2006年VOA标准英语-Darfur Situation Worsens as Stalemate Over UN R

By Steve Mort
Addis Ababa
21 December 2006
 
watch Darfur Crisis Peacekeeping

 
Kofi Annan
Outgoing U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for intervention¹ to end the killing² in Sudan's Darfur region.  His appeal came in a farewell speech earlier this month -- and follows continuing violence in Darfur despite Sudan's recent acceptance of an expanded African Union (AU) force to maintain peace in the region. 
The U.N. Security Council has authorized³ 20,000 U.N. troops for Darfur, but Khartoum will only agree to African peacekeepers under AU command. Some experts believe the stalemate over the U.N.'s role is allowing the situation in the war-torn region to worsen -- as we see in this report from Steve Mort in the Ethiopian capital. 

In Darfur, violence is increasing. The situation has been deteriorating⁴ since a May peace deal between the government and one of the region's rebel groups.

 
Jean-Marie Guehenno
The U.N.'s head of peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, believes dispatching more troops will prove pointless unless all sides show political will. "So long as the politics of Darfur are what they are with fragmentation of rebel movements and more and more military operations announced by both sides, no force will be able to make a real difference. So it's very important to get the politics right".

Getting the politics right, however, is tough.

At recent talks in Ethiopia, Sudan agreed to a so-called hybrid⁵ force -- thousands of extra African Union troops with U.N. financial and logistical support.  But countries including the United States, which has labeled the Darfur situation genocide, want Sudan to allow in U.N. soldiers from outside Africa.

But an American specialist on African affairs, Kirt Young, says the impasse⁶ can only be broken by Sudan's Security Council allies -- China and Russia.

 
Kirt Young
"Although you have a new agreement this time, we'll call it a hybrid, the forces on the ground have not changed. The dynamics⁷ in the international community hasn't changed,” said the University of Central Florida researcher. “China and Russia still speak to Sudan in a supportive way to say it quite mildly. Certainly China and Russia would maintain any veto power within the institution that could perhaps limit any meaningful UN involvement that can grow out of this hybrid agreement".

China is playing a central role in facilitating talks on Darfur. The UN says Beijing and others must demand assurances that an African Union force in Darfur can be effective.

And even if future talks do succeed in stopping the fighting, the UN's Jean-Marie Guehenno warns deploying⁸ troops will take time.

"It would take several months in the best of cases because it would be a huge deployment⁹ in the most difficult part of Africa - completely landlocked, no infrastructure¹⁰ - so logistically it's an enormous challenge. It's a much greater challenge than say, Lebanon. In Lebanon there's infrastructure, it's on the coast, it's easy. Darfur is one of the most difficult places where the UN would ever have to deploy," said the U.N. Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations.

But far from being near to deployment, the U.N. is now evacuating¹¹ its international staff from Darfur because of intensifying¹² violence.

More than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 - and experts like Kirt Young say the region is in free-fall. "We are beginning to see other factors beginning to make the issue even more complicated -- questions of the region being a breeding ground for terrorists and al-Qaida related factions¹³ and what have you, which themselves would retard¹⁴ any type of involvement by the international community. You can't talk about this hybrid process in Darfur without addressing these really salient issues on the ground."

The violence in Darfur has spilled over into neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic, and six million people face the prospect¹⁵ of starvation.

Outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan presided over U.N. peacekeeping operations during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and now faces the very real prospect of retiring from the world body with possibly an even worse situation unfolding in Darfur.

1 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

2 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

3 authorized   

a.委任的，许可的

参考例句：

• An administrative order is valid if authorized by a statute.如果一个行政命令得到一个法规的认可那么这个命令就是有效的。

4 deteriorating   

恶化，变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The weather conditions are deteriorating. 天气变得越来越糟。
• I was well aware of the bad morale and the deteriorating factories. 我很清楚，大家情绪低落，各个工厂越搞越坏。

5 hybrid   

n.(动，植）杂种，混合物

参考例句：

• That is a hybrid perpetual rose.那是一株杂交的四季开花的蔷薇。
• The hybrid was tall,handsome,and intelligent.那混血儿高大、英俊、又聪明。

6 impasse   

n.僵局；死路

参考例句：

• The government had reached an impasse.政府陷入绝境。
• Negotiations seemed to have reached an impasse.谈判似乎已经陷入僵局。

7 dynamics   

n.力学，动力学，动力，原动力；动态

参考例句：

• In order to succeed,you must master complicated knowledge of dynamics.要取得胜利，你必须掌握很复杂的动力学知识。
• Dynamics is a discipline that cannot be mastered without extensive practice.动力学是一门不做大量习题就不能掌握的学科。

8 deploying   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的现在分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Provides support for developing and deploying distributed, component-based applications. 为开发和部署基于组件的分布式应用程序提供支持。
• Advertisement, publishing, repair, and install-on-demand are all available when deploying your application. 在部署应用程序时提供公布、发布、修复和即需即装功能。

9 deployment   

n. 部署,展开

参考例句：

• He has inquired out the deployment of the enemy troops. 他已查出敌军的兵力部署情况。
• Quality function deployment (QFD) is a widely used customer-driven quality, design and manufacturing management tool. 质量功能展开(quality function deployment,QFD)是一个广泛应用的顾客需求驱动的设计、制造和质量管理工具。

10 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

11 evacuating   

撤离，疏散( evacuate的现在分词 )； 排空（胃肠），排泄（粪便）； （从危险的地方）撤出，搬出，撤空

参考例句：

• The solution is degassed by alternately freezing, evacuating and thawing. 通过交替的冻结、抽空和溶化来使溶液除气。
• Are we evacuating these potential targets? 能够在这些目标地域内进行疏散吗？

12 intensifying   

v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的现在分词 )；增辉

参考例句：

• The allies are intensifying their air campaign. 联军部队正加大他们的空战强度。 来自辞典例句
• The rest of the European powers were in a state of intensifying congestion. 其余的欧洲强国则处于越来越拥挤的状态。 来自英汉非文学 - 历史

13 factions   

组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gens also lives on in the "factions." 氏族此外还继续存在于“factions〔“帮”〕中。 来自英汉非文学 - 家庭、私有制和国家的起源
• rival factions within the administration 政府中的对立派别

14 retard   

n.阻止，延迟；vt.妨碍，延迟，使减速

参考例句：

• Lack of sunlight will retard the growth of most plants.缺乏阳光会妨碍大多数植物的生长。
• Continuing violence will retard negotiations over the country's future.持续不断的暴力活动会阻碍关系到国家未来的谈判的进行。

15 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。