The six-year war in Darfur is “over,” according to the outgoing commander of the UNAMID peacekeeping force in Darfur, General Martin Luther Agwai. “As of today, I would not say there is a war going on in Darfur,” Agwai said, adding, “Militarily there is not much. What you have is security issues now. Banditry, localized issues, people trying to resolve issues over water and land at a local level. But real war as such, I think we are over that.” General Agwai is the most recent senior official to describe the conflict as shrinking. UNAMID’s political leader, Roddolphe Adada, characterized Darfur in April as a “low-intensity conflict,” and the American envoy in Sudan, Scott Gration, described only “remnants of genocide” rather than a current genocide. A London Telegraph article reports this morning, however, that many activists, mostly in the West, “argue that a genocide is still being carried out.” The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 between a pro-government militia and non-Arab rebels who demanded better representation and attention to economic development. The Sudanese government in Khartoum estimates 10,000 have died in the ensuing conflict while the United Nations estimates the number at 300,000.
Analysts are warning that Myanmar could be moving toward civil war after at least 30,000 refugees have fled into neighboring China. Fighting has flared up between Myanmar’s ruling junta and rebel ethnic armies in the northeast. The conflict began Aug. 8, when the junta deployed troops in Kokang, an ethnic Chinese region of Myanmar. A battle between the Kokang rebel group and the junta’s army began this week, violating a 20-year ceasefire. China urged its southern neighbor to resolve the conflict, concerned about the large number of refugees crossing its border. “We…urge Myanmar to protect the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens in Myanmar,” said a Chinese government spokesperson. According to state media, China has increased its police presence near the frontier. The Shan Herald Agency for News, an outlet based in Thailand, is reporting that the United Wa State Army has now joined forces with the Kokang rebel group. Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962 and has signed ceasefires with 17 ethnic armed groups.
As Yemen’s president pledged to rid northern provinces of Shiite rebels, the government was also denying a report that Saudi Arabia has been aiding the army in its offensive against the rebels. In the last few weeks, Yemen has been fighting Shiite Zaidi rebels—sometimes known as Huthis—in the mountainous Saada province near the Saudi border. “These fabricated claims (about Saudi aid) are baseless,” said an unnamed official spokesman to a state-run Yemeni news agency. “We have become familiar with such lies from those elements, as they overtly try to embroil out Saudi brothers in the confrontations.” But the Zaidi rebels have accused Saudi military aircraft of bombing the Saada province, calling it a “flagrant intervention in Yemeni affairs… It is a continuation of Saudi interference in the conflict, which has now got to the point of attacking Yemen directly.” Yemen is not only fighting Shiites in the northern provinces but also al-Qaeda militants and secessionists in the south. The government reported that more than 100 rebels were killed in fighting on Sunday. Saudi Arabia’s Sunni rulers are especially sensitive to militant activities on their frontiers by Shiites, who are concentrated in the oil-rich eastern regions of their nation.
The recent episodes of bombings in Iraq, which killed nearly 200 people since June 30, have prompted increasing concern about corruption in the Iraqi security forces. With American forces now completely withdrawn from Iraqi cities and scheduled to pull out of the country completely by 2012, Iraq’s security increasingly depends on its indigenous security capabilities. A truck bomb in Baghdad on August 19 killed at least 95 and, while investigations into this particular incident continue. Al Jazeera reports that a man confessing to the crime said he paid $10,000 in bribes to security checkpoint staff to reach the Iraqi finance ministry in Baghdad. Drivers are often able to bribe police at security checkpoints to expedite or avoid security inspections as they travel within the country. The United States and Britain, which trained the Iraqi security forces, are also training Afghan security forces as a central element of empowering the Afghans to secure their own country, and there, too, there have been many problems, especially with corruption.