The All-African Darfur Force

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot

August 17, 2007

Some of us have been quick to blame the UN Security Council for being lax on Africa’s security issues, this time on Darfur.  But now that it has opted for a hybrid force for Darfur, the BBC reports that the AU now insists on using an all-African force instead.

Surprisingly, the AU decision seems to fit seamlessly with what Sudan has wanted all along. So, why the coincidence and how did this decision come about.?

The decision was announced by Alpha Oumar Konare, the AU Commission chairman, after talks with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

According to Konare, the AU has “received sufficient commitments from African countries that we will not have to resort to non-African forces."

For those who have been following the Darfur tragedy with sufficient concern, Konare’s announcement must be like a bolt from the blue sky. But it must have been clear to them that President Omar Bashir, who has been arguing against UN intervention in Sudan, has won the debate.

It has been Bashir’s wish to keep the UN out of Sudan. A UN force on a peace mission in Sudan could result in his demise as a president.  And an eventual trial for his alleged crime against humanity can be certain under a UN command, with a hybrid force that would have strong US influence on materiel and command and President George Bush connected to it all at the end of the line.

Still, the AU decision for an all-African force is an enormous undertaking.  The only grace in this exercise is that it can be a test for the continent's resolve. 

At the same time, the potential for a foul-up is huge for the AU, with the odds going against the 20000 African force that could end up depending on the UN for support.

As early as June last year, Bashir had threatened to kick the AU’s token force of 7000 men out of Sudan when he learned that the organization had requested the UN to take over control of its force.

"If the AU wants to transfer the mission to the UN, then they have to pack up their troops and leave by September 30," said Al-Samani Al-Wasila, Sudan's junior foreign affairs minister after a meeting with AU officials in Addis Ababa last year.

A year later Bashir has his wish.  Now, it is the AU that is promoting his option for a non-hybrid force in Sudan to bring a peaceful end to the Darfur conflict.

There are several schools of thought on the Darfur conflict.  The latest being offered by no other than Jeffrey Sachs, Director of Columbia University's Earth Institute.

Sachs has maintained that the lack of resources is the reason for the conflict in the region.  And that, “when you are dealing with very hungry people and desperately poor people unless you also put forward a realistic and viable development option, you can't make peace."

The main issue in Darfur currently is genocide.  But it seems this issue has been sidestepped by Prof. Sachs with the offer of his "scarcity" idea. 

Regardless of what the drivers of the conflict are the overriding issue is still genocide and it has to be stopped.

And even should one accept the “scarcity” theory as the first step, the one fact that cannot be avoided in Darfur is that the struggle to conquer the “scarcity” is raging along racial lines; Sudanese Arabs are slaughtering Sudanese Africans for the little resource available.

The condition of the conflict in Sudan naturally dictates that a hybrid UN force must respond.  The composition of races in this force lessens the chances that the skirmishes at Darfur can break into a full-scale racial war.  

In contrast, the all-African force will present the same racial target as do the Sudanese Africans. For this force to be effective, it must assert itself.  And on an incursion into a sovereign territory of the Arab Sudan. nation we can expect trouble.

The chance of Sudan being defiant in the face of such incursion may add up the possibility of a full racial confrontation between an all-African force and Sudanese Arab army, unless the AU force happens to be docile, and this exactly what Bashir wants.

Thus, the proposed all-African force may be convenient for Bashir, but it may not be strong enough to end the genocide, nor bring the likes of Bashir to justice.

But is the AU desirous and serious about a solution to the Darfur conflict?  

Forget the achievement of the ECOWAS force in Liberia, a small coastal country.  Sudan is not like Liberia, a country with years of conflict that had already reduced it to impotency before the ECOWAS forces arrived. 

Unlike Liberia, a victory of the AU forces in Sudan cannot be predictable.

Sudan is a vast territory. Getting to the troubled zone will present a huge logistical problem. And the cost to maintain a 20000-man African force there is estimated at $2 billion a year. It becomes a laughing matter when you think that the AU will have to find this money from somewhere.

So, will the UN fund the all-African force despite its wish to go independent of the proposed hybrid force?

The AU’s announcement goes against the position of the Security Council on July 31 of this year, in Resolution 1769, which called for a hybrid force against Sudan under the UN command and control.

The AU cannot finance an all-Africa force for the Sudan campaign.

Earlier, the AU had embarked on the easy approach.  After kicking Sudan out of the AU. it could have prevailed on the UN Security Council for China to abandon Sudan or for both countries to face an economic and political boycott in Africa if they would not allow a hybrid force in Sudan.

With China so hungry for resources and contracts from African governments, a boycott approach could have had a bitter bite of a sanction.  And there would have been no need for the UN or the AU to put a single foot-soldier on Sudanese soil. 

So, what happened?

“But China, which buys much of Sudan’s oil and wields veto-power over U.N. resolutions, has rejected U.N. forces without Khartoum’s agreement,” wrote Reuters.

China so far has been the main supporter of Sudan and is all out to support Bashir.  

President Bashir’s wish has all along been for an ineffective all-African force funded by the Arab League and, therefore, would have no encouragement to bring Bashir and his gang to justice.   

And with the support from China, Africa has managed to arrive at the same spot Bashir was some years ago; before the latest slaughter of thousands of Sudanese Africans began. 

President Bashir has succeeded in turning the force, even before its mission starts in Darfur, into a fool’s quest. 

Strangely, some at the AU see the all-African force as one of aspiration; the hope that with the AU in charge of the command-and-control structures of the force, Africa would be able to redeem herself from the charge of negligence on Darfur.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Washington, www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, August 17, 2007.

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