CAIRO: As the Sept. 30 deadline for the withdrawal of African Union troops from Sudan's Darfur region looms, world leaders and humanitarian organizations have begun to sound the alarm about the approaching potential for disaster. "The situation in Darfur is desperate, said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, at a New York press conference earlier this week. "The government continues to refuse to accept the transition to the UN. The presence of the African Union forces is itself not certain, and we are going to continue our efforts and I have appealed to all the governments with influence to work with the Sudanese government, and get the government to change its attitude and its approach because, if the African Union forces were to leave, and we are not able to put in a UN follow-on force, we are heading for a disaster. "When we had Rwanda, almost everyone said we should not let it happen again, he continued, "So, we have a big challenge in Sudan. Violence in the Darfur region can be traced back to the late 1980s, when persistent drought in the region led to competition between rival ethnic groups for natural resources. It was worsened in 1988, when the government began supporting militias drawn from the local Arabic-speaking population to fight an incursion by the Sudan People's Liberation Army, a rebel group fighting for control of the oil-rich south. On Aug. 31, the United Nations voted to send a 20,000 man peace keeping force to Darfur to reinforce a 7,000 man AU presence which has been widely criticized as ineffective. This larger UN force would add to the 10,000 peace keepers currently stationed in the south of the country. Khartoum immediately rejected the proposal, calling it an attempt at "regime change, and has refused to allow the UN force to enter the country. For its part, the African Union has announced that without the UN reinforcements it will withdraw its under-funded and badly organized force, leaving hundreds of thousands of Darfurian civilians with out international protection. Violence has escalated in the conflict-torn region in recent months, and the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement on May 4 appears to have made the situation worse. The fragile alliance of rebel groups that had been battling the government and its janjaweed militias fragmented after the peace accords were signed, creating a dizzying and frequently changing array of militias, political factions, and acronyms. It is estimated that between 70 and 80 percent of Darfurians support the various splinter groups that have rejected the deal and vowed to continue the war against Khartoum. In response to the persistent militancy and rebel activity in the region, the central government is preparing to send 10,000 uniformed soldiers into the region, raising the ghoulish specter of fresh civilian massacres and further destruction. According to African Middle East Refugee Assistance, a Cairo-based NGO which provides legal and psycho-social aid to the city's large refugee population, two to three million people have been displaced since February 2003 and 200,000 have been killed. Government-backed militias have deliberately attacked civilians with tactics including abductions, systematic rape, burning of villages and looting. Attacks have also taken place inside refugee camps and have targeted humanitarian workers, a dozen of whom have been slain in targeted killings since May. In response to these threats, many aid organizations have withdrawn from the region, and according to AMERA nearly half a million people have little or no access to food. The war in Darfur has broad regional implications as well, with the potential to threaten all of northeastern Africa. AMERA warns that the threat of violence hangs over refugee camps in Chad, currently home to 240,000 Darfurians, and that tensions could also spread further south into the Central African Republic as well. The implications of renewed violence for Egypt are unclear, but Maher Nassar, Director of the UN Media Office in Cairo, offers a similar warning. "There are serious implications for all of Sudan's neighbors, he says. "If the situation deteriorates, there is bound to be further movement of civilians escaping conflict, and this kind of instability will discourage investment and development. Over the weekend, AUC held a candle light vigil for peace in Darfur in a large open courtyard, where a crowd of over a hundred refugees and Western supporters gathered to listen to brief speeches. As their candles began to burn out, the crowd burst into chants of "International troops! International troops! Eventually, their small lights blinked out, and the crowd was quickly dispersed by AUC security. For now, it seems, the region must wait and see whether Khartoum will allow peace keepers to enter the country, or whether a conflict with the potential to overwhelm the region will begin anew.
