Fresh violence in Darfur points up African Union's limitations

[gottaB]

TAWILLA, Sudan - The war in Sudan's Darfur region is the kind of conflict the African Union was intended to resolve when its 53 member countries created it two years ago. Yet fighting here last week has revealed the group's limitations.

A multinational peacekeeping force, drawn from among African Union members, is headquartered at El Fasher, 40 miles from Tawilla. Another 200 African Union troops are based at Kebkabiya, no more than 30 minutes away by helicopter.

But no peacekeeping troops were dispatched when fighting broke out in Tawilla between black African rebels and the Arab militia known as the Janjaweed. The first African Union troops came to Tawilla on Saturday, five days after the fighting, on a fact-finding mission. They stayed one night.

"We're not authorized to intervene to stop the fighting," said Jean Baptiste Natama, the African Union's senior political officer. "What happened in Tawilla is because we don't have the mandate."

Fresh violence in Darfur points up African Union's limitations....