Nigeria Content Online

Darfur’s
joint U.N.-African Union peacekeepers face a dilemma in Darfur , which
could shape the future of the world’s largest U.N.-funded force.

After violence left
five people dead in the highly volatile Kalma Camp, six refugees sought
sanctuary in the UNAMID force’s police base there. They are thought to
be rebel sympathisers and the government accuses them of instigating
the camp clashes, demanding that UNAMID hand them over.

Kalma, just outside
Darfur’s largest town Nyala, has long been a problem for the Khartoum
government, whose offices in the camp were burned down by angry
refugees. Rebel supporters in the camp have obtained arms and there
have been clashes with government police in the area.

Now if the six are
responsible for the violence, which was between refugees who support
rebel leader Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur and those who took part in
peace talks, which Nur rejects, then it is Sudan’s right to try them in
a court of law.

However the
government is headed by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a man wanted
by the International Criminal Court for presiding over genocide and war
crimes against these same Darfuris,

which is why they are in the refugee camps in the first place.

Repeated reports
during the seven-year conflict of the torture of Darfuri detainees give
a pretty good indication that they are unlikely to get a fair trial if
UNAMID hands them over.

So what to do?

This is the stuff of nightmares for U.N. peacekeeping officials.

If they hand them
over they lose the trust of the 2 million Darfuri refugees they were
sent to protect and could be subject to attacks by rebel forces, who
would see them as an enemy. But if they don’t hand them over, they are
stuck in a standoff with Khartoum.

The force relies on
cooperation with the government for its own security. The government
also allocates visas for staff, allows equipment in through customs and
gives travel permits. And the government has shown it is ready to use
these powers against any foreign organisation that annoys it.

According to U.N.
sources, the instruction came from New York not to hand over the six
refugees without a bona fide arrest warrant based on real proof they
had committed a crime and guarantees they would get a fair trial, which
UNAMID would need to follow very closely and publicly.

As one UNAMID staff member told me,

“If we can’t even do that we may as well go home.” Catch-22.

Should UNAMID hand them over?

Can UNAMID guarantee them a fair trial?

Can UNAMID continue to defy the government request?