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No Power To Protect: Weaponry and Equipment

No Power to Protect

RECOMMENDATIONS

Improve Mission Weaponry and Equipment

Donor countries must support AMIS by providing it with more weaponry, communications equipment, and vehicles, as well as advice on organizing itself more effectively. If AMIS’ mandate is strengthened, it will have even greater requirements.

No force, UN, NATO or otherwise, would find it easy working given the AU’s current constraints. This is especially the case taking into account how poorly equipped AMIS is with regards to firepower, vehicles and communications equipment in comparison to the other armed factions of Darfur. International donor partners are not providing AMIS with the kind of equipment they need.

African Union troops are armed primarily with three weapons: pistols for the protection force officers, AK-47 assault rifles for the bulk of the protection forces, and one Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher (RPG-7) for about every ten soldiers. As one Rwandan protection force soldier told RI, “We couldn’t defend ourselves with the equipment we currently have.” To unarmed civilians, AMIS may look intimidating as they ride around in the back of Toyota pick-up trucks, with AK-47 rifles and RPGs, but to well-armed forces like those of the Government of Sudan, Janjaweed, SLA and JEM, they represent little more than a nuisance. This lack of firepower explains how the 18-soldier AMIS patrol and its 20-man rescue force were kidnapped by a JEM splinter faction in West Darfur.

While the Government of Sudan is the most thoroughly armed contingent in Darfur, the Janjaweed has also been well-supplied by the Government with heavy weaponry. The rebel factions have also reportedly received their own heavy weapons, including artillery, according to one AMIS officer, officially and unofficially from Libya, Chad and Eritrea. Virtually every fighter in all these forces has either an AK-47 or an RPG-7 just like AMIS. However the armed forces in Darfur have many more such weapons as well as far more troops to use them.

Nevertheless, even if the AMIS force is not overwhelmingly out-gunned in raw numbers, they are out-gunned in the destructive power and range of the weapons of the various armed rebel groups. A common truck-mounted weapon among the warring forces in Darfur are the PKM (also referred to as PKB) 7.62mm machine guns. The PKM can not only easily fire over one full kilometer (three times as far as an AK-47), but at 500 meters can penetrate an armored vehicle. Also commonly seen among Government forces, both mounted on vehicles and in bunker positions, is the NSV 12.7mm heavy machine gun, or the similar but older model DShK 12.7mm heavy machine gun.

This machine gun can fire accurately well over a mile (1.6 km). To explain the difference in lethality between a 7.62mm and a 12.7mm bullet, a 7.62mm bullet to the torso could kill a person, but a hit to the limb would not necessarily be fatal. A 12.7mm bullet hit to the limb, on the other hand, would likely tear the limb off, resulting in death. Also, at one mile’s distance, the NSV could destroy any of the vehicles AMIS currently uses, taking along with it any AMIS soldiers in the vehicle, before they have the slightest chance of firing back to defend themselves. As of yet, AMIS has no such heavy weapons.

The Government forces (and the other groups to a lesser extent) have weapons with much greater capabilities than the small arms carried by AMIS. In a show of force on September 20, 2005, just two days after government-supported Janjaweed forces had attacked villages to the southwest of El Fasher, Refugees International (RI) witnessed multiple companies of the Sudanese army positioning themselves on the edge of El Fasher and driving out of town past the AMIS sector headquarters. Among the convoy were at least two 122-mm Al-Saqr 30 Multiple Rocket Launchers. The Al-Saqr is a flat-bed truck with forty rocket tubes mounted on its bed. It can fire its forty rockets over 18 miles in twenty seconds, taking only ten minutes to reload. With one forward observer in eye-sight of the target holding a satellite phone or radio to call-in attacks, AMIS could be hit by such a barrage and have neither any idea where it came from nor any capacity to respond.

Additionally, the Sudanese army has hundreds of tanks at its disposal. Although the T-54/55 Soviet-made tank that makes up most of the inventory is a very old model, having been designed in the 1940s and 1950s, its armor and cannon could easily defeat even the Canadian Grizzly Armored Personnel Carriers that AMIS is scheduled to receive.

