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MEDIAWATCH: U.N. genocide resolution fails first test

by joanne-tomkinson | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Wednesday, 23 January 2008 13:50 GMT

Three years after the United Nations adopted a Â?groundbreakingÂ? resolution legalising international intervention to protect civilians from genocide when governments have failed to do so, The New York Times declares the resolution has failed its first test Â? Darfur.

A joint U.N.-African Union force - known as UNAMID - took over peacekeeping operations in SudanÂ?s war-ravaged Darfur region on Jan 1.

The region has endured five years of violence between government troops, nomadic militia and rebel groups, leaving 200,000 people dead and uprooting 2.5 million others. The Sudanese government is widely accused of arming militias drawn from Arab communities, and of failing to protect civilians.

So far, the UNAMID force has had limited success in protecting civilians in Darfur.

According to The New York Times, this failure is down to obstructions from the Sudanese government, a lack of logistical support from Western governments and international reticence to implement the resolution.

Bureaucratic and operational setbacks have been so great that the UNAMID force is still only a third of its planned strength of 26,000.

Some developing countries that originally supported the resolution have backed off out of fear they themselves could become targets of intervention, notes the paper.

The Irish Times agrees that the Sudanese governmentÂ?s hostility to U.N. intervention is a major obstacle for the force. Khartoum has blocked the deployment of non-African peacekeepers, and this week appointed Musa Hilal, who is subject to a U.N. ban on travel for his alleged role in the unrest, as adviser to the federal affairs minister.

"The welfare of displaced people continues to be ignored while armed groups and the government bicker and impede the complete deployment of UNAMID," Tawanda Hondora, deputy director of Amnesty International's Africa programme, is quoted as saying.

The International Press Service (IPS), meanwhile, concentrates its attention on the failings of Western governments to support U.N. activities in Darfur, noting that the UNAMID force Â?has been virtually grounded even before it could take off due largely to lack of troops and military equipmentÂ?.

"We have not yet received any offers of helicopters from Western states", says Marie Okabe, deputy spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

These logistical issues have political roots, according to Bill Fletcher, former president of human rights group TransAfrica Forum.

Â?The government of Sudan has been able to utilise the perception of Â?foreign interventionÂ? as a way of leading various governments to believe that the deployment of peacekeepers is somehow inappropriateÂ?, says the IPS, summarising Fletcher.

Says the New York Times: Â?Darfur, in short, has shown that there is a great difference between gaining acceptance for a working theory and making the theory work.Â?

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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