A UN force

Media, aid agencies and Western politicians welcomed the new Darfur resolution as a step that was long overdue. However, few recalled that the Security Council had approved a Darfur mission before. Just last year, in August, it resolved to send in a force of 20,000 soldiers and policemen. As we know, they were never deployed. Instead, attacks by Janjaweed militia and government troops intensified in Darfur, and so did clashes between the divided rebel factions.

But the situation this time is crucially different in one respect. While the idea of a UN mission was vehemently rejected by Khartoum last year, it gave its blessing to the new resolution. But that approval came at a price. The wording of the new resolution is much watered down. In August 2006, for example, the Council proclaimed very clearly that the UN force would have a mandate to prevent attacks on the civilian population. The new resolution carries the rider “without prejudice to the responsibility of the Government of Sudan”. Does this mean Khartoum will have the ultimate say in whether the blue helmets intervene or not?

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir also insisted on a second condition: the soldiers of the Darfur force should come “as far as possible” from African countries. At first, that seemed an almost insurmountable hurdle: Africa observers wondered where the African Union (AU) was going to find as many as 20,000 suitably trained troops. So it came as even more of a surprise when, barely two weeks after the Security Council resolution was released, AU chairman Alpha Oumar Konaré announced that he already had enough pledges. Troops from other continents would not be required; the United Nations would now only need to concern itself with the funding.

But Konaré’s alacrity prompts scepticism. The whole thing smacks of Sudan pulling strings behind the scenes – because the AU chairman made his announcement to the press straight after a meeting with al-Bashir, who is still dead against non-African soldiers being sent to Darfur. The Security Council resolution speaks only of a hybrid UN and AU ‘operation’; not of a hybrid ‘force’. In the eyes of the Sudanese government, this supposedly means the UN is allowed to help with funding and logistics but troops and command will remain an AU responsibility – and thus easier to manipulate, if necessary, from Khartoum.

The solo African venture is also a snub to the UN. A spokesman commenting on Konaré’s announcement said it was not just a matter of getting enough soldiers together. What was needed most was a “good mix of skills”. At UN headquarters in New York, efforts had already been made to get pledges from Asia. Now, there will probably be some time-consuming haggling and the people in the crisis region in Western Sudan will remain unprotected.

Reason enough to recall an old idea. When the United Nations was formed, it was supposed to get a military force of its own. Member states were going to assign troops to the world organisation on a permanent basis and the UN would call them up as and when they were required. That kind of arrangement would have two advantages. First, the secretary-general would not have to beg member states for troops and logistical support ahead of every single peace mission. Second, it would make it harder for tacticians like al-Bashir to influence the make-up of the force.

Plans for a UN standing army did reach a fairly advanced stage but the project was buried in 1948 when the Cold War gathered pace. The world organisation was formed in 1945 to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. Sixty years later, the UN World Summit adopted a “responsibility to protect” civilians who are threatened or abandoned by their own government. If the world is serious about that responsibility, it should give the United Nations its own soldiers.