By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS
Khartoum : One of the largest peacekeeping forces in history was inaugurated in Sudan’s vast and desolate Darfur region as African and UN negotiators tried to pick up the pieces after inconclusive talks this week aimed at ending the humanitarian crisis there.
The African Union/UN hybrid mission in Darfur (UNAMID), which is set to replace an African force, inaugurated its operational base in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province that was once the main centre of the Fur sultanate and is now home to hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing the conflict in Darfur.
“Today (Oct 31) UNAMID marks its first day in its El Fasher headquarters, completing preparations to assume operational command authority as requested by the Security Council,” Rodolphe Adada, the UN-AU Joint Special Representative for Darfur, said Wednesday.
“We have already completed the pre-handover preparations involving deployment and movement of command elements and key staff to their designated offices, spaces and installations throughout Darfur.”
The launch of the hybrid force was announced as a team of negotiators prepared to visit Darfur to open direct talks with rebel leaders who stayed away from peace negotiations held in the Libyan city of Sirte this week.
UNAMID, established by the Security Council in July 2007, will eventually comprise around 26,000 military and police and is expected to be more effective in protecting Darfur civilians than the African force, which was made up of just 7,000 troops.
The troops are expected from Burkina Faso, Egypt, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal. Other potential contributors are Bangladesh, Jordan, Nepal, the Netherlands, Scandinavian countries and Thailand.
However, the joint mission has not yet received adequate pledges for specialised units, such as air and land transport support, Adada said. There is also said to be a dispute over the composition of the force, with the Sudanese government reportedly keen on troops drawn mostly from Africa.
The UN describes Darfur as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, pitting at least 28 armed rebel groups of varying sizes and objectives against government-backed forces and militia for control of an arid western region about the size of France in Africa’s largest country.
Some 200,000 people have died and another 2-2.5 million have been displaced in the fierce four-and-a-half-year-old conflict that is attributed to a number of complex factors, including a competition for resources such as water, a demand for power-sharing in the capital Khartoum and ethnic and religious strife.
While the rebels complain of a history of marginalization, the Sudanese government, which has come under mounting international pressure to agree to a peace, in turn claims the presence of extremist Islamic forces in Darfur, including some who were close to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
In addition to those in refugee camps in Darfur, another 300,000 are said to have fled to neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic.
The establishment of the hybrid force in Darfur comes after a key rebel leader said he would not participate in talks until the UN provides security in Darfur.
However, the new peacekeeping force has no agreed peace to keep – at least not at the moment. Although the government declared a unilateral ceasefire in Darfur Oct 27, the rebels are yet to reciprocate.
Peace talks held in Sirte starting Oct 27 have been inconclusive so far after the main rebel group – a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) led by Abdul Wahid al-Nur, a man who commands his forces from distant Paris – stayed away.
The disparate nature of the 20 groups that turned up in Sirte while the main one stayed away meant that there was no single spokesperson for the rebels. The rebels themselves were unable to agree a joint position – unlike in 2005, when the government was able to agree a peace deal with southern Sudanese rebels, thanks to the efforts of John Garang, who had succeeded in uniting the militant groups.
Although many political commentators in the Sudanese capital already appear to have written off the Sirte talks as a failure, the chief mediators, including the AU’s Salim Ahmed Salim and the UN’s Jan Eliasson, have refused to adjourn it.
Negotiators will visit Darfur over the coming weeks for direct talks with rebel leaders who stayed away from Sirte, in an effort to persuade them to join the negotiating table.
Declaring that the peace process is “irreversible”, Salim and Eliasson said in a joint statement: “We owe it to the people of Darfur to make every effort to end their suffering and allow them to live their lives in peace and dignity.”
Meanwhile, in a move designed to give a boost to the truce, leaders of Arab League countries meeting in the capital Tuesday pledged a package of $250 million for the ravaged Darfur region – home to the world’s largest humanitarian operation.