Can the United Nations now succeed where African peacekeepers have failed?
Their angry letter is delivered not to the Janjaweed but to 100 African Union troops stationed nearby. It turns out to be not a threat but rather a desperate ploy for attention and protection. “It’s a siege situation; they’re scared,” says Nigerian Army Col. Raji Raina, the local African Union sector commander. The AU later joined tribal leaders to mediate the conflict, and most of the horsemen moved on. Sighs Raina, “It is thought that we should deploy to villages and camps and ward off attackers–it’s not really so. In fact, all that people want us to do, it’s laughable.” His choice of words–laughable–is brutally honest. More than two years after African Union military observers first landed in Darfur to monitor an often-violated cease-fire between Sudan’s government and two rebel groups, their mission is plagued by shortages of equipment, fuel, and, some say, nerve. But the mission’s greatest shortfall may be due to the oversize expectations that accompanied its 7,000 soldiers an
