WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) -- The House of Representatives voted to expand economic and diplomatic sanctions against Sudan this week, bringing the violence in country back into focus.
While a peace agreement ended 21 years of war in January 2005, pro-government forces and militias composed of Arab nomads continue to enact violence on African populations in Darfur, in the west of Sudan. In 2004, the Bush administration acknowledged that these government-backed Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, were committing genocide.
The House resolution calls for the State Department to designate the Janjaweed as a terrorist organization and to provide additional support to AMIS, the peacekeeping mission of the African Union in the Sudan. If these actions fail, "the international community should take additional, measures to prevent and suppress acts of genocide in the Darfur region." The language of the resolution is intentionally vague as memories of U.S. failures in Somalia are likely to slow any steps towards military involvement. The United Nations has also been slow to respond to the African Union's requests for a peacekeeping force.
"One of the key challenges for the international community is how to undertake a peacekeeping operation when you are encountering fierce resistance," said Pekka Haavista, the European Union's Special Representative to Sudan. Haavista spoke of the challenges facing the region at Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington before meeting with State Department representatives Wednesday.
Sudan is the largest country in Africa, with some forty million people spread out across an area one quarter of the size of the United States. Demonstrators in Khartoum have protested the interference of U.N. "blue hats," Haavista said, complicating attempts by the international community "to plan a peacekeeping mission in such a huge area."
