No apologies for posting the whole of this article from a Tanzanian freelance journalist and writer. Each section is inseparably linked and important for grasping the intricacies of the situation. JS
from Countercurrents.org
Sources say
the peacekeepers are struggling with equipment problems, poor training
of some contingents and the reluctance by some governments to send their
soldiers into combat zones. When seven Tanzanian peacekeepers in
Darfur, western Sudan, were killed and 17 seriously wounded in an ambush
by gunmen, the incident sent shockwaves throughout the country. For the
first time public was made aware that all was not well with their men
and women deployed in the war-torn Sudan as part of the UN peacekeeping
forces. The deadly attack on 13 July this year
occurred when the soldiers were in a convoy searching for their vehicles
that were reportedly stolen by a rebel group. The Tanzanian soldiers
sustained heavy fire from machine guns and possibly rocket-propelled
grenades. Among the wounded were two female police officers. No group
immediately claimed responsibility. But a UN report in February said
that some armed opposition groups are angry about the presence of
peacekeepers and have called the force ‘a legitimate target.’
In the Tanzanian official circles scanty
information was released, but some local journalists contacted the
peace-keepers in Darfur. One of them said, on condition of anonymity,
that a week ago unknown assailants attacked members of the army and
disappeared with four vehicles. ‘It is really traumatising here; I can
tell you the rebels are fully armed with sophisticated weapons,’ he
lamented.
Immediately, questions were raised about
the United Nations African Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) whose task is to
maintain peace and protect civilians from insurgents. Some asked if
there was any peace to maintain in the first place.
The Tanzanian contingent of 875 military
and police personnel has been stationed in Darfur for some five years as
part of the UNAMID, which has strength of 16,500 troops and military
observers plus 5,000 international police. Yet the latest casualty was
not an isolated encounter by the solders on peace mission in Darfur.
Peacekeepers have been targeted at
various times since the international force began its work in the region
in 2008. In April this year gunmen shot and killed a Nigerian
peacekeeper. Prior to the July attack, 150 people associated with the UN
mission in Darfur had been killed while on duty in the region,
according to the force's website. Following the latest attack, Tanzania is
now seeking a stronger mandate for peacekeepers in the Sudan's
strife-torn Darfur region, so as to ‘deal with the current condition.’
The demand is to equip the peacekeepers with heavy weapons such as APC,
artillery and helicopters. Army spokesman Colonel Mgawe said, ‘We
want our troops to have more capacity to defend themselves against
insurgents’. He said currently their rules of engagement, under Chapter
6, forbid the use of ‘excessive’ force. Now they are going to negotiate
with UN for Chapter 7 so as to give the troops more fire-power to defend
themselves. That means use of heavy weapons as is the
case with Tanzanian forces in DRC. In fact some Tanzanians have
questioned why give them heavy weapons in DRC and not in Darfur.
Whether, with such armaments, they have succeeded in wiping out M23 is
another question.
The pertinent question for Darfur,
however, is whether the peacekeepers there are now going to pursue the
rebels and fight them on their turf or are they going to fight back when
attacked. If it is the former then actually it means there is no peace
to maintain and so stationing peace-keepers there is paradoxical
It has been suggested that the better
solution for stopping the attack on peacekeepers would be to cut off the
supply line of heavy weaponry to the rebels, especially if the supply
comes from outside the Sudan.
Meanwhile, Tanzanian President Jakaya
Kikwete has asked President Omar al-Bashir to investigate the latest
incident and ensure that the perpetrators are apprehended and brought to
justice.The question is whether Bashir has the
ability to take any action, since he himself has been under attack by
the rebels. After having negotiated and signed peace treaty with them,
not all have joined the cease-fire. And so his troops have been under
attack from time to time. Hence he is hardly in control of the situation
in Darfur, which has been described as a civil war. Darfur has over 35 tribes and ethnic
groups. Half the people are small subsistence farmers, the other half
being nomadic herders. For centuries the nomadic people have been
grazing their cattle and camels over sprawling grass lands, sharing
water sources.
The crisis is reportedly rooted in
intertribal feuds over increasingly scarce water and grazing grounds in
the area hit hard by years of climate change, drought and growing
famine, coupled with the encroaching Sahara Desert. The matter became worse
when local tribes took up arms in 2003 against the government in
Khartoum, which they accuse of marginalising them. Meanwhile, more insurgencies were
launched from Darfur. Factions allied with or against neighbouring
countries operated from bases inside Darfur, which became a regular
landing ground for foreign military transport planes. Thus, Chad’s
Idriss Deby launched a military bombardment from the neighbouring Darfur
and overthrew President Hissan Habre. French and U.S. forces were then involved
in funding, training and equipping Deby, a military ruler, who
supported the rebel groups in Darfur. At the same time there were
reports of Israelis providing military training to Darfur rebels from
bases in Eritrea, while strengthening ties with the regime in Chad, from
where more weapons and troops penetrated Darfur. Refugee camps were thus militarized.
Darfur was further militarised when the regime of Ange-Félix Patassé
collapsed in the Central African Republic and his soldiers fled to
Darfur with their military hardware. The situation was not made better
when, in August 1998, US President Bill Clinton ordered missile attack
on the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. It was producing cheap
medications for malaria and tuberculosis, supplying most of the medicine
in Sudan. The plant was completely smashed by 19
cruise missiles, for no logical reason. And so Darfur became the hub of
international geopolitical scramble for Africa’s resources. The region
has the third largest copper and the fourth largest high quality uranium
deposits in the world. It produces two-thirds of the world’s best
quality gum Arabic, which is major ingredient in cold drinks,
pharmaceuticals and candies. Sudan exports 80% of the world’s supply of
this commodity.
The country, the largest in Africa in
terms of area, is strategically located on the Red Sea, immediately
south of Egypt, and borders on seven other African countries. It is
situated opposite Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, among the main
suppliers of oil. Sudan also has abundance of natural gas and oil, much
of it in Darfur. The problem for the West is that it is the Chinese who
are pumping the oil. U.S. companies controlling the pipelines
in Chad and Uganda are looking for the ways to displace China through
the US military alliance with states such as Uganda, Chad and Ethiopia,
which are not too friendly with Sudan. Darfur, a western region of
Sudan, borders on Libya and Chad, with their own vast oil resources. So
it is a likely pipeline route.
The West is thus pushing for
‘peacekeeping’ mission in Darfur in order to pursue its own agenda. That
is why in the end the whole exercise may result into another Iraq or
Afghanistan. This is because the United States and its allies look for
conflicts, or even provoke conflicts, which they use as pretext to
intervene in other countries, militarily or otherwise, directly or
through proxies (including the UN). The aim is to exploit and control these
countries economically and politically through puppet governments. This
way they facilitate, promote and protect the investments of their
corporations. This is how the United States and other western powers are
working towards political domination in Africa and elsewhere, in order
to exploit their resources.
These are the sentiments that were
possibly expressed by chairman of Tanzania’s National League for
Democracy (NLD), Dr. Emmanuel Makaidi, when he called upon the
government to withdraw Tanzanian peace-keeping troops from Sudan as
their presence there is ‘not in the country’s national interest. It is not worth sacrificing our seven
soldiers who lost their lives in an ambush laid by insurgents,’ he
swiped, adding that Tanzania has an ill-advised foreign policy.
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