At least one person on the UN Security Council is enthusiastic about the possibility of a robust UN peacekeeping force deploying to Somalia.

"I am so excited! I'm over the moon!" South Africa's jubilant U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo told reporters afterwards.

Somalis are also likely to be pleased by the news, because it indicates a firm UN commitment to help alleviate the deteriorating humanitarian and political situation in their country. The African Union also welcomes UN involvement, as its contingent of 2,600 Ugandan and Burundian troops is not sufficient to maintain security as the country slowly opens up a peace process. One reason that this force has remained so deeply undermanned is because neighboring countries are loathe to involve their troops in a regional conflagration; UN peacekeepers from all over the world will not have this problem.

Possible troop-contributing countries may be less ecstatic, however, at the prospect of ponying up additional contributions to the over 110,000 blue helmets already deployed around the world. Other commentators are also likely to question the feasibility of rounding up troops for another UN peacekeeping mission when the force in Darfur remains over 16,000 personnel short of its target size.

These are legitimate concerns, and, in calling for preparations for possible UN deployment, the Security Council is in fact anticipating the difficulty of obtaining peacekeepers. Setting out the conditions for dispatching a peacekeeping mission to Somalia -- while simultaneously pushing for more concerted pressure in broader peace negotiations -- is not mere bureaucratic red tape; it is a prudent recognition that simply throwing in troops that the international community cannot yet provide would not solve either Somalia's political or humanitarian woes. Pragmatism is necessary on deliberations of whether, when, and how UN peacekeepers -- or a coalition under a different guise, which was one of the options laid out in the Secretary-General's most recent report on Somalia -- deploy to Somalia, but to allow the weight of the difficulties of achieving such a deployment to trump the actual needs of the situation on the ground would smack of expediency and perpetrate a great disservice on Somalis.

According to John McCain, Darfur's genocide will be over in five years, if only we replace the United Nations with a "League of Democracies," an international body shorn of pesky non-allies like China and Russia. In a somewhat speculative speech today, McCain laid out the accomplishments that he envisions his administration will have accomplished by 2013.

After efforts to pressure the Government in Sudan over Darfur failed again in the U.N. Security Council, the United States, acting in concert with a newly formed League of Democracies, applied stiff diplomatic and economic pressure that caused the government of Sudan to agree to a multinational peacekeeping force, with NATO countries providing logistical and air support, to stop the genocide that had made a mockery of the world's repeated declaration that we would "never again" tolerant such inhumanity.

One minor problem here. While the U.S. has not indeed exerted sufficient pressure on Khartoum, it has used up a lot of the economic influence that it brings to the table. U.S. companies have not been able to do business in Sudan since 1998, thanks to sanctions that the Clinton administration placed on the regime for supporting terrorism. Additional targeted sanctions are still possible, and the U.S.-based divestment movement continues with full force, but the main source of funding for Sudan's genocidal apparatus is, of course, China (though India and Malaysia also have significant investments). Shutting out China, the most relevant player in Sudan, from the world's premier global institution would effectively close off the best possible avenue through which to pressure Khartoum. Working with China to end the genocide may be difficult and fraught with complications, but trying to do it without Beijing would be well-nigh impossible.

Will tomorrow finally be the day that ends 20 long years of war and terrorism in Northern Uganda? According to Reuters,

Uganda's fugitive guerrilla Joseph Kony will meet mediators on Saturday on the Sudan-Congo border and may even sign a final peace deal, a rebel negotiator said on Wednesday.

But the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) still wants more details on how Uganda's government plans to use traditional reconciliation rituals to help him avoid prosecution for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

But after spurning the peace process a month ago, ostensibly for very much the same reasons, Kony's credibility -- already at the level of an indicted mass murderer -- is, to say the least, suspect. Moreover, it is unclear how the "peace vs. justice" stalemate has advanced in the last month: the Ugandan government -- and even some of Kony's victims -- are willing to drop the ICC indictments in favor of means of traditional justice, but the ICC insists that Uganda is legally obliged to hand over Kony. Kony is calling for a "workshop" to address the issue, but it is unlikely that he will be appeased by anything less than getting the ICC out of the picture entirely.

In a new report, the ENOUGH project proposes the option of offering Kony exile -- while using ICC indictment as a credible stick to end his nefarious influence in the region. ENOUGH is rightly skeptical of Kony's intentions, and the report prioritizes restoring peace and security over securing a formal peace deal with Kony, which, in light of his past unreliability, seems a very sober strategy.

