MISTIRIA, Sudan - Patrolling a war zone the size of Texas with just 12 two-man teams, officers of the tiny African Union monitoring mission hope at least to send all parties in bloodied Darfur a message: The world is watching.
“They know we are foreign eyes when we go there,” Cmdr. Seth Appiah-Mensah of Ghana said last week before a day’s patrol set out. “And they don’t like foreign eyes,” he added, tapping his own.
The patrol, led by Maj. Panduleni Martin of Namibia, traveled to Mistiria, the stronghold of Darfur’s feared pro-government Janjaweed militia — Arab tribal fighters widely accused of killing and raping non-Arab civilians and burning their farm villages in the rolling, browning grasslands of western Sudan.
For Maj. Martin, it was a day of small talk, checking in with Sudanese troops and some of the few non-Arab villagers remaining in the area, even bantering with a suspected Janjaweed commander about the going price in camels for a Sudanese bride.
The African Union (AU) is monitoring a cease-fire signed in April but regularly violated. Since two non-Arab groups rebelled in January 2003, Darfur’s conflict has claimed more than 50,000 lives, destroyed more than 400 villages and driven more than 1.4 million people from their homes, most of them from the black African Fur and Zaghawa ethnic groups.
The United States, the European Union Parliament and human rights groups accuse Sudan’s government and the Janjaweed of waging a genocidal campaign against the non-Arabs, a charge denied by officials in Khartoum.
The AU mission — the unarmed monitors and about 350 armed soldiers who guard them — is due to grow to 3,500 in coming weeks, with increased U.S. funding and logistical support from private contractors.
Sudan’s government only reluctantly agreed to the bolstered force and fought any expansion of its mandate. International pressure and the African Union’s presence have helped lessen the violence, Maj. Martin said.
Large-scale attacks on civilians have decreased in recent weeks. Some of the Janjaweed fighters have pulled back to bases like the one in Mistiria, in northern Darfur.
But a U.N. delegation in Khartoum this week issued a fresh warning that the security situation in Darfur, especially new attacks on aid workers, will hinder the delivery of aid to the most needy.
The warning came two days after two workers for Save the Children — one from Scotland, the other from Sudan — were killed in a land mine explosion in north Darfur.
In Mistiria, militiamen now at least take the trouble to keep their Kalashnikov assault rifles out of sight of monitors, the AU soldiers said.
While on patrol, Maj. Martin heard out a complaint from a suspected Janjaweed commander, Abdullah Waheed Saeed, about a rebel cattle raid.
The major asked politely for details, while an unsaddled camel rolled on its back in the sand of a nearby dry wadi.
Suspected Janjaweed fighters, in a machine gun-mounted pickup truck, watched over the dirt track leading across the wadi into Mistiria. In sunglasses, flip-flops and uniforms without insignia, they also surveyed the AU team.
One, identifying himself as Sudanese army Sgt. Mohammed Kadada Ramadan, went over to shake hands with the visitors. As usual, the monitoring team included one representative from the Sudanese military as well as one from each of Darfur’s two rebel groups.
Ibrahim Ali Hassan of the Islamist-leaning rebel Justice and Equality Movement accepted the offered hand of his suspected Janjaweed enemy. Politely, if awkwardly, Mr. Hassan came up with a compliment: “I like your camel milk.” But conversation quickly petered out.
The AU convoy has bounced through a landscape of empty villages, some burned.
Arab herders now lead sheep and goats through the crumbling, overgrown villages — the former inhabitants dead, in hiding, or scattered in refugee camps in Darfur and across the border in Chad.
A few non-Arab farm villages remain among the emptied communities around Mistiria. One group, members of the Fur tribe, lives at the wadi crossing, the children peeping out at the ever-present Arab tribal fighters and the visiting monitors.
Maj. Martin asked a Fur elder about conditions. Abdu Mahan Yassir started to complain of the difficulties of getting food — “Living is complicated here,” he said — but then faltered under the gaze of the team’s Sudanese military representative and the suspected Janjaweed fighters.
Everything is fine, Mr. Yassir offered. Any shortages of fuel or food, Maj. Martin asked. There are no problems, the elder concluded. The major moved on.
Trailed by reporters, the Sudanese official and the Arab militiamen, Maj. Martin’s day was limited to stilted exchanges, capped by a dinner of roast mutton at the Janjaweed base.
“I have a question,” Maj. Martin demanded of Mr. Saeed, the suspected Janjaweed commander, as the unlikely collection of enemies and outsiders drank tea.
“I want to take a Sudanese bride. How many camels will that take?” Maj. Martin joked.
One camel, Mr. Saeed replied — plus a lot of cash. Mr. Saeed then volunteered the news of his own upcoming wedding. In his 30s, he was taking a third wife, a girl of 13.
The day for Maj. Martin’s team closed at the end of a tow rope. One of the squad’s two vehicles had broken down.
Vehicle shortages and other gear problems plague the mission, limiting the mobility of the monitors and protection troops. While the United Nations prods Europe and the United States for promised support, the monitors complain they are even short of armbands that identify them to observers from the AU mission.
Once the monitoring mission expands, African Union teams will be able to deploy permanently at hot spots across the region, Maj. Johan Odendaal of South Africa said at the sector base in the nearby town of Kabkabiyah.
But unless there is a change in their mandate to allow them to protect Darfur’s people, the observers can do only that — observe.
Aid groups have urged the AU teams to establish regular patrols, at least, so women can feel safe from the omnipresent threat of rape — by suspected Janjaweed — while gathering firewood outside camps.
Asked if their limited mandate allowed them to act in a recent rape case involving a 40-year-old woman and 13-year-old girl attacked by three uniformed men, Maj. Martin nodded firmly.
“Yes. We sent a report,” he said.
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