Johannes "Jan" Pieter Pronk (born 16 March 1940 in Scheveningen, The Hague) is a Dutch politician and diplomat. He was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of Mission for the United Nations Mission in Sudan, a mandate that expired at the end of 2006. He is now a Professor of Theory and Practice of International Development at ISS, the Institute of Social Studies, at The Hague.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_PronkHe talked about the conflict in Darfur during a convention called 'A struggle for peace', held in Utrecht, The Netherlands in June of this year.
He told us that, in his opinion (based on his experiences in Darfur), it isn't a good idea to impose a UN peace-keeping force upon Sudan and its inhabitants. Because they would be seen as invaders, as occupiers and not as liberators. It would remind the local people of the colonial age, where white people came into their country to control them and their land. (This point of view can even play into the hands of the Janjaweed militias, which are now attacking the black population of Darfur. They might be able to get that very same population to rise against the 'foreign occupation force'.
--My own thoughts.)
Also, a peace-keeping force is useless unless there's already established peace, said Pronk. He's right. He cited the Rwanda genocide as an example where UN peace-keeping forces in the country couldn't do anything to protect the citizens, because they were only there for "peace-keeping" and they had no mandate to prevent aggression against Rwandan people. The UN-force that's going to Darfur will very likely suffer from this, too, since their mandate again is very strict.
Should we then NOT do something about the genocide in Dar fur? No, was Pronk's answer. What 'we', the Western world, should have done, was keeping our promises with regard to the African Union, which is now in Darfur with far too few troops and not nearly enough equipment. The West had promised the AU to get all the money they needed to be an effective force in Darfur to protect the citizens. The AU was not seen as an occupying or colonial force, because they weren't white and not Western. They were seen as protectors. But the West didn't keep its promise, Pronk said. 'We' didn't give enough money, maybe only half of the promised money, but far, far too little.
We needed to properly fund the AU and make sure they'd have enough money to have enough troops on the ground with an effective mandate and get the proper equipment to protect the people in Darfur. And we should find a diplomatic answer as soon as possible.
But more important, Pronk said, we didn't engage in finding a political solution for Sudan. We didn't put our efforts in finding a political future not only for Darfur, but for the entire country. Because Darfur isn't the only conflict in Sudan. There has been a bloody civil war between north and south that was ended only a few years ago. What was the conflict about? All the country's oil resources are located in the middle of the country, on the 'border' between north and south. The government in Khartoum in the north, denied the south income from the oil recourses. The south is very impoverished. Also, another reason is the north is mainly Arabic and the south are blacks. I heard Pronk tell the Arabs used to sell the black people as slaves to Europeans. I forgot how this fitted in, but I'm sure this contrast will have fueled the conflict only more, especiaaly since the government in the north denied income to the south. Now the UN has made peace between north and south, but promised the south that they can vote in 2011 if they will stay with the north as one country or become independent. But Pronk is VERY, VERY worried about 2011.
What if in 2011, the south votes to stay with the north as one country? They will only do so if they think the peace has given them advantages. But here again, the West didn't keep its promise: poverty has not gone down, the hunger in the region is a great problem still and very little people have a change of a better life. So if they stay together, their situation will never get better, especially because Khartoum will continue to bully them. But Pronk hopes that, despite all that misery, they stay together as one country. Because if they vote to become independent, the UN HAS to acknowledge that because it made that promise, but Khartoum will not tolerate that and start another war. Plus, in other countries in the region, which are all unstable, conflicts and maybe new civil wars will be the result, as people over there will look at south-Sudan and want the same thing.
Pronk fears, and I agree, that in 2011, the world will face yet another 'Rwanda' in Sudan.
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