Looks like the militias groups responsible for the violence in Darfur are sending a message to any countries thinking of sending potential United Nations peacekeepers next year:
Ten African Union soldiers were killed and 50 were missing after armed men launched an assault on an AU base in Darfur, the worst attack on AU troops since they deployed in Sudan’s violent west in 2004.
The AU called it a "deliberate and sustained" assault by some 30 vehicles, which overran and looted the peacekeepers’ camp on Saturday night.
Sudan’s army and Darfur rebel movements initially blamed each other for the strike on the Haskanita base in southeastern Darfur. But one rebel source said the attack was carried out by breakaway rebel forces who wanted a seat at peace talks due to begin on October 27 in Libya. [Opheera McDoom, Reuters]
Back in August with much fanfare it was announced that the UN would send up to 26,000 peacekeepers to Darfur. Everyone patted themselves on the back and called this a great thing. However, if you look at the fine print there is no guarantee that 26,000 peacekeepers will even materialize because UN member countries have to volunteer to send soldiers to Darfur. How many countries are going to volunteer soldiers for the Darfur mission that risk those soldiers being killed? You come, we will kill you, that is the message the militias are sending to potential countries now thinking about sending peacekeepers.
Nations that do end up sending peacekeepers anyway will instead be more concerned about force protection of their own forces than actually securing the population. In the end little will change. Darfur is a perfect example of the weakness of the UN because there is no peace to keep if their was never a fight to establish peace in the first place.
Recently the UN announced that a 26,000 member peacekeeping force had been agreed upon to be deployed to Darfur. Sounds like good news right? Well, not if you start reading the fine print. First of all the force won’t even be on the ground until next year and the ability fill a 26,000 member force is dependent on UN countries volunteering forces to participate in the UN operation. For those not familiar with UN peacekeeping, many of the soldiers involved in UN peacekeeping are not there to actually help the country they are deployed too. They are actually there to collect a paycheck because UN peacekeeping pays better than what they would make in their home country’s military. Thus soldiers from third world nation’s make up the vast majority of UN peacekeepers:
Top Countries Who Provide UN Peacekeepers
Pakistan – 10,173
Bangladesh – 9,675
India – 9,471
Nepal – 3,626
Jordan – 3,564
Uruguay – 2,583
Additionally, countries that are host to UN peacekeepers prefer having soldiers from third world nations because they are ineffective. So it is a win-win for everyone involved because the peacekeepers are making a bunch of money while the country they are supposedly providing peacekeeping for is not impacted by their presence, and the UN gets to claim they are doing something and request more funding. UN peacekeeping is often nothing more than a self licking ice cream cone. A self licking ice cream cone is not something that will do anything to help the people in Darfur.
British sailors who are in port at Pusan stopped by the United Nations Cemetery in Pusan to pay their respects.
If you haven’t been to the UN cemetery in Pusan you really should go. The cemetery has graves from many of the countries involved in the Korean War and the experience is quite sobering especially when you realize the few thousand graves there are just a small minute fraction of the overall war dead from the Korean War. Another interesting fact about the cemetery is that it is the only UN operated cemetery in the world. It is a quiet, pleasant place, which is actually quite amazing considering it sits in the middle of one of Korea’s busiest cities.
This story is truly despicable. A group of people has vandalized the UN Cemetery in Busan:
A giant anti-U.S. President George W. Bush message apparently written in herbicide has appeared on the lawn of the UN Memorial Cemetery in Daeyeon-dong, Busan. The site is reportedly on the itinerary of visiting national leaders attending the APEC summit in November.
The office of the UN Memorial Cemetery said Thursday it notified Nambu Police Station on the morning of June 14 that someone had written “NO BUSH” in 10 m high letters on the lawn between the flags of nations participating in the Korean War and the graves.
The cemetery’s office said it appeared the perpetrators used liquid herbicide to write the message, which was 50 m wide, with each line some 30 cm thick. Given the scale, it must have taken several people with spraying tools to write it, the office said. The grass is being restored.
This reminds me of when the grave stones of GIs killed during the invasion of Normandy in France were spray painted by anti-American vandals with the words, “Remove this rubbage from French lands”.
If someone has got a problem with Bush that is fine. Go stand on the street corner and protest. You have every right to do so but you don’t have the right to harm others or vandalize property. Especially the hollowed ground of UN soldiers buried at the UN Cemetery. That is right it isn’t just the remains of US soldiers buried in Pusan. The cemetery in Pusan is the only cemetery administered by the UN in the whole world and includes remains of soldiers from all the countries that took casualties during the war. I have traveled to the cemetery before and it is really a beautiful and solemn place for being situated in the middle of Korea’s 2nd largest city of Busan.
I would hope that people no matter what their political persuasions may be would agree that such a place should be considered sacred. It is unfortunate that such an act of vandalism is kept in the back pages of the papers and is not causing an outcry here in Korea. The memories of these dead soldiers are cheapened by such an act of vandalism by a country these international soldiers gave their lives to save. The way the youth is today, I doubt these same protesters would be willing to die for Korea like these soldiers did during the Korean War.
Could you imagine the outcry if somebody put anti-Bush graffiti somewhere at Arlington National Cemetery? I think even the kookiest Democrats like Howard Dean would even condemn such an act. Why shouldn’t Korea do the same for this cemetery?
Big shout out to Katolic Shinja for pointing this story out.
