What I Saw In Darfur-By Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091301680.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

What I Saw in Darfur
Untangling the Knots of a Complex Crisis

By Ban Ki-moon
Friday, September 14, 2007; Page A13

We speak often and easily about Darfur. But what can we say with surety? By conventional shorthand, it is a society at war with itself. Rebels battle the government; the government battles the rebels. Yet the reality is more complicated. Lately, the fighting often as not pits tribe against tribe, warlord against warlord.

Nor is the crisis confined to Darfur. It has spilled over borders, destabilizing the region. Darfur is also an environmental crisis -- a conflict that grew at least in part from desertification, ecological degradation and a scarcity of resources, foremost among them water.

I have just returned from a week in Darfur and the surrounding region. I went to listen to the candid views of its people -- Sudanese officials, villagers displaced by fighting, humanitarian aid workers, the leaders of neighboring countries. I came away with a clear understanding. There can be no single solution to this crisis. Darfur is a case study in complexity. If peace is to come, it must take into account all the elements that gave rise to the conflict.

Everything I saw and heard convinced me that this is possible. And we must succeed. Outside El Fasher, the largest city in North Darfur, I visited the El Salam camp, which is sheltering some 45,000 internally displaced people. My heart went out to them. I felt their hopelessness and frustration. I saw children who had not seen life outside the camps. I wanted to give them a sign. I promised that we would do our best to bring peace and to help them return to their villages.

We have made a good start. The U.N. Security Council has authorized the deployment of 26,000 multinational peacekeepers, jointly conducted by the United Nations and the African Union (A.U.). In going to Darfur, I saw the difficult conditions our forces will encounter -- and saw, too, that our logistical preparations are underway.

No peacekeeping mission can succeed without a peace to keep. We need to push, hard, for a political settlement as well. Indeed, that was the principal purpose of my trip.

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