In addition to its tense border dispute with Ethiopia, Eritrea is involved in a heated geopolitical standoff with its significantly smaller neighbor to the south.

The tiny port nation of Djibouti, a key U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa, has urged the U.N. Security Council to take immediate action to prevent a conflict with its northern neighbor Eritrea.

In a letter to the council president circulated Tuesday, Djibouti's Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said Eritrea has launched a major military buildup on their border overlooking critical Red Sea shipping lanes.

It is not yet clear how the Security Council will respond to Youssouf's appeal, and Djibouti is as yet unsatisfied with the mediation from the Arab League and African Union. According to Djibouti's president, the Eritrean and Djiboutian armies are each massed along the border, and "the situation is explosive." With Russia and Georgia also -- at least rhetorically -- sparring over the region of Abkhazia, yet another regional confrontation over territory is clearly not in the UN's interests. In the border spat with Ethiopia, though, Eritrea's government did not exactly welcome the continued presence of UN peacekeepers, eventually forcing them out of the country by withholding necessary fuel supplies. In that case, the UN had even ruled that the disputed border territory at hand belonged to Eritrea, so one can only imagine how the country would react to UN involvement in a case in which its claim to Djibouti's land seems much more dubious.

Another sign of UN success in West Africa. From the UN News Centre:

The United Nations mission in Sierra Leone has made "significant progress" in supporting the Government to consolidate peace in the country, by strengthening the security sector, by promoting human rights and the rule of law, and by helping prepare for upcoming elections, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report.

However, Mr. Ban also cautions that the "the country continues to experience political tension along ethnic and regional lines" and cites high unemployment, poor economic and social conditions, and the rising price of food and gasoline, as other factors which "have the potential to derail the peace consolidation process."

This update on the improving situation in Sierra Leone follows similarly encouraging news out of neighboring Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire. As Ban's prudent warning suggests, however, these transitions toward peace and democracy in West Africa do not come unaccompanied by serious lingering problems and potential pitfalls. After easing violent societies into stability, the UN faces perhaps the even steeper challenge of consolidating these gains and ensuring that former war zones become politically and economically sustainable. That's why the peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone, scheduled to withdraw in September, will be replaced by a peacebuilding office.

These peacebuilding efforts will be funded out of the UN's relatively new Peacebuilding Fund, created in late 2006 to provide societies transitioning toward peace with "a crucial bridge between conflict and recovery at a time when other funding mechanisms may not yet be available." Despite the enormity and importance of its work, though, the Peacebuilding Fund has received less than a third of the money it needs to operate -- including zero contributions from the United States.

Nigerian rebels who have been attacking oil facilities in the Niger delta have claimed that they are mulling a ceasefire proposed by U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama. From Reuters:

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has launched five attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta since it resumed a campaign of violence in April, forcing Royal Dutch Shell to shut more than 164,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).

"The MEND command is seriously considering a temporary ceasefire appeal by Senator Barack Obama. Obama is someone we respect and hold in high esteem," the militant group said in an e-mailed statement.

The prospect of an end to violence in the volatile region is certainly welcome, but there's one minor hole in the rebels' claim: as Matt Yglesias points out, the Obama campaign does not recall its candidate making any such appeal.

Writing at The Plank, Dayo Olopade provides this interesting observation.

At the time--unlike past attacks--MEND seemed to be courting American attention: "The ripple effect of this attack will touch your economy and people one way or the other and (we) hope we now have your attention," the group said last month.

Well, oil is $120/barrel--looks like you've got it. The direct link to Obama, however, seems suspect. He did attempt some high-level suasion during January's election crisis in Kenya, but I'm doubtful his grueling schedule these last six weeks has left much time for Skyping with MEND. It is notable that even the hint of the "Obama touch" has a band of saboteurs rubbing their chins about an end to a longstanding conflict.

True. And if this mysterious ceasefire appeal does indeed induce the rebels to cease their attacks, while the Obama campaign may not mind taking credit, the greatest beneficiaries will be the Nigerians suffering from violence in this oil-rich region.

UPDATE: Apparently MEND rebels have set their eyes on another American politician to broker peace -- former president Jimmy Carter (as well as possibly UN Messenger of Peace George Clooney). What's more, Carter, who attempted to mediate the region's conflict nine years ago, seems inclined to accept.

