Peacekeepers in Darfur Hobbled by Need

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Peacekeepers in Darfur Face Daunting Task

U.N. and African Union peacekeepers are faced with a challenging mission in Darfur, where hijackings and banditry pose a constant threat to humanitarian efforts.

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When the blue-bereted police first arrived in Abu Shouk, a sprawling camp on the sandy edges of this market town, people quickly recognized them as the same faces as before. The police have been chased out of the camp six times, and a camp leader who was the liaison with the mission was beaten up, U.N. police said.

"There is no difference," said Adam Sadiq Haroun, who has lived with his family at Abu Shouk for five years. "They come and patrol, but I don't know exactly what they are doing. . . . They say they are here to protect you. But still people are coming here and robbing, and time is passing."

After the problems in Abu Shouk, police chief Michael Fryer of South Africa switched his forces around to put new peacekeepers in the camp, which he said seemed to help. But his more ambitious plans -- nonstop patrols, better lighting and permanent police stations in the camps, and a force at least 40 percent female to deal with cases of sexual assault -- have been thwarted because he does not have the people, bulletproof vests or cars.

As he waits for 4,000 new police to arrive, Fryer is struggling to maintain the old force as deployments end.

"We are giving extensions to former A.U. police just to keep up our numbers," Fryer said in an interview at the new UNAMID headquarters here, a razor-wired compound with rows of white, air-conditioned trailers in the hot sand. "I'm playing chase every day just to keep my numbers up."

Criticism from Darfurians and outside advocates pushing for better protection of civilians is taking its toll on his officers. "On my level, I can handle it," Fryer said. "But my poor peacekeepers on the ground, it affects their morale. . . . I think expectations for this mission were very high, and we're just not in a position to meet them."

U.S. officials and other foreign diplomats have blamed Sudanese officials for dragging their feet on approving a list of troop-contributing countries and signing an agreement on how they are to operate, and for failing to allow unrestricted flights and holding up equipment at a port.

Equipment for the first four new battalions -- two Egyptian, two Ethiopian -- has been delayed for months at Port Sudan. Once released, it will take two months to reach Darfur.

But even if such obstacles vanish and the mission fully deploys, commanders are faced with an increasingly complex conflict that years of diplomacy have failed to resolve. Dozens of rebel factions and former government and tribal militias are engaged in widespread banditry across Darfur, and each side suspects that the peacekeeping mission is biased against it.

In September, just as the United Nations was trying to muster troops for the new mission, rebels launched an attack on an A.U. base in central Darfur. The rebels killed 10 soldiers and took heavy weapons and trucks.

The new peacekeeping mission has been attacked four times, with at least four trucks stolen. The soldiers have never fought back. Agwai said that doing so would make peacekeepers one more party to the conflict, possibly leading to more attacks or jeopardizing the government's cooperation.

"I am not here to stop bullets," he said. "Defending people does not mean we are going between lines."

Agwai and other commanders said the fundamental problem is that there is no peace to keep. The new mission can help "smooth things over" and perhaps deter attacks, Agwai said, but the notion that soldiers can create peace is unrealistic. "If peace is not returned to Darfur, it is not the fault of UNAMID," he said. "It is the fault of the parties to the conflict."