Groundhog Day

The Scotsman has the latest from Nairobi, where a special session of the UN Security Council is meeting to discuss the situation in Darfur:

The charity’s [Oxfam’s] Brendan Cox, who was attending the Security Council meeting, accused the UN of failing the people of Darfur. “The atmosphere at the meeting here in Nairobi is very flat. Nobody seems very concerned,” he said.

“The only people who will benefit from this meeting are the travel agents and those people who will collect their free air miles. There is no optimism about the outcome of the meeting. We are expecting an even weaker draft resolution than before. It will probably be passed, but it will not make any difference.

“This is like Groundhog Day. You have got the same situation as before, worse even, and yet the UN Security Council keeps coming up with more and more watered-down resolutions.”

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, told Security Council members that a swift conclusion of an agreement to end the 21-year civil war in southern Sudan was critical to solving the rest of the problems in Africa’s largest country.

But he went on: “I regret to report that the security situation in Darfur continued to deteriorate, despite the ceasefire agreement signed earlier.”

Mr Annan urged the Security Council to issue “the strongest warning” to all the forces fighting in Sudan, adding that an agreement to end the war in southern Sudan would provide a basis for bringing peace to Darfur.

“When crimes on such a scale are being committed, and a sovereign state appears unable or unwilling to protect its own citizens, a grave responsibility falls on the international community, and specifically on this council,” he said.

Well yes, you would have thought so. So what do they intend to do?

The Security Council is today expected to pass another resolution on Sudan in which it will pledge to monitor the situation in the country and “take appropriate action” against any side that fails to support the peace process.