Our friends at Global Voices Online asked us to pass along the following announcement:

Rising Voices Seeks Micro-Grant Proposals for Health-Related New Media Outreach

Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices, in collaboration with the Open Society Institute Public Health Program's Health Media Initiative, is now accepting project proposals for the third round of microgrant funding of up to $5,000 for new media outreach projects focused especially on public health issues involving marginalized populations.

More info after the jump.

Ideal applicants are dynamic NGOs or individuals who:

* Represent the vital voices of communities affected by stigmatized health issues whose stories, viewpoints, and experiences are often marginalized, unheard, or misrepresented in mainstream media. These communities include people living with HIV and AIDS and/or tuberculosis, people with mental illnesses or intellectual disabilities, injecting drug users, sex workers, LGBTI individuals, people in need of palliative care services, and Roma facing discrimination in healthcare settings.
* Are enthusiastic about using new, interactive modes of communication to build relationships and establish dialogue on the important advocacy issues of their community.
* Envision and highly prioritize media and communication strategies to achieve the advocacy goals of their organization.

Pre-requisite for the competition:

* Organizations must have their own website or participate in a network website.

Rising Voices and OSI aim to bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the conversational web, by providing resources and funding to local groups reaching out to underrepresented communities. Examples of potential projects include:

* Working with a tuberculosis or HIV clinic or local drop-in center with the offer of training health workers, local harm reduction or sex worker outreach workers, patients, and their families to blog and upload video, in order to document their work, their experiences, and their community.
* Use blogs, podcasts, and online video to help give voice and representation to LGBTI communities and advocate for their rights.
* Distribute mp3 recorders to a local NGO working on palliative care issues, and help them produce monthly audio testimonials and/or interviews featuring stories and experiences of participants, for uploading to the NGO's website.
* Organizing a regular workshop on blogging and photography at a legal aid center representing the rights of people living with mental disabilities. Part of the budget could be used to purchase affordable digital video cameras and internet café costs, so that participants can describe their challenges and life experiences to a global audience.
* Purchasing an affordable digital video camera and teaching a group of local Roma community outreach workers how to produce an ongoing video-blog documentary about their work, which could then be posted to the organization's website and linked to other networks' websites.

Rising Voices outreach grants will range from $1,000 to $5,000. Special consideration will be given to proposals from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucusus. Please be as thoughtful, specific, and realistic as possible when drafting your budgets.

Successful projects will be prominently featured on Global Voices.

Completed applications will be accepted no later than Sunday, June 1st in either English or Russian. Please submit your application on the Rising Voices apply page. Russian-language proposals should be submitted here. All applicants will receive a confirmation email by June 3. Grantees will be announced on June 28 at the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in Budapest, Hungary.

***

The OSI Public Health Program's Health Media Initiative aims to increase public awareness of health issues, especially stigmatized health issues involving marginalized populations. The initiative focuses on supporting health NGOs to develop their relationships with journalists across all media platforms so they may communicate health and human rights issues effectively with the public. Where the media environment is especially hostile, OSI also supports "community journalism" initiatives to encourage NGOs to use digital technology to communicate their stories and issues to each other and to the world at large. The initiative also seeks to build the capacity of media professionals to report responsibly on public health issues.

Rising Voices aims to help bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the conversational web, by providing resources and funding to local groups reaching out to underrepresented communities.

Security Council countries took a turn at word interpretation yesterday, somewhat ambiguously invoking the need for "realism" in negotiations between Western Sahara and Morocco, which has occupied the desert territory since 1975. What this means in reality -- no pun intended -- is that outright independence is likely off the table for Western Sahara. The Security Council renewed the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force that has maintained a ceasefire there since 1991, but the Council's president in April, South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, objected to what he perceived as powerful countries' bias toward Morocco in the dispute.

"This council has made a mistake. They sent a wrong message to Morocco, thinking that they will always support Morocco," Kumalo told reporters after the vote, adding that he nevertheless voted in favor because he still held out hopes for the negotiations.

In a statement to the council after the vote, he said the reference to realism could set a precedent in other conflicts, such as that between Israelis and Palestinians, that the principle "might is right" would hold sway.

Kumalo also complained that the resolution drafted by France, Russia, Spain, Britain and the United States omitted any reference to human rights, a sensitive subject for Morocco. He said such an omission was a case of double standards.

