Sudden Mobilization of Responsibility

France and Britain have acceded to Khartoum's demand and watered down the mandate of the UN-approved peacekeeping mission in Sudan, more or less de-fanging the mission of its ability to defend black Sudanese if need be by extraordinary means. Such as picking up a firearm and threatening marauding janjaweed in their ongoing affliction of Darfurians.

But the agreement to permit the UN peace-keeping mission is finally on track, and the UN is confident it can raise sufficient troops from member-states for the purpose at hand; some 26,000 in all. And not a moment too soon, since the violence in Southern Darfur is not abating, claiming an additional 140 lives in the latest outbreak.

Perhaps the attention of the world at large to what is taking place in Sudan has finally embarrassed the African Union sufficiently to mobilize them into offering to place additional troops into the mission in Darfur. Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Mauritania and many others have come forward to pledge additional peacekeepers.

To augment their current 7,000 combined AU peacekeepers currently stationed in Darfur. All of whom, the world knows, have been under-trained, ill equipped and incapable of stemming the violence. So what took them so long, and why didn't they step in long ago with this additional offer allied with a determination to protect Darfurians?