In the past few years, Sudan has also acquired at least a dozen modern MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter-jets and numerous Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters. While use of the Fulcrums has not been documented over Darfur, they are normally armed with air-to-surface missiles that can be fired from up to 30 kilometers away. The Hinds have reportedly been used frequently in Government and Janjaweed attacks across Darfur as has the Antonov An-24/26, a propeller cargo plane, which the Government of Sudan has used to drop bombs on to villages. Since the beginning of the year, there has been a lull in airstrikes, which has pushed the importance of creating a no-fly zone to the backburner. With reports that the Government of Sudan has again started using its helicopter gunships, it becomes critical that the UN Security Council move to establish a no-fly zone over Darfur.⁹ Somebody would have to assist the AU in enforcing this, however; AMIS doesn’t have the weaponry necessary—such as an SA-7b Grail “MANPAD,” or man portable surface to air shoulder-fired missile —to combat a 1960s propeller cargo plane, let alone a Hind or a Fulcrum, nor does it have the intelligence to monitor airspace.

AMIS has no combat aircraft at all, only transport helicopters and a couple of An-24s (not equipped for use as bombers). In fact, AMIS is often unable to use its helicopters because the Government imposes severe flight restrictions on AMIS; in addition, the Government permits only civilian pilots. RI was told that the Government requires AMIS pilots to travel to Khartoum to re-certify their domestic flight credentials every two months. Needless to say, AMIS’ complete lack of armed, air-attack helicopters or other attack aircraft severely limits its ability to ensure security on the ground.

Even the equipment that is being donated or loaned is not getting to Darfur because of the Government of Sudan. In June 2005, Canada loaned 105 Grizzly Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) to the AU; they first went to Dakar, Senegal so that AMIS troops could be trained on them. The Grizzlies would provide solid protection from even 12.7mm bullets for the five soldiers that can fit inside of them. They also come with their own 12.7mm machine gun on top and thus would be a huge boost to the AMIS combat capacities. However, the Government has been standing in the way of the Grizzlies’ delivery. Only in October 2005 has it agreed to allow 35 of these APCs to enter the country. An international advisor to the AU speculated to RI that the armor would dramatically improve AMIS assertiveness and effectiveness if and when it arrived: “… although AMIS has been tentative until this point, I think [the AU] is just waiting to get these APCs and will be more forceful when they do.”

An AMIS official in Khartoum told RI that the Government’s excuse for holding up the equipment is that, “The APCs could be captured by the rebels and used against the GoS.” Clearly, one of AMIS’s only hopes for not being captured in the future is if they can defend themselves with APCs and heavy weapons. The AU doesn’t need tanks —although tanks would be useful—but they definitely need a vehicle that will protect them at least from regular Kalashnikov rifle bullets. Moreover, they need the ability to respond to attacks with overwhelming firepower. Otherwise, none of the other armed groups will ever be deterred from attacking civilians or AMIS.

On September 19, 2005 when the Janjaweed attacked the AMIS CFC patrol sent to Hafara, all the protection force could do was return fire to cover their withdrawal. Faced with only twelve Rwandan soldiers, armed with only AK-47s and RPG-7s, the approximately 300 Janjaweed in the area would have massacred the AMIS force if the Rwandans had tried to stay and fight. A source in Nyala told RI that the first AMIS forces killed in Darfur, as part of the October 8 ambush, were killed by Sudanese Government or allied forces, and not by the SLA as had been originally reported. The AMIS troops encountered civilian contractors under attack near Kourabishi and came to their aid. When the attackers broke contact and withdrew, the Nigerians pursued the attackers (pushing the limits of the mandate and Rules of Engagement) but then were ambushed by a much superior force. If AMIS were supplied with the weapons, air support and force numbers they needed, AMIS’ deterrence factor would increase making such attacks on AMIS much less likely and AMIS’ capacity to defend itself and protect civilians would be greatly improved.

The complete lack of defenses at all AMIS bases in Darfur is also an issue. Currently the bases are demarcated by chain-link fences and have a few guards on variable levels of readiness at the entrance. A proactive AMIS force dedicated to bringing stability to Darfur requires fortified positions from which they can safely operate.

The equipment and capacity shortfalls go beyond weapons and armor. AMIS’ communications and communications monitoring equipment, which are crucial to an effective, modern fighting force, are insufficient. While many of the AMIS vehicles have VHF and HF radios, none of the radios is encrypted for security. Thus any movements or actions by AMIS are easily monitored and tracked by belligerent parties. When RI was driving with a patrol, there were no radios allowing one vehicle to communicate to another. In addition, the more remote bases lack VSAT email systems to facilitate efficient reporting and command and control on a round-the-clock basis. Some lower-level headquarters are forced to read reports out over the radio or hand-write reports and have them driven to their senior-level command each day.