I can't help but notice that Kumalo's examples conspicuously did not include Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe's faltering government has long benefited from South Africa's protection. If it is "realistic" to downplay the prospect of Western Saharan independence, then surely it is equally so to acknowledge the electoral defeat that even Zimbabwe seems ready to admit. For South Africa to continue to shield Mugabe, then, would represent an entirely unambiguous "case of double standards."

It seems I was being a bit sanguine yesterday when I wrote, "The Council will likely recommend the Secretary General appoint a Special Representative to monitor the harassment of Mugabe's political opponents and, eventually, help mediate a transition of power." In fact, the Council was divided over what to do about the situation in Zimbabwe, giving Mugabe's a brief diplomatic victory. South Africa banded with China and Russia to block a American and British proposals to send a special representative.

Still, as I pointed out at the time, the fact that the opposition was invited to address the Security Council while South Africa was president of the Council is a step forward. Further, the official MDC spin on the meeting does not seem to far off. As an MDC official told Reuters, "the mere fact that the matter was brought forward to the UN Security Council is testimony to the fact that there is a crisis which cannot and should not escape the international community's eye and attention." A baby step, perhaps, but we are at least moving in the right direction.

Move over, Arnold -- there's a new "Terminator" in town. And this one's not heading to the gubernatorial halls of Sacramento, but to the courtrooms of The Hague.

A Congolese warlord known as "the Terminator" is being sought for prosecution, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague has revealed.

The arrest warrant for Bosco Ntaganda, was issued in 2006 but not made public and he is still at large.

He is accused of conscripting children under 15 to fight in hostilities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between July 2002 and December 2003.

Interestingly, the ICC said it had not publicized its arrest warrant for Ntaganda earlier because this may have "hindered the court's investigations." This illustrates an important dynamic in the Court's work -- and one that we have previously highlighted in reference to Uganda. Simply put, the ICC is better able to achieve its mission of bringing justice and accountability to a region when peace has already been secured. Whereas northern Uganda fell agonizingly short of a landmark peace deal, a ceasefire in eastern Congo was signed in January. Even as this peace still needs to be consolidated, now seems to be the time to begin the process of bringing to justice those who inflicted such untold misery on the innocents of eastern Congo.

Did Mugabe alienate his oldest international ally? Today, for the first time in a very long while, the situation in Zimbabwe is set to be discussed in the Security Council. The opposition MDC, which won last month's elections, will address the council to air their grievances. The Council will likely recommend the Secretary General appoint a Special Representative to monitor the harassment of Mugabe's political opponents and, eventually, help mediate a transition of power. Why is this so significant? South Africa, traditionally Mugabe's strongest international supporter, is presiding over the Security Council this month. As Council president, South Africa has a leading role in setting the schedule of the Council--and in the past has strongly resisted bringing the situation in Zimbabwe before the Council.

According to South Africa based-writer Geoff Hill, South Africa's shifting attitude on Mugabe can be partly explained by the fact that SA President Thabo Mbeki is a lame duck and that incoming President Jacob Zuma is calling the shots. More broadly, though, there seems to be a recognition that Mugabe's time is up. As Hill notes, African states recognize that Mugabe has been mortally wounded and are treating MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai as if he is the next president of Zimbabwe -- hence the MDC's invitation to address the Council today.

As if the violence on the ground in Somalia were not enough -- thousands of civilians have been forced to flee after renewed clashes in the capital, Mogadishu, recently -- the coast of the country is facing increasing danger from -- yep, you guessed it -- pirates.

These are no fanciful swashbucklers, though. The pirates have recently captured various European cargo ships, luxury yachts, and fishing boats, holding their crews and passengers hostage for one goal -- money. The attacks on the high seas, then, are not merely a re-enactment of the ancient art of piracy; rather, they are deeply connected to the instability and suffering that have long run rampant on the mainland.

Many of the pirates are formerly struggling fishermen fed up with the country's situation -- a fact that they did not hide from their captives. The BBC reports:

They frequently took the trouble to tell us that they hadn't had a proper government for about 17 years, that there were no government agencies and, as a result, they were obliged to rob to survive," says Captain Darch [of a captured Danish vessel].

Worse, though, these are not merely a few isolated fisherfolk looking to make a buck (or a euro) by, shall we say, expanding their business. Forces on land with the potential to further destabilize Somalia's conflict have noticed that this piracy could provide them with a reliable source of funding.

"Businessmen and former fighters for the Somali warlords moved in when they saw how lucrative it could be. The pirates and their backers tend to split the ransom money 50-50," [BBC reporter Mohamed Olad Hassan] says.

