More Political Wrangling as Darfur Fighting Spills Over

OneWorld US

Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad. © Amnesty International

For the first time, heavy fighting between Sudanese rebel groups and the government of Sudan has spilled across the border from the embattled Darfur region into eastern Chad, where aid agencies are helping about 250,000 of the 2.5 million Darfuri displaced by the ongoing conflict. According to a UN report, "the weekend fighting signals an escalation of violence in eastern Chad, but aid agencies said on Monday that humanitarian operations would continue."

Additionally, attacks on women and girls, both within and outside displacement camps, have soared in recent months. "Moreover, there is scant evidence that culprits are being actively sought, let alone punished, for their crimes," said a coalition of key UN agencies Monday.

Obasanjo. © United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network

Meanwhile, Nigeria's president has offered to commit more peacekeeping troops to the African Union (AU) mission in Sudan if more resources can be secured to support their work. After speaking to African and Western diplomats at AU headquarters Tuesday, he called the situation a "near genocide," adding, "we should not allow a full genocide to develop."

Since the government of Sudan rejected the United Nations' offer of a much more robust peacekeeping effort than that currently undertaken by the AU, diplomats have been scurrying to find a compromise. Sudan's president said he would view the entrance of UN troops as an effort to recolonize Sudan.

The AU agreed late last month to extend its mission through the end of the year, and the UN has offered to prop up the mission with logistical support and advisors. There are early indications that the Sudanese government might be willing to accept these terms.

For its part, the United States appointed former U.S. aid chief Andrew Natsios as a special envoy to Darfur and has begun initial dialogues with key countries about the possibility of pressing Khartoum to accept UN peacekeepers. The Washington, DC-based lobbying group Africa Action believes the United States government has the most leverage over the government of Sudan and is calling on the Bush Administration to ratchet up pressure on their Sudanese counterparts. Africa Action has outlined its activism strategy for the rest of 2006 in a paper entitled "A Time to Act: Moving Beyond Words to Protect Darfur Now!" [pdf file]

A slew of prominent African voices, from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka to Liberia's president and Ghana's Ambassador to the United Nations, have echoed the call for international intervention in Darfur.

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For more on global efforts to stem conflict and stop genocide, check out OneWorld's Perspectives Magazine: Preventing Genocide.

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