Dejavú

Nobody talks about it now, but Darfur is a hot spot. Really hot.

After months -we could even say years- of clashes between Chad and Sudan, the Darfur area is full of refugees living in camps. They are under the protection of the UN and they are a -relative- oasis in the middle of a desert of battles. Everyone fights everyone else here. Irregular militias against the governmental forces, between themselves and Chad and Sudan armies to each other.

The main contingent in the area correspond to peacekeepers from the African Union, who yesterday denied again the warrant over Omar Bashir, the Sudanese president and one of the key actors in this mess.

Yesterday too, that contingent got a hard knock out after it was known that their commander in chief, the Nigerian General Martin Luther Agwai, had been “invited” to resign. The reason was lying at home, where apparently his wife was involved in a corruption case.

David Axe asks himself up until which point it is a logical decision to make a good General, who was making a great job, to step down due to a problem of corruption, even when is not directly linked to him and we are talking about Africa:

Does possible corruption (emphasis on “possible”), on the home-front, diminish Agwai’s value as a commander? Consider how corrupt recently-deceased Gabonese president Omar Bongo was — and the many decades of peace and relative prosperity he brought to his country.

Corruption is as African as sunshine. How do you balance the need for a less corrupt future society, with the pressing demands of today’s missions, which beg for today’s corrupt leaders?

Because the AU forces in the area are not in a good position to prescind of one of their best assets. Outnumbered and under equipped, the troops limit themselves to self protection duties and to protect the refugee camps the best they can. But that’s a delicate balance. If things go worse, they won’t be able to maintain the position anymore.

They struggle right now to control a region the size of Texas, when only skirmishes are taking place. If a full scale war starts, a possibility closer every day, the only solution will be a withdraw.

Behind we left a lot of proposals like the creation of a no-fly zone over Sudan, like the one in Iraq after the Gulf war. Or the supports in Chad of several European nations, with troops on the ground from even those you don’t see easily abroad, like Ireland. Behind is too the warrant over Bashir, which won’t be obey by any Muslim or African country.

There are only left the refugee camps, thousands of people fled from their homes, an open war menace more clear every day and a surrounded peacekeeping force unable to even guarantee their own security.

I think I just had a deja-vú. If that rings a bell in anyone, raise your hands.

Here is a clue: Rwanda.



Photo: AP


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