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Restrictions on UN in Sudan lifted; first meeting of Darfur peace commission held

26 June 2006 – This weekend saw several positive developments in Sudan, with restrictions against United Nations operations there lifted, and with a top official of the world Organization attending the first meeting of the Darfur Joint Commission since the signing of the peace agreement for that violence-racked region.

The Secretary-General’s Principal Deputy Special Representative, Tayé Brook Zerihoun, attended Saturday’s meeting of the Commission, which was held in Addis Ababa, at the invitation of the African Union (AU), spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

Mr. Dujarric added that the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has reported that recent restrictions imposed on their work by Sudan’s Government, reportedly due to the transporting of a rebel leader in a UN flight, had now been lifted.

The issue, Mr. Dujarric said, was related to agreements by which the UN needed to communicate flight manifests to the Government of Sudan, and to an issue arising over one particular UN flight, adding that UNMIS had said it would examine these manifests.

In a related development, UN representatives attended a voluntary disarmament ceremony sponsored by the state government in Nyala, South Darfur, where some 150 members of the Janjaweed militia surrendered their weapons, the spokesman said.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan recently described last month’s peace deal on Darfur – signed between the Government and the largest rebel group – as “very tenuous and incomplete” because two of the rebel movements have not signed.

Sudan’s Government have so far refused to accept a UN peacekeeping force in the troubled region of Darfur but Mr. Annan has voiced hope that such a force will take over from the AU personnel currently trying to stop the bloodshed there and a Security Council delegation who visited earlier this month, has also expressed similar views.

“The United Nations should work in partnership with the Government of the Sudan, and with its agreement, in deploying a United Nations force in Darfur,” the visiting Security Council delegation said in a report on its trip that was issued today.

Three years of fighting in Darfur between Government forces, pro-government militias and rebels have killed scores of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million others amid charges of civilian massacre, rape and other atrocities.