THE convoy of African Union (AU) peacekeepers lumbered out of its base on the edge of El-Fasher towards midday. As it passed through central Darfur’s ravaged villages, children playing by the road made thumbs down gestures.

“We are a laughing stock here,” groaned a senior officer to accompanying newsmen. “We are completely blind to what is really going on.”

The AU force — 5,000 soldiers and 2,000 civilian police and administrators drawn from more than a dozen of the AU’s 53 member states — was sent to Darfur to monitor last May’s “peace agreement” — a British-backed deal which split the rebel movement and allowed the Sudanese regime to renew efforts to settle the three-year conflict militarily.

The undermanned and underequipped force trying to police an area larger than France rarely has enough petrol for its vehicles or aviation fuel for its helicopters to respond quickly. Instead, hours of form-filling take place before it can leave base to investigate reports of a violation of the peace deal it was sent to monitor, gaining it a reputation only for bureaucracy and incompetence.

“They are seen as Keystone cops, nothing more than a token force designed to show Africa is taking the crisis seriously when everyone knows it is not. It is disgraceful to think people’s lives depend on such a force,” an aid worker recently told The Times.

Senior officers say they have orders to report violations, not to intervene. “If there is fighting going on, we could get harmed . . . That is against the mandate,” Major Namara Gabriel, a Ugandan, declared.

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