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Eight and a Half Months After
Sudan expert Eric Reeves gives some stark perspective in his latest Darfur update (and the perspective is much needed):
“On August 31, 2006, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1706, authorizing a peace support operation for Darfur consisting of 22,500 UN troops, civilian police, and Formed Police Units. The force was to deploy “rapidly” under Chapter VII of the UN Charter (which confers enforcement authority), with an explicit mandate to protect civilians as well as humanitarians and humanitarian operations. The force was also to establish a “multidimensional presence” to “improve the security situation in the neighboring regions along the borders between the Sudan and Chad and between the Sudan and the Central African Republic.” Urgently and robustly deployed, such a force could have done much to avert massive human displacement and destruction.”
“Instead, in mid-May 2007—eight and a half months after passage of Resolution 1706—fewer than 200 UN technical personnel have deployed to assist the African Union force, the only international military presence currently tasked with protecting some 4.5 million conflict-affected civilians in the greater humanitarian theater of Darfur and eastern Chad. More than 2.5 million people have been displaced within this ravaged region, almost 300,000 since the passage of Resolution 1706. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians have died in this unconscionably long period of inaction, in addition to the hundreds of thousands who have already perished.”