As a continuation of my earlier introduction 101 to the Darfur crisis, introduction 151 will go into a bit more detail now that you are familiar with who is fighting and why.
The conflict started in early 2003 with a peace deal in 2004 being reached. However, since then many states along with the United Nations have passed and/or condemned the acts of violence in Sudan. But who exactly is helping to bring peace to the region? And what happen to the peace deal?
Which countries are helping?
Well, the African Union has over 7,000 troops, which have been sent to the region. This number is far to few to cover the area needed to obtain security in the region. In addition, the training of the soldiers to combat the violence is less than adequate. The African Union itself is poorly funded which means the amount of time that is required to obtain and sustain peace in Darfur outreaches the African Union’s ability.
The United Nations has called for and agreed to sent UN peacekeeping soldiers of roughly 17,000 troops and 3,000 UN police men. However, the Sudan government has not allowed this force to obtain rights to enter into the country.
What happen to the peace deal?
Basically, nobody lived up to the deal. The SLA leader could not control the smaller factions of his group, which have committed numerous abuses to the people of Sudan. The actual government did not enforce the terms of the peace deal to disarm the Janjaweed either. Read more here. The actual terms of the peace deal included:
- A permanent cease-fire and the exact language of the peace deal were determined.
- The government and the southern rebels had agreed to set up a 39,000-strong army comprising fighters from both sides.
- The south should be autonomous for six years.
- Three border areas with special status were initiated where power is to be shared.
As always, I hope this information is informative to anyone wanting to know more about the crisis in the Sudan and stay tune for further information on this issue.
Further information:
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