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Analysis: Tentative Agreement on Darfur

Council on Foreign Relations

Updated: November 17, 2006
Prepared by: Stephanie Hanson

After an extended deadlock, the Sudanese government has "agreed in principle" (Reuters) to a hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan convened a conference in Ethiopia on Thursday to address the region's escalating violence (AP), proposing the deployment of an international force (LAT) on the border of Chad and Sudan or a hybrid force of African Union (AU) and UN troops. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has blocked the deployment of a 20,000-strong UN peacekeeping force there for the past three months. Bashir told state TV he welcomes assistance from the United Nations to strengthen the AU mission, but he did not mention (BBC) the reported agreement on a hybrid force. Darfur is currently occupied by an undermanned, underfunded African Union (AU) force lacking a mandate to protect civilians.

During the three-month stalemate, the situation in Darfur has gone from bad to worse. Arab janjaweed militias, backed by the Sudanese government, have stepped up attacks against civilians. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of aerial bombings of civilians by Sudanese government forces. Several humanitarian organizations have pulled out of the region, closing refugee camps and leaving some 300,000 Darfurians without aid. And camps are no guarantee of protection: A Darfuri told UN envoy Jan Egeland the Janjaweed are now patrolling inside the camps, threatening the refugees (Reuters) not to stay.

Officials from various international organizations attended the summit and they had long been divided over whether and how to intervene in Darfur.

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.