Blue-Hatting Darfur 
Mahmood Mamdani writes about the dangers of the UN’s new role
Significant changes are currently taking place on the ground in Darfur. The peacekeeping forces of the African Union (AU) are being replaced by a hybrid AU-UN force under overall UN control. The assumption is that the change will be for the better, but this is questionable. The balance between the military and political dimensions of peacekeeping is crucial. Once it had overcome its teething problems – and before it ran into major funding difficulties – the AU got this relationship right: it privileged the politics, where the UN has tended to privilege the military dimension, which is why the UN-controlled hybrid force runs the risk of becoming an occupation force.
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Mahmood Mamdani, the author of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror, is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the departments of anthropology, political science and international affairs at Columbia.
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