The UN is addressing both of these problems, fortunately. The Security Council is drafting a resolution to allow countries to pursue pirates into Somalian waters, and Spain -- one of whose ships was recently captured -- has pushed for creating a UN anti-piracy force. To deal with the persistent violence on land, the Secretary-General's Special Representative in Somali, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, has pledged that the UN will continue to work to bring the various warring factions together for peace talks.

Over at the Huffington Post, the University if Chicago health care economist Harold Pollack gets into the spirit of World Malaria Day.

One of the few brights spots these days is that millions of Americans finally realize the importance of global health. Today is world Malaria Day. If you're reading this, you probably already know that this is a huge killer, particularly of kids in sub-Saharan Africa. I was hoping to party with Brad and Angelina to celebrate the occasion. That probably won't happen since my daughter has soccer.

Instead, to honor the occasion I am buying bednets for some African kids. You should too. These cost maybe $7 each, and are among the most gloriously cost-effective things you can ever do to save lives and improve health. The charity link is [here.]

This is a great organization.

Oh, buy buy a mosquito net in honor of your actual or hoped-for significant other. The UN Foundation will send him/her a cool email. Your love object wil receive this missive, and believe you are way cooler than you actually are.

As my wife will attest, it works for me. You can see my picture. So this must be working.

Just a few weeks ago, a peace deal between the brutal Lords Resistance Army and the government of Uganda was as close as ever to being sealed. The peace process failed, though, when LRA leader Joseph Kony refused to attend the signing ceremony. Now, according to the invaluable Institute for War and Peace Reporting, the Lords Resistance Army is once again gearing up for another fight.

IWPR reports that over the last few weeks, the Lord's Resistance Army has kidnapped hundreds of children in the Central African Republic and Southern Sudan and transported them to military training facilities in lawless eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The LRA, is it seems, is once again committed to war, not peace. To make matters worse, the article suggests (and I've heard experts speculate as well) that the government of Sudan is backing the LRA in an effort to destabilize Southern Sudan, which holds a referendum on independence in 2009.

In an interview with The East African Enough analyst Julia Spiegel -- who just spent a month observing the peace talks in the small border town of Ri-Kwangba -- explains what can be done to reign in Kony. The interview is not available online, but a portion is extracted after the jump.

What do you think should be done to Kony in order to salvage the talks?

First, a concerted effort must be made by the Ugandan government and key international players to press Kony to make a choice about his future. He can either sign the peace deal and begin assembling his LRA forces in Ri-Kwangba; agree to a third country asylum arrangement representing exile or banishment
from northern Uganda as a consequence for his crimes, thus removing himself from the battlefield and giving peace a real chance; or walk away from the agreement and formalize his status as a regional warlord, which will trigger a regional manhunt that will leave him on the run for the rest of his life.

But ultimately, he must feel a cost for his failure to meet deadlines and uphold agreements; he has continually rejected carrots and has faced no real sticks. As a result, Kony has been able to gain time, money and medicine out of these peace efforts without making any real commitments or deliverables. Now Kony must be forced to make a choice. But this requires an effective communication channel to be made between the government, the international community and Kony himself. If he rejects these negotiation attempts in the next few months, then it will be clear that all peaceful options for resolving this conflict will have been exhausted, and thus the international community should, with regional states and UN peacekeeping missions in neighboring countries, rapidly develop a containment and apprehension strategy focused on capturing Kony and the other LRA leader's indicted by the International Criminal Court.

(Image viaDismal World)

As Bill Durch pointed out in his launch of the UN Dispatch/FP Passport online salon, UN peacekeeping is, on the whole, experiencing a tremendous period of growth. Lest we assume that this is unrestrained growth, however -- a criticism levied by UN skeptics who bemoan what they perceive as an excessive number of UN mandates -- it bears reminding that, as I've argued before, the most successful peacekeeping missions are those that are able to decrease their presence. Responding to David's comment, the UN, despite the overall expansion of its responsibilities around the globe, has indeed shepherded a number of peacekeeping missions toward this mark of success.

I wrote previously about Cote d'Ivoire's transition toward a peaceful drawdown of UN peacekeepers. Now, visiting the neighboring West African country of Liberia, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pledged continuing support for that formerly war-torn nation, as the 15,000-strong UN peacekeeping force there gradually begins its carefully structured process of withdrawal. While problems of poverty, corruption, and an inadequate justice system still trouble Liberia, UN peacekeepers have had remarkable success calming the country's civil war, bringing its former dictator to justice, organizing its historic elections, and helping to restitch the fabric of its society. The withdrawal, moreover, is timed according to specific benchmarks and the requirements of Liberia's situation.

