UN peacekeeping chief says Darfur war over

The departing commander of UN and African Union forces in the region said the conflict now needs to be resolved politically. Advocacy and rebel groups dispute his claims.

By Arthur Bright

posted August 28, 2009 at 8:17 am EST

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The departing commander of the joint UN-African Union peacekeepers in Darfur says that the war there has ended, though rebel groups rebut the claims and UN and relief groups warn that the region's people still need help.

Agence France-Presse reports that Gen. Martin Luther Agwai told reporters on Wednesday that "As of today, I would not say there is a war going on in Darfur."

"You see, the causes of the conflict in Darfur have changed completely," said the Nigerian officer, who will be replaced next week by Rwandan Patrick Nyamvumba.

"If war is a conflict whereby today you attack and then go back home and stay until three, four, five months and come back.... If that is a definition of war then there is a war in Darfur.

"But if that is not the definition then there is no war as of now in Darfur," said Agwai, according to a transcript of his statements given late on Wednesday.

The Darfur conflict began in 2003, when rebel groups began fighting the Sudanese government and its Arab militias. Since then, some 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million have been displaced, according to the UN, although the Sudanese government claims that the death toll is 10,000. But General Agwai pointed out that the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the only rebel group that is still capable of attacks against the government, has not launched any military operations in months.

"Since May until today, what have we had on the ground? The only thing I see is banditry taking place now: carjackings, breaking into people's homes to look for electronics and mobile telephones," Agwai said.

"I think the real thing now is to speed up the political process. Militarily there is not much," he concluded.

But the Sudan Tribune reports that rebel groups slammed Agwai's comments, which they said smacked of the view of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has long denied the magnitude of the Darfur conflict.

Abdel-Wahid Al Nur the founder of the rebel [Sudan Liberation Movement] said Agwai['s] statements are a remake of what President Al-Bashir had asserted in the past. He further added that this war is not over because there are people who were killed and others who are settled in their homeland.

"If he is telling the truth I need to know why there are millions of [internally displaced persons] in Darfur camps" he stressed.

Ahmed Hussein Adam, the official spokesperson of Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said they reject "these misleading statements." He further regretted that a "UN official who is supposed to observe neutrality makes such biased remarks."

Voice of America reports that the antigenoicide group Safe Darfur Coalition warns that while technically accurate, Agwai's statements are misleading, and that Darfur is still a very troubled region.

"The fact that open hostilities between rebel groups and the government militias have dwindled is certainly a good sign that we are one step closer to what would hopefully be an eventual peace. But unfortunately it does not mean the situation is getting that much better for the millions of affected civilians who remain in Darfur," [Alex Meixner, the Safe Darfur Coalition's director of policy and government relations,] said.

Other experts warn that the fighting in Darfur could still be rekindled. Sudan analyst Gill Lusk told the BBC that while the present decrease in fighting is "undoubtedly a good thing for the people... it is the government that turns the tap on and off – they can restart the violence whenever they want." And The New York Times writes that while UN officials agree with Agwai's assessment, they remain worried about the region's displaced civilians.

"Whether it is characterized as a war or not, the reality is that threats against civilians do remain" in Darfur, said Edmond Mulet, the assistant secretary general for peacekeeping. Though the level of fighting has diminished there, he said, an additional 140,000 people have sought refuge in camps since January. "It is still far from peaceful," he said.