UNAMID has issued no official figures for deaths from lethal violence or any other causes for May. I am describing what is contained in the incident reports. So the issue of UNAMID “motive” doesn’t arise.

UNAMID’s mandate does not extend to humanitarian affairs. Humanitarian issues remain with the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan. The UNAMID Joint Mission Analysis Centre compiles and analyzes reports of security incidents, a subset of which involves fatalities from violence. The UN humanitarian coordinator conducts (or doesn’t) surveys of mortality from other causes.

You campaigned vigorously for a large UN force with a Chapter 7 mandate for Darfur. I am surprised that you don’t acknowledge when this force does something right, thereby giving credit to your position. I was sceptical about such a force for many reasons but I am ready to revise my opinion and concede that it is exceeding my low expectations.

A UN force comes as a package. It is important to understand the structure of UNAMID and the mismatch between its force composition and capacity, and non-military components, and what it is required to do.

UNAMID has a Chapter 7 mandate (in part) but is still bound by (a) standard operating rules for Chapter 6 missions (e.g. with regard to levels of security alert and what it should do as a routine response to specific levels of alert, which are set elsewhere in the UN system) and (b) a force composition that was the outcome of political bargaining rather than analysis of what is actually required on the ground (e.g. with regard to the predominance of formed police units in its police component). Due in part to the UN contracting procedures, it was many months before UNAMID performance reached and surpassed AMIS, at much greater financial cost. Due to the UN security alert system, on several occasions (including July 2008 and around the time of Muhajiriya) standard security procedures were followed which involve measures such as evacuations and preparations for evacuations, which in my view are far too rigid and often unnecessary. What this means is that if UNAMID is to prevail, it has to struggle as much against the constraints of its mandate and rules, as against the natural environment and the politics and security challenges.

The facts of what happened in Muhajiriya are that UNAMID stayed, and that the commanders in the field insisted that it stay.

I wrote of your reliance on speculations and not empirics with reference to the last few months, which have not been as you describe, not the previous six years. I have seen the humanitarian assessments and other data from the last few months and in addition over the last couple of months I have met with representatives of almost every locality in Darfur, a number of movement-held areas, and all but two IDP camps. That’s what I use in drawing my conclusions.

Every dime I have “made” in working for Sudan over the past decade—from lecture honoraria, stipends for published articles, book royalties, and human rights awards—has gone directly to humanitarian organizations working throughout Sudan, including Darfur, the East, the transitional areas, and Southern Sudan. I have devoted substantial financial resources of my own in pursuit of a just peace for Sudan. But I suppose this means little to those so willing to write and speak on the basis of ignorance, and why I can’t be bothered—with this exception—to respond to the many fatuous and finally vacuous posts I seem to attract.

Eric Reeves
http://www.sudanreeves.org

The information you use in your analysis seems to derive purely from humanitarian organisations and the UN. These agencies’ analyses predicted widespread and total disaster for Darfurians following the expulsion of 13 agencies, which has obviously not happened. When you say “100,000 civilians in the [Muhajeria] region were forcibly denied humanitarian assistance by the regime” for example, what does that mean really? How much life-saving assistance did that assistance provide in the first place? Alex de Waal undertook excellent research years ago in Darfur, on how humanitarian agencies overesitmate their importance to communities.

And you have used the same kinds of sources on the UNAMID withdrawal. Perhaps you should try to talk to a variety of stakeholders, including UNAMID personnel?

Best wishes,

Neha.