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Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Richardson Gets Bleak Assessment in Visit To Darfur Camp

By Nedra Pickler/
Associated Press
      AS SALAAM, Sudan — Amid warnings to be vigilant for gunmen in hiding, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson got a firsthand look Tuesday at the people of Darfur, crammed into camps to escape the violence that has driven them from their homes.
    Richardson visited people living in makeshift homes of millet straw and brick — just two miles from the headquarters of the African Union force expected to protect them. But even the commander of those troops acknowledged they lack the numbers to be effective.
    "The force is too small to do the job,'' Maj. Gen. Luke Aprezi told Richardson from his office where red marks on a Darfur map indicated recent attacks. "We need more troops on the ground.''
    One of the chief goals of Richardson's four-day visit to Sudan is to persuade President Omar al-Bashir to allow U.N. peacekeepers to help the beleaguered African Union troops. Bashir has resisted international pressure, but Richardson hopes to draw on a decade-old relationship with the elusive African leader to persuade him otherwise.
    The two are scheduled to meet Wednesday for the second time in three days, and Richardson told the people he met in Darfur he would use the meeting to try to help them. Any progress could be a boost to Richardson's own presidential prospects as the Democrat decides in the coming days whether he will run in 2008.
    For nearly four years, Sudanese troops and the Arab janjaweed militias have been fighting Darfur's ethnic African rebels, who revolted against what they saw as marginalization by Khartoum.
    U.N. and African Union officials have accused the government of arming the janjaweed and coordinating attacks with them. More than 200,000 people have died from the fighting, malnutrition and disease, and 2.5 million have fled their homes. President Bush has called it genocide.
    After flying more than two hours over the desert, Richardson landed at the El Fasher airport. His convoy, accompanied by heavily armed African Union troops, passed goatherders on donkeys, people making bricks and smiling children flashing thumbs up.
    Richardson came to El Fasher four months ago, after he persuaded al-Bashir to set free a New Mexican journalist being held in jail there. But he was repeatedly told that the situation has grown more volatile since — militants tried to assassinate the governor, an aide to Aprezi was kidnapped and his body found 10 days later, and sexual assaults and other violence have been on the rise in the camp as more displaced people move in.
    The delegation split into two groups upon arrival at the As Salaam camp to keep their visit brief and minimize the threat of violence.
    "The camp houses many people who are armed,'' U.S. agent Oumar Mboreck warned the group. "You can't trust anybody. You don't know who has a gun.''
    Most of the delegation traveling with Richardson gathered under a tent with camp leaders who expressed animosity toward the African Union forces, saying it's no safer with the troops around.
    Meanwhile, Richardson walked through the camp and talked to some of the 43,000 residents crowded into a space intended for 25,000. The 6-foot-1 governor bent down to clear low-hanging blue tarps housing new arrivals waiting for a plot of land.
    New arrival is a relative term. Richardson talked to dozens of grim-faced women and unsmiling children who had been living shoulder-to-shoulder under the tarp for a month, waiting to be processed.
    They said they came from Abu Sackeem, about 50 miles north, after the janjaweed militias stole their livestock and looted and burned their homes.
    "Where are their husbands?'' Richardson asked an interpreter. A woman named Khadouma Addoma replied that some were elsewhere in the camp, but many were killed by the janjaweed.
    While al-Bashir has faced international condemnation, Richardson told rebels he met that they also are contributing by refusing to sign a peace agreement, perpetrating some of the violence and attacking humanitarian workers.
    "President Bashir says he gets all the blame for the lack of the peace, but the rebels should do their part,'' Richardson told rebel delegates who have rejected the terms of the government's peace agreement.
    Last May, the government reached the cease-fire with some of the rebels, but most refused to sign. Those who met Richardson in El Fasher said they will insist that al-Bashir disarm the janjaweed, reunite the three states in Darfur, give them a role in the government and pay victims for their losses.
    Richardson asked if they would be willing to lay down their arms for 60 days and negotiate a cease-fire with the government. They said they would.
    "When the government is serious, we have no problem,'' said Col. Adul Abdallah Ismail of the Sudan Liberation Movement.
    The question is whether al-Bashir would be serious about bringing peace after years of support for local militia attacks on innocent civilians in Darfur. Richardson said on the flight out of El Fasher that he would have to think about how he can persuade al-Bashir to sign on in Wednesday's meeting. "It's 50-50,'' Richardson estimated.
    Richardson also met with state government officials who asked for his help getting rebel groups to sign on to the peace agreement. Those officials — appointed and aligned with Bashir — painted a rosy picture of life in Darfur.
    Farah Mustafa, the deputy governor in North Darfur, said the situation had improved since Richardson's last visit in September, contradicting nearly all other reports.
    Mustafa, a leader in al-Bashir's National Congress Party, also said the peace agreement is working.
    "The situation is calm,'' Mustafa said. "Life is more or less normal.''

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