| Sudan's Darfur on the road to anarchy, UN warns (04/11/2004) |
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| UNITED NATIONS (AFP) Sudan's blood-soaked Darfur region could be headed toward disaster with warlords on the loose and the government no longer in full control of its forces, the United Nations' top Sudan official warned. Just two weeks before a UN Security Council trip to Africa intended to help ease the crisis, Jan Pronk outlined a grim picture for council members and said the situation may soon become unmanageable. "Fighting is breaking out in more and more places, parties are provoking one another, militias are ganging up," he said. "Darfur may easily enter a state of anarchy -- a total collapse of law and order." A vast desert region in the west of Sudan, Darfur has been wracked by violence since a rebel uprising against the Arab-led government in Khartoum in February 2003. The government responded in part by using proxy Arab militias to put down the rebellion, and those militias went on to carry out a brutal, scorched-earth campaign that has led to an estimated 70,000 deaths. "The conflict is changing in character. The government does not control its own forces fully. It co-opted paramilitary forces and now it cannot count on their obedience," Pronk said. "The spirit is out of the bottle." He said a split had emerged in the rebel leadership and that some commanders were now "acting for their own private gain," with Khartoum's troops unable to ease the situation or sometimes making the situation worse. "We may soon find Darfur is ruled by warlords," Pronk said. Peace talks between the government and rebel leaders in Nigeria are making limited progress, while no final accord has been reached between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army over a separate north-south conflict that began in 1983. "There is progress on the political front but regression on the ground," he said in a briefing to the council. "The progress is slow and the regression is alarming." The council has already passed two resolutions threatening sanctions against Khartoum if it does not rein in and disarm the militias, and diplomats said a third was being drafted ahead of a special meeting in Nairobi later this month. "The council may wish to make clear that it will not tolerate any further delay to the finalisation of a comprehensive north-south peace agreement and to a political resolution of the Darfur crisis," Pronk said. In comments to reporters, the envoy said the Security Council had to take a tough line at its meeting but US ambassador John Danforth dismissed suggestions that the council could be blamed for not doing enough so far. "The problem in Darfur is that people are killing, raping, pillaging, removing people from one place to another without their permission," Danforth said. "I don't think that it's right to say ... the blame should be shifted f rom those who are doing these terrible things to people living halfway around the world. I just don't agree with that at all," he said. The Security Council issued a statement, read by current president Danforth expressing its "deep concern at the deteriorating situation in Sudan and especially in Darfur." Amid the violence, the United Nations has warned that Darfur is also the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today, with more than one million people who have been displaced, most living in squalid and dangerous camps. The African Union has said it is committed to expanding its small military presence in Darfur, eventual to more than 3,000 personnel, in an effort to try to prevent the conflict from worsening. "We need a military operation," Pronk said after his briefing. "There is a war. Let's face it." | ||
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