Facts about Darfur
A letter of mine in the Globe and Mail:
More facts:
Most of Darfur's rebel groups agreed on a common negotiating front at a meeting in Tanzania, and now want full peace talks with the Sudanese government within the next few months. However, one of the key rebel leaders, of the majority faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, refused to attend, provoking fears that, as in the past, any peace agreement will quickly unravel.
Off the Darfur hook?The title is the Globe's--mine was "Western troops not wanted in Darfur".
By MARK COLLINS
Wednesday, August 8, 2007 – Page A16
Ottawa -- Rob Huebert's analysis of whether or not Canada should make a substantial troop contribution to the United Nations mission in Darfur (Want To Help? Sure, But Consider All The Costs Of Sending Troops To Darfur - Aug. 7) rests entirely on a false premise. The UN force is to be made up predominantly of African troops, and Sudan has a veto over which countries can participate. Khartoum certainly would not accept any substantial ground-force contributions from the West; in fact, any Western assistance would consist of headquarters, support and logistics personnel.
So there is no question of Canada's being forced to choose between having troops in Darfur or Afghanistan, as Mr. Huebert suggests. Whether we have the military capability to provide the much more limited type of assistance in Darfur is another matter.
More facts:
A large number of countries from Africa, several from Asia, one from the Middle East and none from the West [emphasis added] were included in a preliminary list of nations that have offered military and police personnel for the 26,000-strong joint African Union-United Nations force, issued by the U.N. Peacekeeping Department and the new Department of Field Support...Update:
[An oops! here--I initially repeated the para above; this is the one I should have quoted.] The list of potential troop contributors includes Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Bangladesh, Jordan, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand. The list of countries offering at least 50 police officers includes Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Egypt, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria and Pakistan...
Most of Darfur's rebel groups agreed on a common negotiating front at a meeting in Tanzania, and now want full peace talks with the Sudanese government within the next few months. However, one of the key rebel leaders, of the majority faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, refused to attend, provoking fears that, as in the past, any peace agreement will quickly unravel.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 8:22 a.m.
5 Comments:
I see what you are saying...I have to admit, I read the article the other day. I thought it refreshing to read an article from someone who didn't think Darfur would be a cake walk. I suppose it depends on the mandate, ROEs, and type of personnel on the ground. However, (perhaps because I am a military wife) I was never pleased with the proposition of our troops going to Darfur. I have always pictured it as more dangerous than Afghanistan.
Darfur sounds like smallish group in need of protection, hostileish (depending on the political wind) central "government", full on hostile "totally unassociated with the central government, no no really (nudge nudge, wink wink)" "rebel" group... so it sounds like Kosovo/Bosnia. But, you know, hot. And with the not very sellable optics of (mostly) white CF personal having to shoot Africans.
I've said it before, the people who are like "out of Afghanistan, off to Darfur for some jolly fun peace keeping" are morons. And every last bit of their support would dry up the second the CF took casualties or had to kill any of the "rebels".
...the people who are like "out of Afghanistan, off to Darfur for some jolly fun peace keeping" are morons. And every last bit of their support would dry up the second the CF took casualties or had to kill any of the "rebels". ----------------------------------
--Agreed-100%
Just to add a few numbers to the mix, I remind everyone that it takes up to four support tradesmen/women in the field for each spear. The real shortage we are running into is in the support world right now. For us to sign on to this mission even in a logistic,communications or command role would be extremely tight as these are the areas where we are suffering now even in Afgan. If you look at the numbers in Afgan of personnel right now, the Battle group itself is approx 1000 people and the rest our support, and that is with massive civilian support provided by by Canadian and American Companies.
I had a similar conversation with someone on this the other day--re: support trades/personnel--it is not as simple as people think re: just throw a couple of people on the ground so we can say we are doing something.
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