Glenys Kinnock in the Times:
[A]s things stand, under pressure from the junta in Khartoum, the overstretched and underfunded AU force, struggling to enforce the shaky peace deal, will leave when its mandate ends at the end of the month. Meanwhile, Khartoum continues to reject plans for a UN force to replace the AU, deeming it to be “illegal”.
In the vacuum left behind, the military regime is organising, along with its proxy, the Janjaweed, for a final push to complete its genocidal strategy. Ten thousand troops are massing across Darfur preparing to move in after the AU monitors leave.
The international community should stop hanging on hoping that May’s peace deal can be implemented. Indeed, since the agreement was signed between Khartoum and the largest rebel faction, things have got worse. No deadlines are being met, the genocide continues and there is no longer even a ceasefire to monitor.
Sudan’s rulers continue to draw their own conclusions about how sincere the international community is on Darfur. “Never again” the world’s leaders said, yet they now appear supine in the face of slaughter. The UN’s resolutions calling for a no-fly zone and targeted sanctions against the generals are unenforced.
Too many key players value their commercial links with the Sudanese Government too much to risk offending it. It is no coincidence that Russia, a big supplier of arms to Sudan, and China, a leading consumer of Sudanese oil, have been the most consistent in their refusal to agree to any UN resolution on Darfur. Meanwhile, Sudan has rallied the Arab and Muslim world behind it, or at least ensured that no Arab or Muslim state will criticise its behaviour. Khartoum refuses access to UN peacekeepers, claiming they are part of a colonialist or Jewish plot to invade a Muslim country.
Darfur, eclipsed by crises elsewhere, is in danger of disappearing into the file of “unresolved conflicts” — yet nothing now demands our urgent attention more than the suffering of the people of this region.
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