The mission's chief, Ellen Loj, said drawdown, agreed in UN Security Council resolution 1777 in 2007, is planned meticulously so as to "minimise all potential security threats to the state".

AFP also gives a snapshot of the mission's achievements:

Between November 2003 and October 2004, 101,495 fighters were disarmed and demobilised, with 90,000 resettled back into civilian life, mission statistics showed.

More than 500,000 displaced persons have also returned, while UNMIL has trained 3,662 new police agents who are gradually assuming their roles.

A total of 358 presidential guards, 139 prison guards, 37 immigration officers and 210 customs officials have also been groomed for duty.

The UN peacekeeping force has helped rebuild 3,000 (1,875 miles) kilometres of roads and worked on some 300 projects to restore and repair schools, health centres, wells, courts and police stations.

Most indicatively, the mission inspires confidence in Liberians, even as it begins its drawdown:

"As long as the UN forces are here, I don't see why we have to worry about the possibility of destabilisation," Moses Gbartu, a traditional chieftain in the country's north told AFP.

"I thought there was going to be confrontations during disarmament, but UNMIL showed prudence, vigilance and strictness," added shopkeeper Miattah Duago.

UN peacekeepers are not going to disappear from Liberia overnight -- this round of troop withdrawals will still leave around 12,000 blue helmets there in October -- and problems are likely to remain during this period, and persist after the UN's departure. Increasingly, however, Liberia's institutions will assume control of these problems, and the UN's role there will increasingly shift to one providing political and humanitarian support. In the world of peacekeeping, results may come in fits and starts, and only manifest themselves slowly, but it is important to appreciate the positive signs along the way.

Very disturbing news out of Darfur, from The Guardian:

The World Food Programme is to halve food rations for up to 3 million people in Darfur from next month because of insecurity along the main supply routes. At least 60 WFP lorries have been hijacked since December in Sudan's western province, where government forces and rebels have been at war for five years. The hijacks have drastically curtailed the delivery of food to warehouses ahead of the rainy season that lasts from May to September, when there is limited market access and crop stocks are depleted.

Instead of the normal ration of 500 grams of cereal a day, people in displaced persons' camps and conflict-affected villages will only get 225 grams from next month, the UN agency said yesterday. Rations of pulses and sugar will also be halved, giving people barely 60% of their recommended minimum daily calorie intake.

The WFP said that while Sudan's government provided security for convoys on the main supply routes, the escorts were too infrequent, given the huge demand for food at this time of year. "Attacks on the food pipeline are an attack on the most vulnerable people in Darfur," said Josette Sheeran, the agency's executive director. "With up to 3 million people depending on us for their survival in the rainy season, keeping WFP's supply line open is a matter of life and death. We call on all parties to protect the access to food."

Sheeran's exhortation painfully underscores the urgent need for a larger and more robust peacekeeping force in Darfur. The parties responsible for disrupting WFP's supply lines -- government and rebel forces, as well as opportunistic bandits -- are not going to police themselves, as severing -- or appropriating -- humanitarian aid is often, perversely, the exact purpose of these groups. Protecting humanitarian supply lines, then, is one area in which a neutral peacekeeping force can have an immediate impact -- even before Darfur's sputtering peace process can achieve a sustainable political solution.

At a Global Day for Darfur event here on the Mall in Washington last Sunday, Amnesty International and Tents of Hope had set up an evocative display of little baggies containing the amount of food that each Darfurian in an Internally Displaced Persons Camp receives each day. The small piles of lentils and flour were not much, and halving even that meager amount bodes very poorly indeed for the future of Darfur's displaced.

At a press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday afternoon, President Bush sought to explain why stronger action has yet to be taken vis-a-vis Darfur.

We shared our deep concern about the people in Darfur. And I -- I share frustrations that the United Nations-AU peacekeeping force is slow in arriving. I made the decision not to put our troops in there on the expectation that the United Nations, along with the AU, could be effective -- and they haven't been as effective as they should be, and we'll continue to work to help them.

