A delegation of IDP leadership in El Fasher approached UNAMID in December to warn that January would be a violent period. They felt exposed to retaliation by government-affiliated militia if a warrant was issued by the ICC for President Bashir, and claimed that both rebels and government would be consolidating their positions in the lead up to a political upheaval that would reconfigure the peace process.
Fearing for their own well-being and for the safety of UNAMID, the delegation asked what UNAMID troops intended to do if security deteriorated during the month. Senior mission officials assured the IDP delegation that UNAMID would continue regular patrols to provide safety for civilians throughout Darfur.
One Omda summed up his theory of UNAMID patrols’ contribution to safety in the camps with the comment “You know, we (camp residents) are not opposed to UNAMID patrols - as ineffective as they may be - but the patrols are a bit like sending a friend to visit a sick person in the hospital. The show of solidarity is nice, but it won’t heal the problem.”
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Returing to a New Darfur
I recently landed in El Fasher after three weeks of vacation aboard the last flight to slip in to Darfur before a series of rebel movements and GoS bombing in the area shut down the airport.
Dropping my bags off at home, the ceiling fan and glasses were rattling from the nearby bombardment and I decided not to unpack quite yet. UNAMID still seems to have one foot in Darfur and one foot out - never quite deciding if they will run at the first instance of attack or stay throughout.
The Darfuris can sense this equivocation and the first question residents of one displaced persons camp asked me was why UNAMID had stropped patrolling since the bombing began. When I asked the police commander I was assured that the patrols were continuing from strategic vantage points within the town. Given the topography of El Fasher, I eventually learned this meant climbing trees and observing the camps with binoculars. Residents were needless to say not assured by this, but also not too worried. It appears the bombing was concentrated on JEM positions and there were few civilian casualties.
Most of the projects I was working on before I left are now largely irrelevant. The fast-pace of military and political change in Darfur often means a new start and new analysis every time you come back from leave.
In the office my boss assured me to continue planning activities as normal and that there would be no evacuation in the near future. But arriving home that night, I found my house mate (who works in supply chain) packing for Entebbe, Uganda where he would be coordinating the foreseen evacuation.
Most people blame this schizophrenic direction on the dual political commands received by the mission from its African Union and United Nations bosses (particularly in regards to support for or criticism of the ICC indictment). But I see a fundamental disagreement between the humanitarian side (political affaires, human rights, etc) and the administrative/logistic side of the mission. Humanitarians seem to operate under the assumption that the UN and its member states are willing to risk lives for the ideals of the Geneva conventions and civilian protection during war time.
It remains to be seen which direction one will win out…but the Mission’s upper management did collectively agree that if we do evacuate it will not in fact be called an evacuation (because that sounds too much like we are abandoning the people of Darfur) but rather a "relocation."
Dropping my bags off at home, the ceiling fan and glasses were rattling from the nearby bombardment and I decided not to unpack quite yet. UNAMID still seems to have one foot in Darfur and one foot out - never quite deciding if they will run at the first instance of attack or stay throughout.
The Darfuris can sense this equivocation and the first question residents of one displaced persons camp asked me was why UNAMID had stropped patrolling since the bombing began. When I asked the police commander I was assured that the patrols were continuing from strategic vantage points within the town. Given the topography of El Fasher, I eventually learned this meant climbing trees and observing the camps with binoculars. Residents were needless to say not assured by this, but also not too worried. It appears the bombing was concentrated on JEM positions and there were few civilian casualties.
Most of the projects I was working on before I left are now largely irrelevant. The fast-pace of military and political change in Darfur often means a new start and new analysis every time you come back from leave.
In the office my boss assured me to continue planning activities as normal and that there would be no evacuation in the near future. But arriving home that night, I found my house mate (who works in supply chain) packing for Entebbe, Uganda where he would be coordinating the foreseen evacuation.
Most people blame this schizophrenic direction on the dual political commands received by the mission from its African Union and United Nations bosses (particularly in regards to support for or criticism of the ICC indictment). But I see a fundamental disagreement between the humanitarian side (political affaires, human rights, etc) and the administrative/logistic side of the mission. Humanitarians seem to operate under the assumption that the UN and its member states are willing to risk lives for the ideals of the Geneva conventions and civilian protection during war time.
