Cape Town — When the new African Union-United Nations hybrid force for Darfur (Unamid) deploys at the end of the year, its commander expects to have only half the 20,000 troops planned for. Moreover, while he needs a minimum of 30 to 38 military helicopters for his task, right now not a single country in the world has pledged even one.
His main problem, General Martin L. Agwai says in this interview, is the high expectations which Unamid faces. He spoke to allAfrica in Cape Town, where he was addressing a seminar at the city's Centre for Conflict Resolution.
General, it's been suggested that you have the toughest job in Africa?
To a very large extent it's a very tough job. What makes it even tougher is the high expectations, especially when people hear about the hybrid force. A lot believe that by December 31 we'll have a hybrid force that will help provide security for the IDPs (internally displaced persons) and also some of the refugees and then they'll be able to go back home. That is the expectation… in the IDP camps, in the international community and among the humanitarian agencies.
You've been in Darfur for much of this year heading the African Union mission, of about 7,000 [AMIS]. Sketch for our readers the difficulties of fulfilling your mandate.
Well, first of all, let me correct the notion - I don't even have 6,000 troops on the ground. What we have is just a little bit above 5,000… If you look at the mandate, it was initially an observer mission, to observe the peace agreement [the Darfur Peace Agreement of 2006], to make sure that people were conforming to what they accepted. It was a small mission to… verify any ceasefire violation. But today people expect that small mission even to provide security for civilians, when it cannot even provide security for itself. So that is the first challenge, the numbers.
Second, if you have been to Darfur, you will find that there are no roads, there are no means of communication. In the rainy season, when it rains there is no way you can even go out on patrol because the whole area is flooded, the wadis are flooded. We don't have the right vehicles to go into such terrain… Even by air, by helicopter, the shortest distance [to an AMIS camp] is 30 minutes by helicopter. If you try to do it on a good smooth day by road, it's about 3-1/2, four hours. If you want to go… to Malha in the north by helicopter, it's 2-1/2 hours. So these are these are the types of distances we are talking about.
Then there is the issue of water. [From] some of our camps, you have to go over five kilometres just to get water for our own forces, not helping anybody else.
To crown it all, there's not only the issue of numbers, but what is the agreement in the DPA? If you want to investigate a ceasefire, you have to invite all the stakeholders. Remember, some of the stakeholders are not signatories to the DPA. How do you get all the people that don't agree to now agree to go and investigate a ceasefire violation?
How will the mandate differ for the hybrid force?
The mandate has to go with the force level and the equipment. In the hybrid force we hope to have military utility helicopters. Then you can take more risks, you can give orders to military pilots, because that is what they are trained for.
What do we have now? Because of the rules that the civil pilots have to observe… there are a lot of things we want to do that we can't. We hope that this new force will have those. And if we do then we will be able to protest ourselves, we'll be able to protect the UN and AU resources and personnel, we'll be able to provide a degree of security to the humanitarian agencies and we'll be able to provide at least area security for the locals that will give them some confidence to be able to start thinking of going home.
How many military helicopters do you need? How many have you got?
The minimum, not the ideal but the minimum… [is] 18 utility helicopters, and about 12 to 18 combat helicopters that can go to do reconnaissance and other things. As of today, there is no country in the world that has volunteered to give us that capability – zero. And that's why I am saying that by December 31 there are lots of expectations, but the reality on the ground is different…
You must have heard about the attack we had on our camp in Haskanita [on September 30], when we lost 10 of our peacekeepers. After the attack we wanted to go to the area… to move the injured. It took us about eight hours because the civil pilots couldn't take the risks… If we had military helicopters, we would have been able to arrive there much, much earlier, and we may have been able to save maybe one or two lives.
Who has agreed to contribute to the hybrid force and what have they agreed to?
I cannot tell you that… As a force commander it is not my prerogative. It is the AU and the UN headquarters that get pledges and then they consider [offers], using their own parameters, to come up with a force.
But one thing is clear… it has to be a tripartite agreement – the AU, the UN and the host country, Sudan. Until those three agree, you can't have a force, and as of now, I don't think there has been an agreement. So apart from the current force we have on the ground, there is nothing new.
That's why I keep saying that expectations are far away from the reality. For example, going by the mandate of [Security Council Resolution] 1769, by the end of August we would have known the troop-contributing countries. We are in November – we don't know. So we are already running far behind this plan. That's why I keep on sounding a warning on expectations, expectations.
On your best estimates, on January 1, how many battalions, totaling how many troops, do you think you will have?
By the 31st, I think we should be talking about somewhere within the region of 9,000 or 10,000, out of 20,000.
