African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

Header Banner

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
Politics

Without an operable peace agreement, what effect will 1769 really have on Darfur’s future?

By admin
August 8, 2007
1409
0
Share:

(Posted on behalf of Paul Kirby)

First, how sensible is sending 26,000 troops to ‘peacekeep’ when there is no peace agreement? Is there a serious chance of this inflaming the situation and sucking in UN/AU troops? Or should we suspect that they won’t deploy due to delaying tactics?

Second, now that the political noise has been made enough to get a resolution passed is it best if high-level decision-makers forget about the issue? I am thinking principly here about unnecessary meddling and displays of force to show that ‘something is being done’, even if the most intense period of suffering appears to be over. I was at a talk last Thursday with Margie Buchanan-Smith and one of the recent UNEP report authors at the ODI and Margie in particular talked in a non-specific way about fears that the ‘grand game’ would ultimately hurt humanitarian aid efforts. Are such fears justified? And where does a meaningful peace process fit in to all this?

For reports by the United Nations Environment Programme in the Sudan


For reports by the Overseas Development Institute


For “Conflict, camps, and coercion: the ongoing livelihoods crisis in Darfur” by Margie Buchanan-Smith and Susanne Jaspers in Disasters

Previous Article

Cause and Effect

Next Article

Where Next for Darfur’s Peace Process?

admin

0 comments

  1. Alex de Waal 8 August, 2007 at 16:49

    Paul raises two important points. On the first, all the peacekeeping professionals have long insisted that a sound peace agreement should precede the despatch of peacekeepers. The kinds of tasks mapped out for UNAMID in Resolution 1769 are difficult enough at the best of times and in the middle of ongoing hostilities they are all-but-impossible. The “responsibility to protect” is a fine principle but no-one has quite figured out how it should operate in practice, short of launching a war. One of the reasons for the UN’s caution on this is that once an international force gets involved in fighting, almost for sure it gets dragged into the conflict and then becomes part of the problem, not part of the solution. This is what happened in Mogadishu. For these reasons, the UN is hoping that the peace process recently launched will come to a successful conclusion before UNAMID is fully deployed.

    Your second question is also a good one. In earlier postings, we have debated whether things really are “getting worse” in Darfur and the implications of doing something dramatic (like a no-fly zone). A general rule is, when Darfur becomes the battleground for a clash of principles, then the rhetorical confrontation makes it harder to identify the right thing to do, get agreement upon it, and do it. The particular challenge we face in Sudan is that the kinds of real progress achieved are rarely if ever enough to satisfy many activists, so that western governments are under constant pressure to move the finishing line. In turn this undermines confidence in what has actually been achieved and makes implementation more difficult.

Leave a reply Cancel reply

  • Morgan Tsvangirai and Joice Mujuru join hands in a bid to win the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe.
    PoliticsZimbabwe

    Why do opposition coalitions succeed or fail?

  • Politics

    The choice for the next African Union chairperson is too important to get wrong

  • Refugees from Ukraine at the Polish border on 27 February 2022. Credit: Alexander Somto (Nze) Orah.
    Editor's PicksFellowsNigeriaSociety

    “Only Ukrainians, not Blacks”: Fleeing African students face racism

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81664
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Popular articles

  • President Cyril Ramaphosa (left) with his predecessor, former President Jacob Zuma in 2017. Credit: GCIS.

    What did we learn from South Africa’s exhaustive state capture commission?

  • Girls line up during a basketball drill in Mogadishu, Somalia. Credit: AU UN IST/Tobin Jones.

    To counter al-Shabaab, Somalia’s new govt must do something for the kids

  • Boni & Ente in Runyankole and English, with author Carol Baingana pictured in the bottom right corner.

    Can indigenous African languages help with children’s speech therapy?

  • www.quotecatalog.com/quotes/inspirational

    A year on from the Ho 21 arrests, queer Ghanaians fear more to come

  • Doctors perform obstetric fistula surgery in Eldoret, Kenya. Credit: Heidi Breeze-Harris/One By One.

    The solvable health issue that kills more than malaria, AIDS and TB

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
Cleantalk Pixel
By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
African Arguments wants to hear from you!

Take 5 minutes to fill in this short reader survey and you could win three African Arguments books of your choice…as well as our eternal gratitude.