EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Sudan. Show all posts

darfur.02[i-darfur.02]One of the items in the Presidential Conclusions of this June’s European Council, under the heading of External Relations, talks of the EU – Africa relationship. This is the sort of item that is likely to be produced as part of the common foreign policy, which is not based on common interests, there not being any, but on supposedly common values. Whether these values are common to anyone in the rest of the world or even, for that matter, European countries and peoples, remains irrelevant.

So, instead of letting individual countries work out their relationship with individual African countries (except for France, which persists in behaving as a colonial power) the EU has put together a framework policy for dealings with the African Union (AU).

49. The second EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon in December 2007 will provide an important opportunity to enhance the relationship between the EU and Africa and to build an ambitious and strategic new partnership.

50. Recalling its conclusions of June 2005, the European Council underlines the importance it attaches to the further close cooperation with the African Union to ensure that a Joint EU-Africa strategy can be adopted by December 2007. The European Council reaffirms the commitment to continue support for the African Union, with a view, inter alia, to strengthening the African Union's capacity in conflict management, resolution and prevention. The European Council welcomes the intention to establish an Africa-EU energy partnership at the EU-Africa Summit.

51. The European Council stresses the need for new arrangements allowing early release of EU funds to support AU rapid deployment, which should be addressed as a priority. The Council reaffirms the commitments undertaken in the EU Strategy "The EU and Africa: Towards a Strategic Partnership" and encourages Member States to make all efforts to reach the targets set therein.

We have already written about the forthcoming Summit to which President Mugabe of Zimbabwe will be invited because other African leaders refuse to attend if he is not.

Let us have a look at items 2 and 3, which mean mostly that the EU will hand over more of our money to the African Union in the vain hope that it will improve its hitherto non-existent “capacity in conflict management, resolution and prevention”. Well, as Alice was told at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, you can always have more than none.

Even so, if we are about to give more money, ought we not find out what happened to the previous amount? Apparently, there is an effort to do so and the results are lamentable.

Yesterday’s Washington Post reported:

European funds designated for the African Union mission in Darfur have not reached the undermanned and underequipped military force for months, leaving soldiers there without pay, officials said Tuesday.

The African Union acknowledged the problem, but said the European Union requires cumbersome accounting impossible in a remote and violent region the size of France.

This may well be true, though as the money comes from the European taxpayer, there ought to be some kind of an accounting procedure. Clearly that idea has not been discussed in all those EU - Africa meetings. Incidentally, have we had any accounts of the large amounts of money that has been handed over to Sudan in general and, in particular, for the purposes of helping the people of Darfur?

African+Union.01[i-African+Union.01]Even the amounts that have gone to the AU are not exactly chicken-feed:

The European Commission has earmarked $384 million for the African Union since November 2004, and further funds have been provided by the individual EU states, for a total of more than $544 million. The European Union is investigating why its money has not been paid to AU soldiers, officials said Tuesday.

One assumes that the money is not simply lying around. Where it has gone to might be a good subject for EU investigation but since the group is led by the egregious Spanish MEP Josep Borrell, that question is unlikely to be asked.

The AU is blaming the EU’s convoluted accounting system and the EU is implying that the AU has been, at best, lackadaisical. In the meantime, the soldiers, who have not been able to impose order in Darfur in any case, remain unpaid. History is full of interesting tales of what happens to the civilians around them when soldiers are not paid.

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link[i-link]For those of us who have been paying attention to what is going on in Darfur for some years, there is a good deal of grim amusement to be got out of the sight of the Left, including the Green Party in Germany and assorted Hollywood luvvies deciding that this is the latest political bandwagon to jump on. Not Zimbabwe, not Tibet, not North Korea. Perish the thought.

Naturally, they are calling for action. What sort of action? Ah, there lies the difficulty, as discussed in this longish piece.

ICC[i-ICC]It is not that Tony Blair has no influence in the White House. He does have influence or did until John Howard became President Bush's best buddy. It is just that he has asked for all the wrong things.

Admittedly he could neither ask for nor accept the proffered free-trade agreement, it not being in his power to sign any international trade agreements. He is, after all, merely the elected Head of this country’s Government. Of no importance, whatsoever.

Blair squandered his extensive political capital in Washington on such matters as that painfully dragged out process of going through the UN before invading Iraq, pointless pleas that the United States sign Kyoto (already rejected by the Senate under Clinton) and join the International Criminal Court (which is against the US Constitution).

To listen to some of the moonbats and, even, relatively sane people, all the problems of the world stem from the United States not signing up to the ICC, whose legitimacy remains dubious despite 104 countries supporting it.

Apparently, not every other country in the world has signed up to it or bothers to obey its instructions. Sudan, for one, and thought it is hard for some people to imagine this, but their human rights record is considerably worse than that of the United States or, indeed, the United Kingdom.

According to Al-Jazeera:

Luis Moreno-Ocamp, the ICC chief prosecutor had said that Ahmed Haroun [an ex-state interior minister] and Ali Muhammad Ali Abd Al-Rahman were suspected of 51 counts of war crimes in Darfur.

But Mohammed Ali al-Mardi, Sudan’s justice minister [sic], told The Associated Press on Tuesday: “We are not concerned with, nor do we accept, what the ICC prosecutor has opted for.”

Opted for? Is that translation accurate?

As it happens, Abd al-Rahman, a militia commander, also known as Ali Kushayb is in detention in Khartoum “on suspicion of violating Sudanese laws” in connection with his actions in Darfur. Whatever his sins, he is probably paying for them.

Just to remind our readers, it is estimated that about 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in Darfur since 2003. The numbers of those wounded, tortured, crippled and raped are unknown.

Khartoum says that about 9,000 have died, presumably of old age and pneumonia. The UN has done nothing and the vast amounts of aid pumped into Sudan by the European Union, allegedly to help the people of Darfur, has still not been accounted for.

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