It remains to be seen which direction one will win out…but the Mission’s upper management did collectively agree that if we do evacuate it will not in fact be called an evacuation (because that sounds too much like we are abandoning the people of Darfur) but rather a "relocation."
Saturday, December 27, 2008
The Shoe and the Truth
The Shoe/Bush incident is the talk of the town. The Sudanese I spoke to let out an involuntary peal of laughter the first time they saw or heard, but quickly assumed disapproving expressions. The Sudanese, they claim, are quieter, more restrained, particularly in the face of authority. You would never see a Sudanese throw a shoe at anyone, they tell me.
(But when I ask why it is bad or good to throw shoes I get answers like ‘its bad because then the authority will be angry and it will make your life more difficult.’ It seems when life is already of a certain degree of difficulty, morality falls away and all that’s left are practical concerns.)
To me the footage is only meaningful with the sound on. The visual image is just an angry man. But the audio of Bush being cut off in mid-sentence – proclaiming friendship and ‘parting gifts to the Iraqi people’ - with a loud thud lends an ‘emperor’s new clothes’ side to the story. A lone man standing up for truth.
Its one thing for leaders to make foreign policy mistakes or at least to watch major unintended consequences of their actions unravel. But its another thing to pretend its not happening.
The Bush incident was embarrassing to many Iraqis (and Sudanese). But not nearly as embarrassing as Bush’s State of the Middle East Speech a week earlier was to me. I keep telling my Sudanese friends that Americans are more honest than that, more down-to-earth. That you would never see a true American stand before a wounded country and say things not remotely connected to reality.
(But when I ask why it is bad or good to throw shoes I get answers like ‘its bad because then the authority will be angry and it will make your life more difficult.’ It seems when life is already of a certain degree of difficulty, morality falls away and all that’s left are practical concerns.)
To me the footage is only meaningful with the sound on. The visual image is just an angry man. But the audio of Bush being cut off in mid-sentence – proclaiming friendship and ‘parting gifts to the Iraqi people’ - with a loud thud lends an ‘emperor’s new clothes’ side to the story. A lone man standing up for truth.
Its one thing for leaders to make foreign policy mistakes or at least to watch major unintended consequences of their actions unravel. But its another thing to pretend its not happening.
The Bush incident was embarrassing to many Iraqis (and Sudanese). But not nearly as embarrassing as Bush’s State of the Middle East Speech a week earlier was to me. I keep telling my Sudanese friends that Americans are more honest than that, more down-to-earth. That you would never see a true American stand before a wounded country and say things not remotely connected to reality.
Lessons from the Peace Corps
I was a Peace Corps volunteer before joining the UN. In training, a few weeks into your stay in a new country, they make you do an exercise called “community mapping” to learn the two most essential skills of community intervention.
The trainers drive you out to a small village, assemble the villagers, give you a pen and paper and tell you to sketch out a map of the existing village structures and services and identify needs for new ones.
Half the battle is explaining to a group of unsuspecting villagers who you are and what it is you are doing standing in the dirt in front of them with a pen and paper. The rest of the battle is learning how to listen. Vast differences between you and them soon become apparent – perhaps you don’t know what a gari mill is, and they definitely have no idea how to conceive of a map. Somehow you have to meet in the middle.
The point of this story is that UNAMID needs to get better at 1) explaining what it is and why it is there, and 2) relaying messages back from the community about what their needs are. This two-way communication is supposed to happen on daily “confidence building patrols” which consist of a few cars of police and military personnel driving around camps and villages and stopping to talk to people. These patrols constitute the vast majority of UNAMID’s billion-dollar-a-year contact with its constituency - rural Darfuris affected by the conflict.
But very little has been invested in developing these essential skills in police and military and in the translators through which their interactions are channeled. Going along on patrol you can’t help but notice some camp residents give blank stares in response to questions – they don’t know why UNAMID people are there and what they expect to offer. Others say everything is fine, having long ago given up hope that anyone is actually listening to what they say..
If you can’t communicate, you’re just someone with a pen and paper in the dirt.