But no helicopters?
No. Well, I don't know, maybe by then we may be lucky. But as of now, none.
The South African Air Force is very proud of their helicopters. When there were floods in Mozambique, they sent them. Will South Africa contribute?
As of now, South Africa has a battalion with us. I learn that South Africa and other countries were contacted when it became clear that nobody was volunteering on their own. I'm sure that both the UN and the AU are working on that and I am optimistic that nations, seeing the suffering in Darfur, will volunteer.
When one looks at the difficulties at recent talks in Libya, is there a peace for UNAMID to keep?
Well, at the moment there is no peace to keep, and that is where the dangers and the difficulties come. But I'm very optimistic that we may have some deals. But it will take time… People have to exercise a lot of patience… I am not expecting that next week, or by the end of this year, or by the end of November, there will be a peace deal. But I believe that by and large, with time, we'll be able to get the groups together to broker a peace.
However, we still have a role to play in Darfur with or without a peace deal: humanitarian services; security – protection of invalids, the elderly, women and children, especially with the stories you hear – some of them are the realities – of women going out to fetch firewood and being raped, and children being attacked.
Is there other material that you need?
We need a lot of armoured personnel carriers (APCs). AMIS is a donor-driven mission – countries donate equipment that the troops are using. Under UNAMID, the UN system [will apply]… a country comes with its own equipment and the UN leases the equipment.
So we hope the countries that are coming will meet the UN standard. For example every battalion is supposed to come with a minimum of 18 APCs. If they cannot, I hope that a third country will be able to assist those countries. So hopefully, when UNAMID takes off fully, we will have a force that will be able to perform much better than the AMIS force.
It's been said you will be commanding the biggest UN peacekeeping force in the world when it's up to full strength. When you wake up in the early hours of the morning, doesn't it terrify you? The prospect of failure?
No, it doesn't terrify me. First and foremost, I was the Chief of Army Staff – that is the commander – of the Nigerian Army. The Nigerian Army is about 80,000. I then became the Chief of Defence staff – that is commanding the army, the airforce and the navy together – before my present job.
So the numbers do not frighten me.
We've had big challenges at home too in Nigeria. We've sent troops to Darfur, we've send troops to Liberia, so it's not a totally new terrain to me. And I was the deputy force commander in UNAMSIL, the UN mission in Sierra Leone, for two years, and that force was about 17,000.
I know there are ups and downs but [one has] to be focussed, have your strategic goals, [move] towards them and be flexible when there are difficulties, which there are bound to be. What one has to guard against is first to allow any difficulty that will dampen the morale of the men… You do it by training… even in the mission area, we still keep them training, updating themselves, being dynamic enough to move with the situation on the ground.
On my part, my consolation is that I believe the world which decided to give me the job will come to my aid when I dearly need it, [to help] me achieve the goal that they have set for me.
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You don't fear that that you may suffer the fate of General [Roméo] Dallaire in Rwanda? (Dallaire was the UN commander who was forced to watch the 1994 genocide unfold without being able to take effective action.)
Luckily General Dallaire has sent me a personal letter. I found the letter quite useful. I wrote him thanking him for his understanding as a comrade and a colleague in arms, to [help] make sure [there is no] repeat of the difficulties he ran into.
I think things are changing. I'm not saying that there are two situations that are identically the same but you can draw lessons. I know that a country lost 10 soldiers in Rwanda, and pulled out of the mission [a reference to Belgium at the beginning of the genocide]. In Haskanita we lost 10 soldiers and officers and none of the countries have threatened to pull out.
As my people say, if you go to a butchery where they are butchering meat, and you don't want any sign of blood to touch you, then you don't go there at all. But once you go you must be prepared to get some stain of blood on you. I'm sure all the countries realize that there is a danger of casualties, but on our part the leadership will do everything possible to minimize the danger.
What would you say to the people of Darfur as the new force moves in?
I want them to know that we have some limitations but even with those limitations we will do the best to provide them with the limited security that we can. But with time, as the force settles in and enlarges, we'll be able to provide them with minimum security and create a conducive atmosphere for them to be able to go back home.
But I also want them to talk to their leadership. They must realize that there is no military solution to the problem of Darfur. Since there is no military solution, they must come to the conference table, have a dialogue. Splitting their movements into several further groups will not solve the problem.
The leadership must compromise and come together, for the interests of the children, for the interests of the young ones, and even those unborn so that they can have a future… And if they compromise and have a peace deal that we can monitor, that we can verify, that we can keep for them, then they will have a country, they will have a home for every one of them and we will get over this very quickly.
