It looks like symbolic gestures are the best we can hope for on Darfur:
The UN Security Council has passed a resolution imposing sanctions against four Sudanese nationals accused of war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region.
The four include two rebel leaders, a former Sudanese air force chief, and the leader of a pro-government militia, accused of widespread atrocities.
But the war goes on:
The BBC’s Orla Guerin in Darfur met streams of civilians who said they were fleeing their remote village of Jogana.
They said they had been attacked by government aircraft and militiamen that were fighting rebel forces in the area.
Our correspondent said she could hear the sound of bombing from 40km (25 miles) away.
African Union (AU) peacekeepers met the civilians and gave them water but did not intervene in the fighting.
Meanwhile (via AL Daily) a suggestion: go private.
The UN and others clearly have legitimate questions about whether private military companies can do what they claim. But the industry, agitating to lend a hand where the international community has dragged its feet, has raised some legitimate questions of its own. When the world’s governments and multilateral organizations have proven as ineffectual as they have in Darfur, should they turn to the private sector for help? In the absence of a viable alternative, is the international community’s aversion to what some call ”mercenarism” stronger than its will to fight genocide?
Private contractors have been providing logistics in low-intensity conflicts in African nations for years, and conducting training operations as well. Dyncorp, for example, is currently involved in what is by most accounts a very successful mission in Liberia, helping train the army and national guard in the aftermath of Liberia’s long and bloody civil war.
Indeed, while the industry has grown and matured in Iraq due to the US military’s unprecedented reliance on contractors there, it’s actually in Africa that early private military companies first did significant work.
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