The gruesome murder of AU peacekeepers raises questions about the credibility of attempts to stop the violence in Darfur, warns Gamal Nkrumah The Sudanese government and the armed opposition groups of Darfur are incapable of safeguarding the security of the people of Sudan's westernmost province. What is especially galling is that they both assert they are on "humanitarian missions" to protect their people from the other side. This claim rang particularly hollow this week with the massacre of African Union troops at a camp housing displaced people in Darfur. Meanwhile, both sides are gung-ho, each believing they can win this latest battle of wills. The government's aggression is partly prompted by its perception that the Darfur armed opposition groups have been critically weakened and internationally ostracised because of the latest global condemnation of their anti-negotiations stance. Most of the Darfur armed opposition groups have strongly condemned preparations for the peace talks scheduled to take place in the Libyan capital Tripoli on 27 October. The latest round of fighting started with the murder of 10 AU peacekeeping troops and the disappearance of 25 others. Of the 10 confirmed dead, seven were from Nigeria and one each from Botswana, Mali and Senegal. They were murdered in cold blood in the heat of the night when armed men in 30 vehicles raided the Haskanita camp in southern Darfur. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade threatened to recall his troops from Darfur. "We just cannot expose our sons like that," Wade told reporters in the Senegalese capital Dakar. "Senegal reserves the right to take action if the security conditions of its contingent and those of other African troops in general are not guaranteed," a Senegalese Foreign Ministry statement read. The cash-strapped, poorly-armed AU peacekeeping troops in Darfur are struggling to make ends meet. The 7,000 AU troops come from 26 different countries, though the majority of these troops are Nigerian nationals. They do not have logistical support and are patrolling a region the size of France. The AU itself is probing the attack and the 25 other AU troops who were in the vicinity of Haskanita who are now missing. "The enquiry is underway and we will make its conclusions public. Those who carried out this attack will be strongly sanctioned," the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) spokesman Noureddin Mazni told reporters in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, in vintage UN-speak, urged all parties to "recommit as a matter of the highest priority to a peaceful resolution of the Darfur conflict." Ghana's UN Ambassador Leslie Christian who is the current chair of the 15-member UN Security Council this month explained that member-states roundly condemned the Haskanita camp massacre. However, he conceded that they could not agree on the wording of the statement behind the closed-door session. "There was a demand that no effort be spared to bring the perpetrators to justice," Christian said. The Sudanese authorities also condemned the attack. Sudanese Ambassador to the UN Abdul-Mahmoud Abdul-Halim described the Haskanita massacre as a "terrorist, barbaric attack." Indeed, Khartoum expressed indignation that the armed Darfur opposition groups, deemed responsible for the attack, wondered why the international community was so eager to condemn Sudan while it appeared to be reluctant to punish the perpetrators of the Haskanita massacre. The Arab League, too, severely condemned the attacks on the AU peacekeepers in Darfur, referring to them as "criminal acts" and insisted that the perpetrators be punished. The Arab League statement stressed that such attacks would not deter the international community or the African and Arab countries' determination to pursue the Darfur peace process. Negotiations, the Arab League statement insisted, are the only way to resolve the Darfur crisis. Egypt, too, officially expressed grave reservations about the attacks by armed Darfur opposition groups. A Foreign Ministry statement urged all parties involved in the Darfur crisis to exercise restraint. Egypt reiterated its offer to dispatch troops to Darfur. Humanitarian relief agencies have also pulled out of Darfur because of the escalation of violence. OXFAM and Christian Aid have both announced that their foreign personnel have been flown out of Darfur and that they are halting operations in the war-torn region. Of course, Western response to the massacre by Darfur rebels, currently darlings of the Western media, has been muted -- no threats to curtail support for the rebels despite such outrages. Though it is not fair to lump all the rebels together as responsible for such atrocities, the moral of the tragedy of the Haskanita massacre is that the demonisation of the Sudanese government masks the fact that many of their adversaries are no angels.
