brokering peace in sudan - special warfare quarterly article

8/9/2019 Brokering Peace in Sudan - Special Warfare Quarterly Article

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BROKERING PEACE IN THE SUDAN

Brokering Peace inSpecial Forces ofcers tackle unique advisory role in Darfur.Story by Major Patrick J. Christian

As the world and regional security environments call increasingly for action under coalitionand intergovernmental auspices, an emerging advisory role is forming for the Army special-operations community. In these roles, perhaps more than in any others, ARSOF Soldiers willbe called on to put all of their skills to the test. In these advisory roles, Soldiers will operate inisolation, with few or no support personnel. They will have to work side by side with coalitionsoldiers who do not speak their language and have no experience with their technology.Often times, they will be called on not only to keep the peace, but to broker it.

ADVISORY DUTY The author and an Egyptian military observer withmembers of the Sudans Justice and Equality Movement Army.


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Sudan


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In August 2004, the author found

himself in just such a role when he de-

ployed to the Darfur region of Sudan as

part of a small joint-special-operations

advisory team dispatched there by the

commander of the Joint Special Opera-

tions Task Force Horn of Africa. The

team, deployed from Camp Lemonier,

Djibouti, consisted of a Navy SEAL

lieutenant commander, a Marine recon

major, and the author, an Army Spe-

cial Forces major. The team was tasked

to work as advisers to the African

Unions 12 military-observer teams,

or MILOBS, which were attempting

to negotiate a cease- re with multiple

parties in the Sudans civil war.

The mission was simple: to keep

the MILOBS collecting intelligence

on the con ict, as well as to gather

information relevant to the Global War

on Terrorism, or GWOT. The team had

to strike a balance between those two

missions while staying positioned be-

tween the warring parties as advisers

without getting killed in the process.

The mission originated when the

United States partnered with the

European Union, or EU, in an effort to

avoid a full-scale civil war in Sudan.

The coalition focus is on funding and

supporting the newly formed African

Union, or AU, in a role designed to

mediate between the Government of

Sudan, or GoS (which is primarily in

the control of the Northern Arab Su-

danese), and the armed rebel groups

in the Darfur region. The government-

supported militias were created when

the GoS armed a large number of

Arab nomadic civilians, known as the

Janjaweed, and encouraged them to

clear out the African Muslim tribes of

Darfur in a form of political/culturalcleansing.

It is this cleansing that former Sec-

retary of State Colin Powell called the

genocide in Darfur. The AUs rst step

in dealing with the issue was to medi-

ate a temporary cease- re on April 8,

2004, to form and deploy MILOBS to

patrol Darfur, and to encourage the

warring parties to abide by the cease- re and to stay at the negotiating

table.

Initially, there were 12 AU MILOBS

teams, of ve or six of cers each,

spread out among the six largest pop-

ulation centers in western and south-

ern Darfur. Because of the warring

parties enduring distrust of both the

Arab League and the African Union,

the teams were mandated to have ei-

ther an EU or a U.S. adviser to ensure

impartiality and improve the reliability

of the observing and reporting.

The other members of the MILOBS

teams consisted of EU of cers from

Italy, Hungary, Ireland, France, Eng-

land, Denmark and Norway. The Afri-

can Union of cers hailed from South

Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Congo,

Chad, Algeria, Nigeria, Kenya and

Ghana, and collectively they spoke a

dozen or so languages. Each team was

also staffed with an interpreter and

a military-of

cer representative fromeach of the three parties involved in

the con ict: the GoS; the Justice and

Equality Movement Army, or JEM; and

the Sudan Liberation Movement Army,

or SLA. The of cers of the JEM and

SLA are majors or lieutenant colonels.

While the teams primary mission

was to support the AUs MILOBS, a

secondary mission, gathering informa-

tion for the GWOT, was also vitally

important. Sudan was, and in many

A line of Arab militia came over a steep rise on theircamels and horses. A fierce battle erupted. Apparently, wewould not be staving off any attack today, so we returnedto our camp.

Editors note: To further illustrate

Major Christians article, we have

included excerpts from his diary ac-

counts. Shown as comments on note

paper, they are not intended to provide

complete accounts of incidents, but

rather to convey the atmosphere of the

situation.

FORMING-UP Members of the Janjaweed mili-

tia mass for an attack on a village in Darfur.

BROKERING PEACE IN SUDAN


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respects still is, one of the most im-

portant safe havens for al-Qaeda and

Osama bin Laden.

The Muslim Brotherhood helped

organize Sudans government as an

Islamic fundamentalist state. The calls

to prayer from the minarets in Khar-toum are different from those in Saudi

Arabia, in that they mix the traditional

Allah Aqbar call with angry denun-

ciations of U.S. foreign policy.