The slow deployment of UNAMID -- the peacekeeping force scheduled to reach full deployment in Darfur over three months ago -- is indeed frustrating. But the argument that Bush is making here -- a myth that he has promulgated before -- is deeply disingenuous. The alternative to a slow-deploying UN force was never sending U.S. troops into Darfur; this option was simply never on the table. No U.S. troops have been available for this kind of peacekeeping mission -- let alone those in Liberia, Congo, Lebanon, and the other various war zones where the UN is deployed -- nor would sending U.S. troops to these places, or to Darfur, necessarily have been a good idea. As Condoleezza Rice reminds Bush in Nick Kristof's imagined rendition, "you can't invade a third Muslim country, especially one with oil."

No, the alternative to U.S. troops in Darfur was, is, and will continue to be putting an effective UN peacekeeping force on the ground there, which the U.S. has been in the most opportunistic position to ensure. By failing to provide more robust support for UN peackeeping, to invest a deeper commitment in Sudan's tortured peace processes, and to exert more concerted pressure on Sudan and its enablers, the U.S. has consistently watched opportunities for peace and protection in Darfur sail by. Faulting the UN for a slow-deploying and under-resourced peacekeeping mission is a bit like blaming one's shadow. If the U.S. is going to cast stones at the UN, it would do well to remember that the UN is no more than its Member States, and that the U.S., with the huge amount of influence and funding that it brings to the world body, may well end up looking to itself, with a stone in its hands.

Yet President Bush continues to present this false dichotomy: unilateral U.S. military action, for which the American population largely has no stomach, versus a failed UN mission, which the U.S. can conveniently scapegoat for the continually deteriorating situation in Darfur. The media should call the administration out on this self-exculpatory tactic, and the U.S. should discard its smoke and mirrors and work honestly with the international community to achieve real, tangible progress in Darfur.

An unnamed American official is non-too-pleased with the Bush administration's moves to normalize relations with Sudan, and so leaks to Helen Cooper documents detailing the entente. The United States, reports Cooper, is offering to take Sudan off the list of state sponsors of terror and take steps to normalize relations if Sudan agrees to cooperate more fully on the deployment of the peacekeeping mission in Darfur. Why would this official think this is such a bad idea? Roger Winter, a former USAID and State Department official with twenty-years experience in Sudan explains: "Given the fact that Khartoum has been involved in negotiations repeatedly over the years regarding Darfur and the comprehensive peace agreements and has signed documents and consistently failed to implement what they've signed, why are we discussing normalization with them?"

I think this is exactly the point. Khartoum has yet to live up to most of the agreements it has signed. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (which ended a 20 year civil war between the Islamist government in the Khartoum and southern rebels) is on the verge of collapse because the government has decided to unilaterally withdraw from some of its key passages, including on the boundary of the oil-rich Abyei region. The Darfur Peace Agreement was basically dead on arrival--and the government (to this day) routinely violates its obligations contained therein. The President of Sudan, Omar el Bashir has also backed down from personal commitments he has made to the Secretary General to desist from the government's campaign to retard the deployment of UNAMID.

This "is a fool me twice, shame on me" sort of situation. And we've been fooled time and time again. As John Prendergast of the Enough Campaign (and formerly of the NSC) likes to point out, Khartoum tends to respond only under pressure or the threat of pressure. For real progress to take hold in Darfur, the United States should work with the international community to press the government of Sudan to comply with the agreements it has already made--not reward a regime that has consistently failed to live up to its past agreements.

MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is typically -- and accurately -- described as, at over 17,000 uniformed personnel, the largest such mission currently deployed. What is less frequently considered, however, is the sheer size of the ground that these 17,000 peacekeepers have to cover. Just take a look at a map.

DR Congo is about the size of Western Europe. With that perspective, it's easy to understand why the Secretary-General, in his most recent report on the mission, worries that it risks becoming "stretched to the limit" as it transitions almost entirely to the eastern part of the country. Indeed, at a press conference in New York yesterday, the Secretary-General's Special Representative to MONUC, Alan Doss, confirmed that 92% of the mission's forces were now deployed in eastern Congo -- a crucial repositioning that will help the mission build on January's ceasefire in the volatile region.

Even in just two of Congo's smallest provinces, though, UN peacekeepers still have to patrol an area the size of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg combined. Speaking today at the Wilson Center, Mr. Doss made the telling analogy that MONUC's task of patrolling one of these provinces, South Kivu, is equivalent to having one police officer cover all of Manhattan, plus a sizable chunk of Brooklyn.

