UNMIS/UNAMID's Roles in Monitoring Flows

The African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur (UNAMID) is mandated to monitor violations of the UN arms embargo, while the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) monitors violations of the CPA's military resupply and disarmament provisions. In practice, neither mission is able to fulfil its monitoring role. In UNAMID's case, no permanent operational structures exist for monitoring arms flows into Darfur, either by UNAMID observers or by a dedicated embargo-monitoring cell. Growing insecurity, coupled with UNAMID's serious lack of equipment and force protection capacity, further hamper the basic movement and activities of the patrols necessary for such monitoring.
UNMIS does undertake arms monitoring activities: patrols by the Joint Monitoring Teams (JMTs), established under the CPA to monitor and verify the ceasefire, report instances of heavy weaponry and large consignments of small arms being moved around the 'Ceasefire Zone' (covering the South, East and Three Areas). But this monitoring is not systematic, and the mission's ability to detect new arms supplies moving into the 'Ceasefire Zone' is almost completely hampered by its inability to access Sudan Armed Forces and Sudan People's Liberation Army stocks, the forces' de facto veto over monitoring activities that are deemed undesirable (through the JMT), and its inadequate monitoring procedures. Both missions' observer teams also remain seriously understaffed.
Even more worryingly, there have been losses of weaponry/ammunition from the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS, the precursor to UNAMID) and UNAMID. In several cases, armed opposition group attacks on UNAMID have extended beyond opportunistic ambushes; for example, constituting well-planned, large-scale assaults on UN facilities and forces. These may have enhanced the equipment of armed groups both quantitatively and qualitatively. In the most egregious documented case, some 12 tons of Chinese-made small arms ammunition was stolen from a commercial truck convoy operating for a UNAMID contingent on its way to Nyala in South Darfur in March 2008. Meanwhile, thefts in armed attacks on UNAMID forces reportedly added armored vehicles to the holdings of both opposition and government-aligned militias in 2007 and 2008, although these have yet to be observed being used by these forces. UNAMID's role as an inadvertent arms vector thus appears to be growing, not only as a result of the ambition, opportunism, and capabilities of Darfur's armed groups, but also due to the inadequate protection afforded to UNAMID forces and convoys.


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