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Analysis: UN Impasse on Darfur

Council on Foreign Relations

September 19, 2006
Prepared by: Stephanie Hanson

The UN Security Council has authorized a large peacekeeping mission for Sudan’s violence-plagued Darfur region, while demonstrations around the world have urged its deployment (CNN). But the government of Sudan refuses, posing a dilemma for world leaders gathering at UN headquarters this week. Amid news that the Sudanese government has started to bomb villages (HRW), and a new study in Science claiming Darfur's death toll has been severely underreported (NYT), the UN Security Council is paralyzed: Resolution 1706 calls for a 20,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, yet it also guarantees that such a force will not be deployed without the Sudanese government’s consent. Writing in the Washington Post, Eric Reeves, an expert on Darfur, asks: “With the clear prospect of humanitarian collapse and massive civilian destruction, will the world continue to defer to Khartoum’s claims of national sovereignty?” He decries the international community’s abandonment of its “responsibility to protect” civilians who are victims of genocide, a commitment made at the September 2005 UN summit.

President Bush, who addresses the UN General Assembly on Tuesday and is expected to announce the appointment of Andrew Natsios as his special envoy for Darfur (WashPost), has also indicated his frustration with UN inaction. In a speech last week, he seemed to reject the idea that Khartoum must consent to the UN force: “What you’ll hear is… the government of Sudan must invite the United Nations in for us to act. Well, there are other alternatives.” Some suggest unilateral military action. “Multilateralism is important—but only if it gets results,” says CFR Senior Fellow Michael Gerson, a former advisor to Bush. “Sometimes, compassion requires action—and helicopter gunships” (CBS).

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.