The trainers drive you out to a small village, assemble the villagers, give you a pen and paper and tell you to sketch out a map of the existing village structures and services and identify needs for new ones.
Half the battle is explaining to a group of unsuspecting villagers who you are and what it is you are doing standing in the dirt in front of them with a pen and paper. The rest of the battle is learning how to listen. Vast differences between you and them soon become apparent – perhaps you don’t know what a gari mill is, and they definitely have no idea how to conceive of a map. Somehow you have to meet in the middle.
The point of this story is that UNAMID needs to get better at 1) explaining what it is and why it is there, and 2) relaying messages back from the community about what their needs are. This two-way communication is supposed to happen on daily “confidence building patrols” which consist of a few cars of police and military personnel driving around camps and villages and stopping to talk to people. These patrols constitute the vast majority of UNAMID’s billion-dollar-a-year contact with its constituency - rural Darfuris affected by the conflict.
But very little has been invested in developing these essential skills in police and military and in the translators through which their interactions are channeled. Going along on patrol you can’t help but notice some camp residents give blank stares in response to questions – they don’t know why UNAMID people are there and what they expect to offer. Others say everything is fine, having long ago given up hope that anyone is actually listening to what they say..
If you can’t communicate, you’re just someone with a pen and paper in the dirt.
The ICC and the US
I keep seeing editorials in respectable newspapers exhorting the US government to act to ensure that justice is not delayed in Darfur through a Security Council deferral of the arrest warrant for President Bashir.
A group of prominent Darfur experts wrote an open letter to Barrack Obama claiming that since Briton and France were negotiating with Sudan over the charges – trying to leverage major concessions in exchange for a deferral - the US must step into the moral vacuum and ensure that justice prevails, presumably in order to prevent dictators around the world from thinking they are immune to war cirmes charges.
Which would all sound a lot better if the US had not shied away from ratifying the Rome Statue creating the ICC for fear that its people would not be immune from war crimes charges.
Condilezza Rice has just outlined an expensive step by step plan for strengthening international justice mechanisms. But the single most meaningful gesture the US could carry out to strengthen the legitimacy of the charges against President Bashir and to raise the stakes of continued defiance of the law by the Sudanese government is to ratify the court's documents.
A group of prominent Darfur experts wrote an open letter to Barrack Obama claiming that since Briton and France were negotiating with Sudan over the charges – trying to leverage major concessions in exchange for a deferral - the US must step into the moral vacuum and ensure that justice prevails, presumably in order to prevent dictators around the world from thinking they are immune to war cirmes charges.
Which would all sound a lot better if the US had not shied away from ratifying the Rome Statue creating the ICC for fear that its people would not be immune from war crimes charges.
Condilezza Rice has just outlined an expensive step by step plan for strengthening international justice mechanisms. But the single most meaningful gesture the US could carry out to strengthen the legitimacy of the charges against President Bashir and to raise the stakes of continued defiance of the law by the Sudanese government is to ratify the court's documents.
End of a Long Silence
I haven’t written in a long time, I apologize – I’ve been traveling a lot and I lost my USB drive with all my rambling writings somewhere in the sand. Its Christmas time now, and things have settled down a bit. Most people are on holiday.
President Bashir came to El Fasher yesterday. The weeks leading up were filled with frantic preparation – painting the curbs black and white, hanging Sudanese flags along the road, rushing to finish construction on the new mosque, military hospital, and ministry buildings. The frenzy of activity built up until the night before when hundreds of workers were still putting up power lines, sweeping the streets, and hammering – I half expected to wake up the next day in a reformed city, with shiny cars, nice buildings, and people singing in the streets.
Bashir’s arrival after all the preparation was anticlimactic, despite the significantly increased amount of armed men careening about town in pick-up trucks. He gave a speech promising peace and a new road to Khartoum, but my Sudanese colleagues were unimpressed.
The most drama occurred when residents of the displaced persons’ camp refused to allow Bashir’s convoy to pass by the camp on its way to the “model village” he was opening and inviting them to live in - so he had to travel the two kilometers by helicopter.
