The place for action right now, March 3rd 2005, seems to be at the UN and focused around what type of mandate a UN force would have. As Eric Chevalier, Director of the international work of Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) and recently returned from Darfour, pointed out in his interview on RFI last Saturday the African Union troops have an observation mandate not an intervention mandate and a UN mission needs to have a stronger and clearer mandate with larger numbers of more mobile units on the ground and preferably with the ability to take pro-active steps towards disarming local militias.

I think EU countries have a role to play in decisions of what mandate the UN mission would have. In addition I was intrigued by Colman's report on the Europe's brand-new Battlegroups and the civil intervention groups others talked about in that diary.

For the official UN view check out this site.