Doubts remain even with the peacekeeping forces now in Sudan's Darfur

The Editorial, NSV - After four years of agonizing pain and loss of exceptional lives, taken at the totality of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, the talk about all those PRO-PEACEKEEPING resolutions by the United Nations Security Council is now officially over.

Whether or not it is coincidence, the International Peacekeeping forces, today on January 1, 2008, landed on the bloodiest soils of the death-stricken Darfur region, ending one and opening another chapter in what may go down in history and genocide as the greatest attempt in bringing justice to humankind in Africa.

After years of treating the international community to the sickening denying of genocides both in Darfur and during the 21-year north-south war that claimed more 2.5 million lives in South Sudan, the government in Khartoum has finally ‘caved in’, allowing the deployment of what Bashir has blatantly been referring to as the “colonial forces.”

Now, the questions competing for asking are: with the troops’ presence on the ground, is Darfur genocide receding to the back banner of civil wars? And was the Bashir government doing calculation during the gap between the Security Council Resolution 1706 and the SPLM-pullout from the Government of National Unity? Will the perpetrators of genocide answer at ICC? Will the Peacekeeping force have enough land for its bases? And finally, will the government in Khartoum remain selective in what UN member states can contribute to the peacekeeping force in Darfur?

Every attempt at answering those questions boils down to one thing: that tremendous amount of doubt will continue to rock many who welcome the presence of troops as the only life-saving humanitarian solution while conversely getting no answers as to why there was such a hiatus between the time the genocide was declared—allowing for resolution 1706 and—the January 1 deployment after so many lives were lost.

There is no denying that a great deal of political tug of war, arm-twisting has been defining the way the Darfur issue has been handled, both on the international stage ,and in the domestic thicket of governance.

To the extent that peace has been on the lips of humanity since biblical times and since the dawn of Peace at Westphalia in 1648, the government in Khartoum has been doing enough in not cooperating with the world on how to bring this human necessity, security, to the people of Darfur.

Still, the government in Khartoum must prove to the world that it is not making another wave of strategic promises that go unfulfilled by fully cooperating with the UN-AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) this time. Maybe the equally critical need for helicopters needed for effective UNAMID operations in Darfur can be realized.

It remains given that to whom much is given much is expected ,and so the governments in Africa must also show an unprecedented level of commitment of burying future genocides by not letting Khartoum slip into unilateral behavior that is oftentimes clothed in the abstraction of pseudo-sovereignty. This is because if Khartoum does anything to the peacekeeping force, these African governments must not shrink as spectators of crime carried out by one of their own.

In light of this international exercise, the SPLM remains as the face for optimism because of its unmatched share in the cause of peace, and the need to bring the much needed relief and social justice to the humongous wave of Internally Displaced Persons and refugees that need to come back to their homes. The peacekeeping forces helped the situation in Indonesia and East Timor and the same success is needed in Sudan.