President Bashir came to El Fasher yesterday. The weeks leading up were filled with frantic preparation – painting the curbs black and white, hanging Sudanese flags along the road, rushing to finish construction on the new mosque, military hospital, and ministry buildings. The frenzy of activity built up until the night before when hundreds of workers were still putting up power lines, sweeping the streets, and hammering – I half expected to wake up the next day in a reformed city, with shiny cars, nice buildings, and people singing in the streets.
Bashir’s arrival after all the preparation was anticlimactic, despite the significantly increased amount of armed men careening about town in pick-up trucks. He gave a speech promising peace and a new road to Khartoum, but my Sudanese colleagues were unimpressed.
The most drama occurred when residents of the displaced persons’ camp refused to allow Bashir’s convoy to pass by the camp on its way to the “model village” he was opening and inviting them to live in - so he had to travel the two kilometers by helicopter.
Friday, November 7, 2008
The Wrong Tools
Mohammed poked at the dry lump of rice on his plate which had been offered as lunch by the Nigerian contingent - “They can’t even cook food to eat, how do you think they are going to protect a community?” he asks. We are staying at a ‘teamsite’ – the small bases that are the AU-UN peacekeeping mission’s only presence in Darfur outside of the three regional capitals. Each houses about 150 military and 100 police who monitor armed movements and conduct daily patrols around the community.
Mohammed, who is from a minority tribe in Darfur, sees power politics clearly, with no comforting allusions. It has been a disheartening day and the lack of edible food is a good indicator of the difficulties faced by peacekeepers – impossible supply chains, low morale, and an uneasy relationship with the local community.
Landing here, you think the helicopter pilot has made a mistake. The first sign of life is a solitary soldier guarding the rocky landing spot, and behind him emerges the barbed wire and sand bladder cage representing an airport. Once you descend squinting into the harsh light you start to see subtle texture to the rocky landscape that is vegetation, crumbling houses and a donkey or two.
Kutum sits on the side of a dry river bed along a major nomadic route from Lybia to the Central African Republic and used to be a trading center of some fame (Wilfred Thesiger was stationed here as a young British Colonial Officer). Its centrality has also made it one of the epicenters of violence in the Darfur conflict with a long and twisting history of attacks.
The town is flanked by two huge displaced person camps – refugees from the battle waged between Government and rebel groups for control of their lands. The camps are in turn flanked by armed militia and camp inhabitants venturing out to plant crops or gather firewood are periodically harassed – assaulted, beaten, shot at, crops trampled and donkeys stolen. Although rumors of impending attacks are flying through town– after decades of instability the residents are good at predicting battles - the most immediate problem seems to be the crime and impunity which prevents (by design or not) people from going about their livelihoods.
'
The first stop on a patrol with the UN peacekeepers is the GoS (Government of Sudan) Police station. UNAMID's mandate does not allow for the investigation of crimes or arrest of perpetrators - it is limited to the ‘protection of civilians under imminent threat’ ie. intervention either immediately prior to or during the criminal act. In cases where a crime has been reported after the fact, UNAMID's soldiers, police, and civilians can only pressure the government to fulfill its duty in investigating the crimes. And, though the GoS police’s motivation to investigate may be questionable, their ability is not. The perpetrators are both better armed and better connected. Heavily armed and turbaned men hovering around the police station listening to every word, press this point.
In the past, in line with traditions that allowed for the governing of immense inhospitable terrain, the police would call the leaders of a suspect's tribe to come account for his or her crime. But the old guard no longer has control, and showing up at the police station to admit it would be both humiliating and dangerous. Guns and salaries offered by the government have bent the loyalties of the tribes’ youth and destroyed the authority of their elders.
Exactly which guns and salaries are giving to which militia by the government is debatable, but few dispute that the GoS - having come to power in a coup - recognizes the danger of a military and is hedging its bets by supporting at least a few distinct armed groups. A result which Mohammed sums up as putting the entire town at the mercy of 13 year olds smoking marijuana in the bush waiting for orders on their satellite phones.
Residents are understandably frustrated that the relatively well-equipped peacekeepers can do little to improve their day-to-day situation. They complain that when the African Union mission turned over to the AU-UN mission, the soldiers only changed their hats – in truth, in many cases the soldiers only painted their old helmets blue. But the problem is not the quality of the peacekeepers; it is that of the mandate.
