Any government that expels UN officials when those officials are involved in humanitarian work will be condemned in the court of international public opinion: The UN are always the good guys. For that reason the decision by the Sudanese government to expel Wael Al-Haj Ibrahim, head of the UN humanitarian operations in south Darfur, is a major blunder. It is an own goal at a time Sudan needs all the international support it can find. The Khartoum government is already seen as the villain in the Darfur tragedy where an estimated 200,000 people have died and more than two million forced to flee since the conflict there flared up four years ago. This decision is bound to erode its credibility even further.
It wipes out, at a stroke, the PR advantage that Sudan managed to score last month when the two major rebel movements, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), refused to attend the UN-AU Darfur peace conference in the Libyan town of Sirte. The world could see, for the first time, that the rebels were interested neither in negotiations nor peace. By contrast, the Khartoum government’s announcement of a cease-fire appeared conciliatory and statesmanlike, even if its record in sticking to previous cease-fires has been less than encouraging. Indeed, the very day the cease-fire was announced in Sirte, the absent rebels claimed the Sudanese were bombing their areas in Darfur.
It is, however, now difficult to believe in the rebels’ good faith or their word. They have shown themselves to be a squabbling shambles, at war as much between themselves as with the government and its militias. Despite UN-AU efforts to draw the JEM and SPA into the negotiations, they now say they will not attend the next month’s second round of talks in Libya unless the other rebel groups that were present at the first are barred. Meanwhile, some of them now threaten to boycott the December meeting if held in Libya because of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s reported comments that the Darfur crisis was a tribal matter which the Darfuris should deal with themselves.
These are lame excuses. They do not convince. If the rebels were genuinely motivated by the suffering of their people, they would put aside their differences. Their refusal to do so shows where their priorities lie. Each group wants to be the only player in the game, with all that it means in terms of power — not to mention access to the vast flow of international aid for the Darfuris.
There can, however, be no doubt about the UN’s good faith.
Sudan says that it expelled the UN representative because he challenged the government’s policy of forcibly removing people from the camps back to their villages. The UN’s view is that they should stay put for the moment because in the camps they can be fed and protected from attack.
If the UN sees Darfuris at risk by going home, it should be believed. It is alone in putting the Darfuris’ interests first. In attacking the UN, Sudan weakens its own position.