We often don't appreciate how tall of a task UN peacekeepers in remote, expansive , violent locations face. Give that statistic to a police officer in New York City, though, and I imagine s/he'll appreciate it a whole lot more.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says it is. South Africa, this month's president of the Security Council, however, doesn't think so. From the AP's Edith Lederer:

[South Africa's] U.N. Ambassador, Dumisani Kumalo, insists that Zimbabwe is not on the agenda because the matter is being dealt with by the Southern African Development Community.

SADC leaders held a summit in Zambia that ended before dawn Sunday with a weak declaration that failed to criticize the absent Mugabe. The declaration called for the expeditious verification of election results in the presence of the candidates or their agents "within the rule of law," and urged "all parties to accept the results when they are announced."

South Africa has traditionally been criticized for not pushing Mugabe harder on reform, so punting the issue entirely to a regional organization seems a little suspicious. Kumalo, however, seems to recognize that such a pressing concern -- the stalemate could possibly lead to the end of the Mugabe's 28-year reign -- likely can't avoid mention at such a prominent Security Council meeting, particularly when the U.S., Britain, and France, have all indicated that they intend to discuss Zimbabwe.

'Those are huge countries,' Kumalo said. 'They can raise whatever they want to raise and all I have said was that we don't expect Zimbabwe to be discussed tomorrow (Wednesday). But they can raise anything.'

This is not just a power move by the "huge countries" of the West, of course. At a meeting dedicated to improving the UN's cooperation with regional African organizations, it seems only appropriate to discuss how the UN, AU, and SADC can work together to ensure that Zimbabwe's election results are determined freely, fairly, and transparently.

Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony revealed the answer my question from last week, namely by choosing not to reveal himself. Hopes for peace in northern Uganda were dashed over the weekend, as Kony opted to stay put in his remote Congolese jungle hideout, instead of venturing to the Sudanese border to sign a long-anticipated peace deal with the Ugandan government. Despite the buildup, Kony's nonappearance was ultimately unsurprising, as his commitment to the bedraggled peace process was always undermined by his powerful antipathy to the prospect of facing ICC prosecution. Nonetheless, this comes as an unfortunate blow to the people of northern Uganda, many of whom, even including Kony's victims, have even been willing to drop ICC jurisdiction in the interest of peace.

While the Ugandan delegation officially remains committed, and cautiously hopeful about, the stalled peace process, the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has also branded Kony as "not serious." Museveni is likely engaging in a bit of spin, taking advantage of Kony's defection to play up his own image as the one committed to peace, but there is a good deal of truth in his characterization of the rebel leader. The LRA's own top negotiator, David Matsanga, an admitted opponent of Museveni, resigned out of frustration with Kony's tactics, which he described to Voice of America.

"I have decided that I can no longer tolerate the type of tricks that are involved in the LRA by the leadership. When general Joseph Kony tells me that I want to sign this agreement on this date, and then he doesn't turn up. He doesn't even call me to tell me that he is not going to be in such and such a place, so that I can tell the world and other people not to come."

An even more ominous sign coming out of the LRA camp -- and a fate that Matsanga has thus far avoided -- is the killing of nine rebel leaders in an apparent conflict over whether or not to sign the agreement. The idea of suspending ICC indictments becomes increasingly distasteful when a group -- a listed terrorist organization, mind you -- is willing to kill its own members in a debate over peace.

For all intents and purposes, many analysts have argued, the conflicts in Chad, Darfur, and the Central African Republic essentially amount to one regional war. Today, the U.S. Senate officially recognized this interconnectedness, and called on the parties involved to cease all violence, push for peace, and stop supporting rebel groups in one another's territory. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), the sponsor of the bipartisan resolution:

"The conflicts in Chad, the Central African Republic, and Sudan cannot be resolved in a vacuum because they have both domestic and regional implications. A sustainable peace requires good-faith negotiations both within and between the countries with strong monitoring by the international community," Feingold said. "I am pleased the Senate has sent such an important and timely message. The international community cannot ignore the complex cross-border problems that have resulted in great suffering."

While the resolution is largely hortatory, it takes an important step in addressing the chaos spawned by the Darfur genocide holistically, rather than as an insulated humanitarian imperative. Civilians in the region have long been caught in the middle of their governments' political machinations, and ending the practice of interference by proxy will go a long way toward ensuring the security of vulnerable refugees and displaced persons. The international community has a large stake in resolving this situation, and Feingold's resolution rightly calls on countries to support peace efforts and the deployment of multilateral peacekeeping missions.