UN uthorized UNAMID Falls Short of Promise

Protect the People of Darfur

It has been a year since the U.N. Security Council authorized the UNAMID peacekeeping force for Darfur and promised to deploy 17,000 additional troops to protect the people of Darfur.

In the last year, barely 2,000 additional troops have so far reached Darfur. This failure to act is simply unacceptable.

The people of Darfur need protection more than ever. The prosecutor of the ICC / International Criminal Court issued formal charges against Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir for genocide, which may cause him to take his vengeance out on Darfuris.

Pesident al-Bashir came to power in Sudan in 1989 on July 14 2008 he was charged with ten counts of war crimes and genocide as a result of Resolution 1593. It is unlikely that there will be any action. President al-Bashir will not be arrested, he will not be transported to the Hague for trial. He will continue his ways.

Why? Why wont the world take action? The world view and it's approach is fairly conservative, especially given the big oops in Iraq, here's why I say that.

By using the "Do nothing" approach the world will operate under the blind eye of it's been here all along why screw with it now or; the region stays as status quo - it is no more nor is it any less stable than we have experienced for a decade or more. However, get involved and the region may fall in to complete chaos (quite the opposite of what we have there right now isn't it?).

So what's the benefit to turning a blind eye with the exception of the occasional publicity laden political outcry? We benefit from Sudan's intelligence sources on our "war against terror" and thus won't cut our own wrists to push someone, who is "helping" us, out of power. At least not without first setting up a puppet government and we seem to be just a bit busy right now with other parts of the world that we thought we could do this in.

Other than that what's holding us back, well, we, the US, may be a bit gun shy about getting involved in another Muslim country at this point, our recent attempt doesn't seem to be going so well politically at home or with our allies.

And the world turns, evil begets money, money begets evil, and oil! Oh my God, Oil begets it all! There is an election scheduled in Sudan for July of 2009, it is highly doubted that it will be free and/or fair. It is also highly suspect that the self-determination referendum for the south, in 2011, will be on time or honest. Why bring these dates and elections in to the conversation? The Sudanese election in '09 is important for al-Bashir to maintain control. The referrendum, if it were to pass, would successfully separate al-Bashir from 80% of the oil produced in Sudan, and don't forget....Oil begets it all.

To insure that things go his way, it seems Sudan's President or representatives thereof, have been making nice with some entrepreneurs in China: The BBC uncovered concrete evidence that weapons from China - a permanent member of the Security Council - are being used in Darfur in violation of a U.N. arms embargo.

It has never been clearer that the member states of the U.N. Security Council need to muster the political will to deploy peacekeepers to Darfur.

Write your local / state representatives, tell them this has to stop. Deploy the troops authorized by the UN mission in Darfur / UNAMID.

You have been given a voice, use it. Go out and SCREAM! about something you care about.


Darfur, UNAMID, Omar al-Bashir, al-Bashir, genocide, Hague, referrendum