The current president, Lieuten-

ant General Omar Hassan Ahmad

al-Bashir, is a moderate (by Sudanese

standards) who occasionally cooper-

ates with the U.S. and the internation-

al community in countering terror-

ism. On the other hand, the current

vice-president, Ali Asman Mohamded

Taha, leads factions that advocate

the spread of fundamentalist Islam

through all parts of the country and

region.

It is in this complex and hostile

environment that the MILOBS oper-

ate. They nd that in order to get

information on the GWOT, they must

be successful in brokering the peace

that the AU is seeking.

The AU holds a charter to collect

information and intelligence under

the cease- re accords, but without

training and guidance, its teams were

unable to do much more than wander

around in the desert. Contributing

to the chaotic movements of the AU

teams is the lack of communica-

tion and technology available to its

members. There are some important

lessons to be learned here, most im-

portantly, the dif culties that the mul-

tinational unions (United Nations, EU,

AU, Organization of American States

and NATO) face in operating, given the

vast differences in culture, language,

doctrine and training among their

member states.For example, on one MILOB team

there were seven majors hailing from

various countries. The major from

Mozambique spoke Portuguese

and Spanish. The

major from the

Congo spoke

French, while

the Namib-

ian major spoke

English. The major

from Chad spoke

Arabic and French,

while the Egyptian

major spoke Arabic

and English, as did

the lieutenant colonels

from the JEM and the

SLA. The Sudanese major

spoke only Arabic, and the

author spoke English and

Spanish.

The lack of a common

language was a major source

of problems, as most inter-

views were conducted in Arabic

and English. Of cers who do not

speak either language must rely

on other of cers for interpretation.

At any given time during planning

and operations there were four- or ve-way conversations going on as the

MILOB team members translated for

each other.

In addition to the language dif cul-

ties, there are also problems caused by

the lack of common military training.On one team, the Egyptian

of cer attended

In-

Just as we lan

ded near the

village of Kas

ara (in the

J u s t a s w e l a n d

e d n e a r t h e v i

l l a g e o f K a s a r a

( i n t h e

Jebel Mara

Mountains),

however, a l

ine of Arab m

ilitia

J e b e l M a r a M

o u n t a i n s ), h o w

e v e r, a l i n e o f

A r a b m i l i t i a

(known as the Ja

njaweed) ca

me over a ste

ep rise on

( k n o w n a s t h e J a n j a w e e

d ) c a m e o v e r

a s t e e p r i s e o n

their camels

and horses. Som

e 300 African

Arabs in

t h e i r c a m e l s a n

d h o r s e s. S o m e 3 0 0 A

f r i c a n A r a b s i n

mixed dress

of civilian an

d military, sporting we

apo

m i x e d d r e s s o

f c i v i l i a n a n d m

i l i t a r y, s p o r t i n g w e a

p o

of various co

untries, and

dubious age t

rotted past

o f v a r i o u s c o u n

t r i e s, a n d d u b i o

u s a g e t r o t t e d p a s t

enroute to th

e battle. A fe

w of them gla

nced at us

e n r o u t e t o t h e

b a t t l e. A f e w o

f t h e m g l a n c e

d a t u s

curiosity but

continued in

their assault

on the tow

c u r i o s i t y b u t c o

n t i n u e d i n t h e i

r a s s a u l t o n t h

e t o w

Moony, 2 kilo

meters away

. The lead reb

el picket

M o o n y, 2 k i l o m

e t e r s a w a y. T h e

l e a d r e b e l p i c k

e t

opened up, a

nd a erce b

attle of assau

lt ries a

o p e n e d u p, a n d

a e r c e b a t t l e

o f a s s a u l t r i e

s a

erupted. At t

his point, the

pilots of the

MI-8 we

e r u p t e d. A t t h

i s p o i n t, t h e p i

l o t s o f t h e M I -

8 w e

practically in

panicked con

vulsions as th

ey wa

p r a c t i c a l l y i n p

a n i c k e d c o n v u l

s i o n s a s t h e y w

a

back to the helic

opter to get

out of the lin

e o

b a c k t o t h e h e l i c o p

t e r t o g e t o u t o

f t h e l i n e o

Apparently,

we would not be

staving off a

ny

A p p a r e n t l y, w e w o u l d

n o t b e s t a v i n g

o ff a n y

today, and w

e returned to our cam

p.

t o d a y, a n d w e r

e t u r n e d t o o u r c a m

p.

1 Nov 1 N o v


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7/9March-April 2006 13

Department personnel at the the U.S.

base in Djibouti had to craft a support

plan. This was dif cult, as the U.S.

Embassy in Khartoum was anked by

a local Hamas headquarters and an

of ce of the Survivors of the Martyrs

reimbursement of ce that provides

money to families of suicide bombers

in Palestine and Iraq.

The U.S. Embassy is actually a

mission that has only recently opened,

and it operates on minimal staf ng

without an accredited ambassador.

The mission staff continually works on

developing an aggressive evacuation

plan to be used if the country defaults

to the harder line Islamic radicals who

advocate increased fundamentalist

involvement in the government.