The mission may be successful in peace negotiations with its current mandate to protect civilians under threat of attack, but if it wants to make an immediate difference in the lives of civilians it needs to address crime.
The issue is hugely complicated – the power to arrest could, in a worst case scenario, make the UN a party to the conflict. And in a better case scenario, put the UN in the awkward position of choosing to dispense ‘international’ justice on an unwilling population or handing suspects over to either government or rebel forces that would likely kill them. But the purpose of a peacekeeping mission is to protect civilians, and if the threat to civilians is evolving, so must the mandate of the mission.
Mohammed, who is from a minority tribe in Darfur, sees power politics clearly, with no comforting allusions. It has been a disheartening day and the lack of edible food is a good indicator of the difficulties faced by peacekeepers – impossible supply chains, low morale, and an uneasy relationship with the local community.
Landing here, you think the helicopter pilot has made a mistake. The first sign of life is a solitary soldier guarding the rocky landing spot, and behind him emerges the barbed wire and sand bladder cage representing an airport. Once you descend squinting into the harsh light you start to see subtle texture to the rocky landscape that is vegetation, crumbling houses and a donkey or two.
Kutum sits on the side of a dry river bed along a major nomadic route from Lybia to the Central African Republic and used to be a trading center of some fame (Wilfred Thesiger was stationed here as a young British Colonial Officer). Its centrality has also made it one of the epicenters of violence in the Darfur conflict with a long and twisting history of attacks.
The town is flanked by two huge displaced person camps – refugees from the battle waged between Government and rebel groups for control of their lands. The camps are in turn flanked by armed militia and camp inhabitants venturing out to plant crops or gather firewood are periodically harassed – assaulted, beaten, shot at, crops trampled and donkeys stolen. Although rumors of impending attacks are flying through town– after decades of instability the residents are good at predicting battles - the most immediate problem seems to be the crime and impunity which prevents (by design or not) people from going about their livelihoods.
'
The first stop on a patrol with the UN peacekeepers is the GoS (Government of Sudan) Police station. UNAMID's mandate does not allow for the investigation of crimes or arrest of perpetrators - it is limited to the ‘protection of civilians under imminent threat’ ie. intervention either immediately prior to or during the criminal act. In cases where a crime has been reported after the fact, UNAMID's soldiers, police, and civilians can only pressure the government to fulfill its duty in investigating the crimes. And, though the GoS police’s motivation to investigate may be questionable, their ability is not. The perpetrators are both better armed and better connected. Heavily armed and turbaned men hovering around the police station listening to every word, press this point.
In the past, in line with traditions that allowed for the governing of immense inhospitable terrain, the police would call the leaders of a suspect's tribe to come account for his or her crime. But the old guard no longer has control, and showing up at the police station to admit it would be both humiliating and dangerous. Guns and salaries offered by the government have bent the loyalties of the tribes’ youth and destroyed the authority of their elders.
Exactly which guns and salaries are giving to which militia by the government is debatable, but few dispute that the GoS - having come to power in a coup - recognizes the danger of a military and is hedging its bets by supporting at least a few distinct armed groups. A result which Mohammed sums up as putting the entire town at the mercy of 13 year olds smoking marijuana in the bush waiting for orders on their satellite phones.
Residents are understandably frustrated that the relatively well-equipped peacekeepers can do little to improve their day-to-day situation. They complain that when the African Union mission turned over to the AU-UN mission, the soldiers only changed their hats – in truth, in many cases the soldiers only painted their old helmets blue. But the problem is not the quality of the peacekeepers; it is that of the mandate.
The mission may be successful in peace negotiations with its current mandate to protect civilians under threat of attack, but if it wants to make an immediate difference in the lives of civilians it needs to address crime.
The issue is hugely complicated – the power to arrest could, in a worst case scenario, make the UN a party to the conflict. And in a better case scenario, put the UN in the awkward position of choosing to dispense ‘international’ justice on an unwilling population or handing suspects over to either government or rebel forces that would likely kill them. But the purpose of a peacekeeping mission is to protect civilians, and if the threat to civilians is evolving, so must the mandate of the mission.
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