While the AMIS radios are easily monitored by outside forces, AMIS itself has no communications intelligence collection capacities. There are no soldiers dedicated to trying to listen in on Government, Janjaweed and rebel unsecured radio communications let alone use any kind of “signals intelligence” equipment. In fact, AMIS has virtually no intelligence collection or analysis capacity whatsoever. While the belligerent parties have informers built into the CFC mechanisms, AMIS has neither the spare troops nor the expertise (including only a few Arabic speakers) to build an effective military intelligence collection system. They entirely lack the most basic intelligence gear such as good maps. Commanders and operational and intelligence staff officers on the ground need to be able to examine maps of their areas of operations to be effective. Currently AMIS has practically no military maps, let alone a versatile computer-based mapping software package. AMIS has been able to take advantage of the maps produced by the UN Humanitarian Information Center. These maps, however, are necessarily geared towards the needs of humanitarian agencies and planners, not military forces.

On the organizational and logistical front, AMIS has a lot of catching up to do. The first AMIS forces were deployed as quickly as possible to Darfur, without adequately establishing the logistics training to support them. The situation has been somewhat rectified through the establishment of a Joint Logistics Operation Center (JLOC). However, AMIS has yet to fill many of the JLOC permanent staff positions with African military officers. Thus while the JLOC has facilitated a smoother system, it is clearly not as institutionalized as it needs to be.

In terms of financial planning, AMIS still lacks a comprehensive budgeting system, a point of contention between the AU and the donor countries. The AU keeps pressing for cash promises, with oversight, from the donors so they can conduct budgeting and planning based on known available resources. One high ranking AU official lamented, “The AU is not controlling the resources, so [we] can’t control the horizon.” However, donors have countered that the AU needs to bring them a budget so the donors know what they are paying for. AU officials told RI that they would prefer more donations in cash, rather than in-kind, in order to give them more control over outcomes and contingency situations. All US donations to AMIS to date have been in-kind, which US officials say the AU prefers, as it frees the AU from having to deal with contracting details. The US also benefits from its in-kind contributions, most of which gets funneled back to American contractors.

Donors say that the AU doesn’t have the mechanisms in place to handle finances effectively; in fact, at the end of September, 2005 RI witnessed AMIS officials struggling to make sure that funds for salaries made it from Addis Ababa to Darfur in time. Also, until the recent establishment of the donor liaison working group in Addis Ababa, the AU often went to multiple donors with the same equipment request, causing frustration amongst the donors. The UN has started to assist the AU in handling contracts; initially the AU was unable to get competitive contracts because of the short-term nature of the mission planning. The UN has stepped in to allow the AU to purchase fuel through UN contracts.

Refugees International therefore recommends:

International donors provide the armor and firepower AMIS needs to fulfill its current and potentially future mandate. The AMIS troops need not only the Canadian APCs, but also personal body armor and heavy weapons such as heavy machine-guns, mortars, rockets and combat air support in the form of helicopters and/or airplanes.
The U.S. Congress honor its pledge of US$50 million to support AMIS, promised at the donor’s conference last May, to cover equipment, logistics, accommodation and other deployment needs. The House of Representatives has already cut these funds out of the FY2006 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill.
The U.S. and the EU pressure the Government of Sudan to permit immediate and restriction-free deployment of equipment.
The UN Security Council establish a “no-fly zone” over Darfur, and NATO and other forces assist AMIS in enforcement.
AMIS fortify bases with watchtowers and other protective mechanisms which are essential to protecting the AMIS force.
Donor countries ensure that AMIS bases are equipped with VSAT communications system for email.
The U.S. provide AMIS with basic mapping software, along with satellite-generated topographic maps.
The AU, the donor working group, and the UN establish together a long-term budget which should ensure designated funding for every predictable aspect of the mission through September 2006. Included in the budget should be a funding source of cash for contingency spending, with oversight from a donor ombudsman to allay fears that giving un-earmarked cash could encourage corruption. In addition, more mechanisms should be put in place to assist the AU with its finances, and in securing competitive contracts.