Just as the embassy staff planned

for evacuation, so, too, did the military

advisers. The advisers to the MILOBS

operated as isolated personnel in a

region crawling with armed factions,

as is often the case in advisory assign-

ments. The team carried all its survival

equipment on every mission and was

always prepared to enter into the es-

cape-and-evade mode, which basically

meant running for the Chad border.

Illustrating the requirement for

solid mission planning was the inci-

dent in which the AU received intel-

ligence that a non-Sudanese third

party was operating in Darfur with the

intent of abducting U.S. or EU of cers

to sell to al-Qaeda operatives. It is

common knowledge among the AU and

rebel forces that al-Qaeda has robust

networks in Darfur. Al-Qaeda has

been very active there, and the team

received a continuous ow of informa-

tion on its activities.

Abductions, threats and hostile ac-

tion toward AU, U.S. and EU person-

nel were not limited to al-Qaeda. The

authors initial assignment in Darfur

was in Tine, Sudan, in the southern

Libyan Desert. Shortly after the author

left that rst team, it was abducted by

one of the warring parties.

Besides the threat from outside

forces, the teams also faced the

uncertainty of the cease- re and the

daily risk of cross re. The cease- re

was tenuous, as there was steady ghting around Al Fashir, Kebka-

bia and Nyala, and sporadic ghting

around El Geniena, Ambarou and Bir

Furniwayah.

The GoS reinforced its military

and police battalions daily, but the

governments intent was not always

clear. The rebel groups claimed that

the GoS was preparing for an offensive

that would shatter the cease- re and

could cause the MILOBS team mem-

bers to execute their escape-and-eva-

sion plans.

The JEM and SLA representatives

on the MILOBS teams constantly

pulled the U.S. and EU representa-

tives aside to show them documents

that they claimed were taken from

government of ces. The documents

outlined the GoSs nal solution to

the Darfur problem: the employment

of chemical weapons.

TAKING NOTES Members of the AUs military-observer teams meet with the secretary general and military leaders of the JEM in Darfur, Sudan.


8/914 Special Warfare

BROKERING PEACE IN SUDAN

The military advisers were lightly

armed, carrying only a sidearm for

protection, as anything else makes

the warring factions uneasy. Rwan-

dan and Nigerian soldiers were on the

ground to keep the peace and provide

security for the MILOBS and otherparties within the country. These

soldiers, however, were excitable and

impulsive and proved dangerous when

the teams confronted the edgy war-

ring parties. More times than not, the

Rwandans and Nigerians were left to

guard the MILOBS sector base camp.

The authors teams patrol vehicle

came under re by edgy participants

in the ghting, with at least one of cer

receiving wounds.

The epidemiology of the region is

even more of a security factor than

the danger from civil war. When the

author arrived for his second Darfur

assignment, he found the teams living

in rented mud brick huts in an area

over owing with desperate refugees.

Because of the rampant disease

within the refugee population, both

teams in that sector were nearly non-

mission capable. Of the 18 military

observers on those two teams, nine

tested positive for malaria and were

bedridden. Three of the soldiers were

medially evacuated to either Khar-

toum or Addis Ababa.

A signi cant number of MILOBS

(including the author) eventually con-

tracted malaria during the mission.

The potential for large-scale epidemics

is high, as the High Commission for

Refugees, the International Red Cross,

Doctors Without Borders and other

nongovernmental agencies are not up

to the task of dealing with so many

people.

The sheer number of war casual-

ties on both sides of the con ict has

overburdened the medical support.

The GoS did not support the efforts

of the NGOs or the MILOBS teams

to provide medical care to the rebel

forces.

The authors team spent several

days in the Jebel Mara Mountains

with the SLA rebels western brigade,

investigating Janjaweed attacks on vil-

lages. Before the team went out, rebel

of cers assigned to the team helped

load several rucksacks with medical

supplies. The GoS of cer assigned to

the team had previously objected to

providing medical assistance to the

rebels, so caution had to be exercised.

Upon its arrival in a village, the team

would split up, ostensibly to cover

more ground. In reality, the other

team members would ensure that the

GoS of cer was separated from the

author so that the medical supplies

could be delivered.

The hut the rebels were using as a

hospital was almost medieval: Ampu-

tation was the solution for a com-

pound fracture when the bone was

exposed; surgery was done without

anesthesia, and IV bags were being re-

used. The acting doctors credentials

were that he had once been a medi-

cal technician before the war. While

providing the medical assistance had

the potential of causing problems

within the team, it garnered important

goodwill and often brought a wealth of

information pertinent to the mission.

U.S. Special Forces Soldiers will

increasingly be tapped for these new

and emerging missions. Their exper-

tise in operating in complex, sensitive

and dangerous environments holds

strategic national implications. As-

signments of this nature provide valu-

able experience in working intimately

SPECIAL DELIVERY Severely overloaded trucks carry supplies and humanitarian aid for refugees in Darfur


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