We must help Sudan's President

Martin sends us his letter to the Times and comments: "My (edited) letter in today's Times. You probably don't agree with it but al-Bashir reminds me of Hilaire Belloc's 'always keep a-hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse'. Obviously his Maxim gun ditty has been overtaken by events. The natives have lots of them, which is part of the problem."

Sir, President Omar al-Bashir needs help in establishing devolved civil governance in Darfur, not strident insults from Glenys Kinnock (Comment, Sept 13) or threats from the US that compel him to play aggressively to his own gallery.

The 7,000-strong African Union monitoring force, which Mr al-Bashir in a gesture of good faith has now asked to remain to protect humanitarian NGOs, is too few, too lightly armed, in need of better helicopter support and is irregularly paid. However, Britain could build on Mr al-Bashir’s concession and persuade its European partners and African Union members to make good the shortfall.

We should offer independently the Sudan Government training of more locally recruited provincial government officials who can implement agreements to restore “Arab” migrating grazing rights and access to water in arable areas, or at least buy them off to stop them shooting African farmers, torching their villages and raping their women. A competent local police force is a prerequisite to this pacification and we are still rather good at training them.

Those clamouring for UN armed intervention to protect the unfortunate civilians caught up in this nasty but limited conflict should remember just how simple it is to go barging into someone else’s country and how difficult it is to get out without leaving a greater tragedy behind. UN intervention would fix the status quo in Darfur, leaving anti-government rebels in control of a large part of it. It is unlikely that Mr al-Bashir’s Government would survive.

Sudan’s ethnic and mixed race “Arabs” are a ruling minority outnumbered by ethnic Africans. It would be a tragedy if, just when Mr al-Bashir has bravely negotiated an end to the country’s civil war, and involved southern African Christians in central government, armed UN intervention led to his overthrow by hardline army and intelligence officers intent on restoring “Arab” domination by ethnic cleansing. The small UN force would find itself in the crossfire of a full-blown African-Arab ethnic war.

Britain created Sudan by force, primarily to halt French colonial expansion from West Africa, colonising the independent sheikhdom of Darfur in the early 20th century. It is a complex ethnic and religious mix. We should recognise that we have a historic responsibility for this chaotic colonial legacy and have the guts to stop sheltering behind the UN, the US, the EU and the AU and do something positive on our own to finally help to put it right.

MARTIN BELL
Port Isaac, North Cornwall