Operation SATURN

Operation SATURN is the deployment of a Canadian Forces team to serve with the African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur (UNAMID).

Canadian Forces activities in Sudan are conducted in close co-operation with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). For details of the whole-of-government approach to Sudan, visit Canada: Active in Sudan, a DFAIT website.

Task Force Darfur

Current configuration

Task Force Darfur, the Canadian Forces team in UNAMID, has three members: two logistics experts and a human resources specialist assigned to positions at UNAMID Headquarters in El Fasher, Sudan.

Background

Canadian Forces operations in Sudan began in 2005 with the deployment of the first United Nations Military Observers to serve with the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS, see Operation SAFARI). Soon after, 105 Husky and Grizzly “armoured vehicles, general purpose” (AVGPs) were delivered to Sudan for use by the Nigerian, Rwandan and Senegalese contingents deployed with the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS, see Operation AUGURAL).

On 1 January 2008, AMIS stood down and the United Nations partnered with the African Union to launch UNAMID as a follow-on mission. Operation SATURN began on the same date as a follow-on mission to Operation AUGURAL, providing staff officers with expertise in logistics to work at UNAMID Headquarters, and soldiers expert in handling the Husky and Grizzly vehicles to train soldiers of the Nigerian, Rwandan and Senegalese contingents to drive and operate the Canadian AVGPs.

The Husky and Grizzly vehicles remained in service with UNAMID until Nigeria, Rwanda and Senegal completed the introduction of their own armoured vehicles in 2009. At that time, the Canadian armour trainers were withdrawn from Task Force Darfur.

UNAMID

The conflict

Darfur is the western province of Sudan. War broke out there in February 2003, when two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), took up arms against the Government of Sudan, which entered into an alliance with a local militia group known as the Janjaweed. From the beginning, the conflict has had a strong ethnic character, with black Africans fighting Africans of Arab descent.

Intervention in the Darfur crisis began under the auspices of the African Union, which collaborated with the U.N. and other international organizations to bring representatives of the SLA and the JEM to the negotiating table with the Government of Sudan. The Darfur Peace Agreement was signed on 5 May 2006 in Abuja, Nigeria, and the effort to bring other combatant groups into the peace process continue.

Meanwhile, the fighting went on, and huge refugee camps formed in the frontier areas of neighbouring countries. Between 2003 and 2009, the war in Darfur is thought to have resulted in some 300,000 deaths and the displacement of at least 2.5 million people. Atrocities against civilians have been widespread from the beginning.

The African Union fielded the first elements of a peacekeeping force in Darfur under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1564 of 18 September 2004; by mid-2005 the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) had grown to 7,000 troops. In November 2006, high-level talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, led to a plan to augment AMIS and eventually to deploy a joint African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur.

The United Nations intervention

UNAMID was authorized on 31 July 2007 by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1769 under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. It stood up at El Fasher on 1 January 2008, and its current mandate, authorized by Resolution 1881 of 30 July 2009, ends on 31 July 2010.

UNAMID has the following mandate:

• To contribute to the restoration of necessary security conditions for the safe provision of humanitarian assistance and to facilitate full humanitarian access throughout Darfur;
• To contribute to the protection of civilian populations under imminent threat of physical violence and prevent attacks against civilians, within its capability and areas of deployment, without prejudice to the responsibility of the Government of the Sudan;
• To monitor, observe compliance with and verify the implementation of various ceasefire agreements signed since 2004, as well as assist with the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement and any subsequent agreements;
• To assist the political process in order to ensure that it is inclusive, and to support the African Union-United Nations joint mediation in its efforts to broaden and deepen commitment to the peace process;
• To contribute to a secure environment for economic reconstruction and development, as well as the sustainable return of internally displaced persons and refugees to their homes;
• To contribute to the promotion of respect for and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Darfur;
• To assist in the promotion of the rule of law in Darfur, including through support for strengthening an independent judiciary and the prison system, and assistance in the development and consolidation of the legal framework, in consultation with relevant Sudanese authorities; and
• To monitor and report on the security situation at the Sudan’s borders with Chad and the Central African Republic.