He accuses the UN of wanting to re-colonise the Sudan, and claims that the force is merely a cover for the West to enable it to get hold of Sudanese oil ( 4). Diplomats have flown to Khartoum to persuade President Bashir to change his mind. But the resolution has not been implemented because the Sudanese government has yet to approve the deployment. On 31 August 2006 the UN conceded a lack of results and adopted resolution 1706 to deploy a UN intervention force. The powerless African soldiers admit in private: “We’re no use here at all”.ĪMIS is almost entirely financed by the European Union the US makes a nominal contribution. The international force requires political determination to end the massacres that both the AU and the UN refuse to qualify as genocide. At least 30,000 men would be needed for an area the size of Darfur, 500,000 sq km.ĪMIS is under-equipped and has a ludicrously restrictive mandate: soldiers may not carry out offensive patrols and may only negotiate. A dozen African countries contribute contingents but most come from Rwanda and Nigeria.

For the past two years the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), an inter-African military force of 7,500 men, has been deployed in Darfur. The UN and the African Union (AU) have been powerless in the face of this disaster, producing only symbolic measures and stalling tactics. In reality, the Sudanese government is trying to prevent the fighters from holding a congress that would unify their movement and enable them to start negotiations with the support of the international community ( 3).

The Islamic government in Khartoum justifies frequent air raids by claiming their victims are rebels who refused to sign the Abuja “peace” treaty in Nigeria on 5 May 2006 ( 2). Twelve aid workers were killed during massacres and five others have disappeared. Aid workers from the United Nations and NGOs have had to move camps 31 times to escape attacks, although this did not prevent the arrest of several aid workers on 19 January in Nyala they were beaten with rifle butts by the Sudanese police.

The conflict has left 400,000 dead in four years. Two million people have fled Darfur in northwest Sudan since 2003, 250,000 of them since last August ( 1), and the resources of neighbouring Chad are suffering from the strain of 250,000 refugees.

Darfur by Gérard Prunier