OneWorld.net (U.S.)

WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct 28 (OneWorld) – A coalition of more than 160 U.S. development and relief organizations is calling on President George W. Bush to provide more assistance to the more than 1.6 million people who have been forced from their homes in a brutal counter-insurgency campaign that the Bush administration has characterized as “genocide” in Sudan’s western region of Darfur.

In a letter sent this week to Bush, the coalition, InterAction, said that Washington needs to ensure that the 3,000-some peacekeepers from the African Union (AU) who have been authorized by the UN Security Council to go to Darfur are given all the help they need to be able to do their and provide security for the victims of the campaign.

It also called for Bush to support a Senate initiative to make available some US$225 million to help support the AU deployment and meet the humanitarian needs of the displaced which, in many cases are becoming more critical.

Of that total, $150 million may be taken from the $18 billion Iraq Relief and Reconstruction fund, according to the Senate language which is currently the subject of negotiations with the House of Representatives.

The letter was sent just as the UN Security Council adopted a U.S.-sponsored resolution to hold two days of meetings in Nairobi, Kenya, next month in order to focus global attention on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Such a meeting would be only the fourth time that the Security Council has met outside its New York City headquarters.

It also came amid new reports of deprivation among the displaced, virtually all of whom are members of African tribal groups targeted by Arab militias supplied and actively supported by the government in Khartoum, since two African rebel groups attacked a government garrison in early 2003.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) reported Wednesday that nearly 22 percent of children under the age of five are malnourished and close to half of all families do not have enough food. According to a survey taken by the WFP in August and September, one in four of the displaced in Darfur were found to be critically short of food. “The situation is extremely worrying,” said a WFP spokesperson who noted that nearly four percent of children in the region as a whole were suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

At the same time, the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that a large refugee camp in eastern Chad, where more than 200,000 Darfurians have fled for refuge, is fast running out of water and that chronic water shortages in the region are making it difficult to establish new camps for the refugees. Aid officials expressed concern that ground-water supplies may soon dry up.

InterAction, whose members include such groups as Save The Children, Mercy Corps, Refugees International, and Oxfam-America, praised the Bush administration for taking the lead in both supplying assistance to the displaced and pressing the Khartoum government – in part through the UN Security Council – to halt its support for and disarm the Arab militias, often called the Janjaweed.

Washington has pushed hard, so far without success, for the UN Security Council to impose diplomatic and economic sanctions against both government officials and Janjaweed leaders if they do not immediately halt their attacks against the African population.

They also lauded the administration’s support for providing logistical assistance, including the airlifting of AU troops primarily from Nigeria and Rwanda, to the region.

While there have been reports that the government has effectively stopped its own operations against the African inhabitants, there is little indication that Janjaweed forces have stood down. Indeed, western news reporters have recently published a number of articles indicating that the government and the militias are continuing to cooperate.

The UN and the U.S. estimate that more than 30,000 Darfurians have lost their lives in government-Janjaweed attacks over the past 18 months, while another 40,000 have died from disease or hunger caused by their displacement.

In its letter, InterAction noted that some 600,000 people without sufficient food to sustain themselves are currently not being reached by emergency-food distribution programmes in the region, and that more than half of the 1.6 million displaced lack access to sanitation facilities.

It cited WHO estimates that as many as 10,000 are dying each month and that Darfurian refugees in Chad are not only suffering water shortages but are also having to cope with rising hostility from the host population which is now competing for the same water, pasturage, and other vital resources.

Khartoum has insisted that the combined nearly two million people who fled their homes may not return, but UN and relief officials note that the vast majority of displaced remain fearful of Janjaweed attacks and distrustful of government assurances. In addition, the devastation of their homes, crops, livestock, and villages was so great that they would be unable to make a living without massive help from abroad, even if security were assured.

The devastation and the specificity of the targets were so great that the U.S. Congress voted last summer to call the campaign a “genocide,” a conclusion that was reached by the administration two months later.

In its letter, InterAction suggested that neither 3,000 AU troops nor the mandate that they have been given the UN may not be sufficient to adequately protect the displaced. “It is imperative that the deployment of African Union forces be large enough to make a difference in territory the size of Texas, and that their mandate be robust enough to ensure (a) greater degree of security for the people of Darfur,” wrote InterAction president Mary McClymont. At the moment, the troops are being deployed there to protect some 150 AU cease-fire monitors, rather than the population at large.

In its letter, InterAction noted that the vast majority of Darfurians will be dependent for their survival on aid from the international community of at least the next 12-to-18-month period.

The AU has requested $220 million for its operations in Sudan, of which the Bush administration so far has pledged logistical and airlift support. On Saturday, the European Union announced that it will provide $100 million and that its member countries will provide at least another $20 million.

If the Congress and Bush approve the $75 million contribution proposed by the Senate, the cost of the deployment as currently conceived should be met, although an expanded operation with a stronger mandate may entail additional expense.

The AU currently has 300 police and soldiers in Darfur as part of the force with the rest considered likely to arrive over the next six to eight weeks.