way for peace negotiations, and the Sudanese government has released eight rebel detainees to the new hybrid UN/AU peacekeeping force.
The Sudanese government has bombed rebel positions in West Darfur, and this fresh violence has restricted the access of aid workers. South Africa expressed concern about the deteriorating security situation in Darfur, and the fact that the deployment of the hybrid force is seriously behind schedule. And, a week ago, the Security Council condemned an attack on a UN convoy in Darfur.
From South Sudan, John Akec writes that.
The return of SPLM ministers to the government of national unity (GoNU) on 27th December 2007 has marked the end of 67-day protest. There is no question that the walkout has strengthened SPLM politically across the board. It has heightened awareness amongst the Sudanese populace to the perils facing the implementation of Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement. It raised the issues of democratic transformation, the necessity of involving all political forces in the peace-building process, as well as the need to have peace and justice in all corners of the country….
Oh! Major digression time! This has nothing particular to do with Sudan, but I did find it on a Sudanese blog. Bin Laden’s son wants to be a peace activist.
Uganda, you may recall, is entangled with South Sudan through the longstanding rebellion of the Lord’s Resistance Army against the Ugandan government, with peace talks between the two parties being conducted in Juba, capital of South Sudan. As of last week, the LRA peace team had yet to meet with rebel leader Joseph Kony, “three weeks after they left the country at the end of several consultative meetings about the talks.” In the wake of an attack on Ugandans living and working in South Sudan, a Ugandan editorial angrily denounces the government of South Sudan for failing to protect the Ugandans. Ugandan news, though, is currently more attuned to the post-election crisis in Kenya, as refugees cross the Ugandan border, imports are stalled in the Mombasa port, rumors persist of Ugandan soldiers being present in Kenya, and the government faces criticism that it was warned of likely violence in Kenya well before the December 27th election. The good news is that the latest Ebola outbreak in Uganda is nearly over.
The staff of the European Union peacekeeping force in Chad and the Central African Republic started deploying on Thursday, despite a shortage of helicopters and medical facilities. Actually, two separate peacekeeping forces, one from the UN and one from the EU, are deploying.
The EUFOR and MINURCAT are two separate bodies, both mandated by the same Security Council resolution, marking the first time in the world that an EU military force and a UN mission are combined in a single UN mandate, Compaoré said.
MINURCAT is charged with training police and reinforcing judicial infrastructure, such as prisons and courts, so that local police are able to deal with “daily life”.
It will deploy inside camps for refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan and sites for displaced Chadians in the east, and offer police escorts for aid agencies working in the region. It will complement the work of Chadian police and troops that have largely failed to prevent the camps from sometimes being militarised by rebels from Sudan, or to keep aid workers safe.
The UN has released a new report on the status of humanitarian action in Chad. There are approximately 240,000 refugees from Sudan, approximately 45,000 refugees from the Central African Republic, and approximately 180,000 internally displaced persons in Chad.
Police have closed down a radio station in N’Djamena and arrested the manager. And in the Central African Republic, a newspaper editor is being held on charges of “inciting a disturbance of the peace.”
A United Nations update on the conflict in the Central African Republic reports that
Government troops and rebel forces in the Central African Republic (CAR) continue to clash despite ongoing talks of a peace agreement, and nearly 300,000 people had been driven from their homes as of last month, according to a United Nations update.
Even more worrying are the attacks by Coupeur de Route bandits, who continue to wreak havoc across the country’s northwest, burning and looting houses and kidnapping and killing civilians, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported.
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Overall, 1,000,000 people gave been affected by the ongoing conflict, mainly in the northwest, in part linked to the strife in neighbouring Sudan’s Darfur region and Chad, with 197,000 people displaced internally, in many cases living in the bush, and a further 98,000 fleeing to Cameroon, Chad and Sudan. In return, CAR has received thousands of refugees from Chad and Sudan.
In the northern prefectures, more than 610,000 women and children continue to endure chronic poverty and conflict which has been responsible for decimating both lives and livelihoods. A classic example of a “forgotten emergency,” CAR has suffered from more than a decade of political instability. Some 20 per cent of children die before their fifth birthday. The worst-affected regions are in the northwest.
The prime minister of the Central African Republic, together with his government, has resigned in the wake of two weeks of strikes. President François Bozizé accepted the resignation Friday evening.