Aid Darfur's outgunned defenders

[CHIMO]

A year ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper pleaded with the world to ease Darfur's tragedy. "We must act to save a desperate population," he said. "It's the responsibility to protect."

He also rightly pumped up Canada's aid to Darfur, to $440 million since 2004, to support a United Nations peacekeeping effort to suppress a genocidal conflict that has killed 200,000 people and driven millions from their homes.

But as the first 9,000 troops and police of a beefed-up UN/African Union force began deploying in Darfur this past week, awaiting 17,000 follow-on troops, they were being set up for failure.

As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warns, "the entire mission is at risk" because fully five months after approving the new force, Security Council members such as the United States, Britain and France still haven't supplied a single one of the 24 transport and attack helicopters the peacekeepers need to provide firepower and mobility. It's outrageous.

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/291120