NEW YORK — President Bush’s special envoy for Sudan yesterday urged the United Nations to step up efforts to deploy thousands of new peacekeepers in the region, warning that an impasse, presumably with the Sudanese government, would force the effort to fall even further behind.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission has been able to deploy only about one-third of the authorized 26,000 troops in the Darfur region and is lagging relative to the timeline imposed by a Security Council resolution last summer.
“We believe that the deployment of 3,600 new troops by June — a target number based on the United Nations’ planning schedule — will bring increased security and stability to the people [of] Darfur,” diplomat Richard S. Williamson wrote to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a letter obtained yesterday by The Washington Times.
“At this crucial moment, the deployment of new troops as quickly as possible is our best hope to change the course of this tragedy,” he wrote.
Ethiopian and Rwandan troops already are undergoing U.S.-sponsored training in preparation for their Darfur duty. Egyptian soldiers also are likely to be deployed this spring.
Some 2.5 million Darfur residents have been driven from their homes by intense fighting between government-supported militias and sometimes competing rebel groups. An estimated 250,000 have been killed. The overstretched African Union and U.N. forces have been powerless to stop the killing.
Meanwhile, relief workers in Darfur’s southeast area have been hijacked and robbed by rebel forces, and harassed by government officials.
The joint peacekeeping effort, only grudgingly accepted by Sudanese President Omar Bashir, has been hamstrung by logistical hurdles, reluctant contributors, and stiff resistance from Khartoum.
Within the United Nations it is easy to blame the slow deployment on the government, which has the unprecedented power to decide which nations can contribute troops.
Member states — particularly NATO nations with superior militaries — have been reluctant to offer the helicopters, armored vehicles and airplane shuttles necessary to transport the all-African mission.
Supplying those soldiers and police officers will be difficult because the port is far, roads are poor and water is very scarce.
And countries willing to commit soldiers or police officers to Darfur that are also acceptable to the Sudanese government do not have the resources to properly train, equip, feed and water them as stipulated by the U.N. peacekeeping contracts.
“Troops who are deployed before they are ready will put themselves at grave risk and will, frankly, set the mission back,” said a U.N. official familiar with the issue.
He added that countries such as the United States could help to fill “critical gaps” such as attack and transport helicopters.
But the one thing peacekeeping officials say they need as much as logistical support is a genuine commitment to peace from all the armed parties.
Splinters within and between the rebel groups have made negotiations particularly difficult — a fact that overshadows peacekeeping efforts.
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