Several articles.
The NY Times had a sad assessment this morning. This article will only be available online for free for the next week. Grim New Turn May Harden Darfur Conflict – New York Times.
For the first time in more than two years, rebels fighting the government for more autonomy are making brazen, direct and successful attacks on soldiers, and are declaring that all previous cease-fires are no longer in effect.
The latest peace agreement, signed in May and heavily backed by the United States but approved by only one rebel faction and the Sudanese government, is in disarray.
The government vows to crush the rebellion, and as its military struggles to fend off attacks, it will likely turn again to Arab militias called janjaweed to wage its counterinsurgency campaign, analysts say.
A visit to the site of the newest fighting, the first by a journalist, revealed a hardening conflict that is increasingly taking place along porous borders among some of the least stable countries in Africa, threatening to ignite a wide conflagration in the heart of the continent.
The Darfur rebels are flush with weapons taken from the Sudanese military in raids and bought through allies in Chad and Eritrea. They say that because Sudan has blocked a United Nations force from entering Darfur to protect the 2.5 million people forced from their homes there and in eastern Chad, they have a duty to stop attacks on non-Arab tribes.
“The international community will not do it,” said Gen. Khatir Toor Khala, a rebel field commander based on the border. “So it is for us to protect the innocent civilians of Darfur.”
The Sudan is throwing out the UN representative.Sudan Expels U.N. Envoy Over Report of Losses in Darfur – washingtonpost.com
Sudan, Oct. 22 — The Sudanese government on Sunday ordered the chief U.N. envoy out of the country after he wrote that Sudan’s army had suffered major losses in recent fighting in Darfur.
The order against the envoy, Jan Pronk, is likely to complicate international efforts to halt the killings, rapes and other atrocities in the strife-torn region of western Sudan.
In a statement distributed by the official Sudan News Agency, the country’s Foreign Ministry accused Pronk of demonstrating "enmity to the Sudanese government and the armed forces" and of involvement in unspecified activities "that are incompatible with his mission."
And there was an interesting op ed column in the Washington Post (written by Sebastian Mallaby) on the inability of the U.S. to get anything done internationally, whether it’s Iraq or elsewhere. He mentions Darfur in passing.A Nadir of U.S. Power – washingtonpost.com
… traditional diplomacy is faring no better. In North Korea and Iran, the United States has tried every diplomatic trick to prevent nuclear proliferation, making common cause with Western Europe, Russia, China and Japan, and wielding both sticks and carrots. The result is failure: North Korea has tested a nuke and Iran still presses on with its enrichment program.
A few years ago, the collapse of Russia’s currency triggered a furious debate in Washington over who lost Russia. Now Russia’s pro-Western voices are being snuffed out, and Americans are so inured to the limits of their power that they don’t even pose that question. A crusading journalist has been killed, and on Thursday Vladimir Putin silenced Human Rights, Amnesty International and more than 90 other foreign organizations. Everyone accepts that there’s not much the West can do about this…
Three long years ago, the Bush administration described the killing in Darfur as genocide. You might think that an impoverished African state that can’t control its own territory would be a pushover. But the Bush administration has tried sanctions, peace talks and United Nations resolutions. Sudan’s tin-pot dictator thumbs his nose at Uncle Sam and dispatches more death squads.
UPDATE of Update: I don’t know who Sebastian Mallaby, the writer of the third link above, is, but this guy seems to know him and doesn’t think too much of his opinions. Hugh Hewitt
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