Darfur and the AU

The New Republic notes that the crisis in Darfur continues despite western praise for the effort of African Union forces currently there. The reason for the praise is obvious:

All this praise for the African Union might sound like harmless encouragement. Unfortunately, it's not harmless at all. Perpetuating the myth that the A.U. mission to Darfur is succeeding is an easy way for the world's powers to pretend that Western intervention isn't needed. But continuing violence against defenseless civilians, including increased attacks on humanitarian operations, shows that A.U. forces are failing to protect the people of Darfur. And by continuing to insist that those troops are doing a good job, western leaders are failing the people of Darfur, too.

So why can't the A.U. hack it?

It's clear why this insecurity persists. The African Union, the group that is currently responsible for security in Darfur, does not have the military ability, the logistical and transport capacity, or the operating cohesion to address ongoing violence and intimidation. This is the first major effort of its kind by the fledgling A.U. Peace and Security Commission, and the organization is far out of its depth. Among the problems afflicting the A.U. force in Darfur: The African Union no longer has the money to pay deployed personnel at previous levels, lacks fuel to transport its troops, and was unable to sustain deployments during the heavy (and entirely predictable) rains of the last two months. It is dramatically short of men and equipment, while suffering from declining morale among troops and outright corruption among some officers. It hardly helps that two A.U. soldiers in Darfur recently died of AIDS (despite mandatory screening) and that the previously sizeable salaries of A.U. personnel led to significant, and for Darfur entirely uncharacteristic, problems with prostitution in impoverished camps and towns.

The 5,500 A.U. personnel currently deployed in Darfur simply cannot patrol, let alone secure the safety of, the more than 200 camps for displaced persons and the increasingly resource-stripped environs of these camps (which oblige women and girls to travel further in search of firewood, water, and animal fodder--and thus face greater dangers of sexual violence from marauding Janjaweed forces). Nor can the African Union protect the humanitarian convoys that are being attacked with ever-greater frequency, and are now often delayed or canceled altogether.

The attackers--"bandits" has become the convenient catch-all term--are increasingly renegade elements from the Janjaweed and the insurgency movements, as well as opportunistic men with guns. (These attacks comes as predations by more organized elements of the Janjaweed and the rebels also continue to sever humanitarian corridors and attenuate the reach of aid organizations.) But whatever it is called, the threat of banditry cannot be avoided simply because it doesn't resemble the violence that defined the first phase of genocidal destruction in Darfur; and yet the African Union appears helpless in responding to this problem. The African Union cannot secure the large rural areas of a region the size of France, or provide the protection that will allow displaced persons to return to their lands and attempt to resume agricultural production. It simply does not have the number of troops or mobility required.

In addition to its lack of manpower and resources, the African Union is without a mandate to protect civilians or humanitarian workers. The current force has deployed with a mandate merely to monitor the current ceasefire (a ceasefire that is largely meaningless). And it is unable even to fulfill that limited mandate, since it often lacks the resources to investigate reported ceasefire violations, even major ones.