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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
SUDAN: Security Council fears major offensive in Darfur and calls for UN troops
NAIROBI, 18 Aug 2006 (IRIN) - The Security Council urgently needs to re-engage the Sudanese government to secure its consent for a UN peacekeeping operation in its western Darfur region to avoid a further escalation of the conflict, a senior United Nations official said.
In a closed-door briefing on Thursday, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hédi Annabi, warned the Council that the Sudanese government seemed determined to pursue a major military offensive in war-torn Darfur, building up armed forces in the region as the situation there deteriorated.
A source in the region told IRIN that the Sudanese armed forces seemed to be amassing large numbers of soldiers and military hardware in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, where the most recent fighting took place.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, told reporters in New York that Annabi had warned the Council that the security situation in Darfur had worsened since the last briefing on Darfur in late June, with violence between signatories and non-signatories to the 5 May Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), as well as an unprecedented level of attacks against humanitarian workers.
The DPA was signed by the Sudanese government and the largest of the three main rebel factions, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) of Minni Minnawi. Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nur, the leader of another faction of the SLM/A, and Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), refused to sign, however, claiming it did not fulfil their demands.
In a letter to the Security Council, Annan said he had received a plan by the Sudanese government to restore stability and protect civilians in Darfur. "A preliminary review of the document does not indicate a willingness on the part of the government of Sudan to agree to a transition to a United Nations operation in Darfur," he observed.
Despite opposition from the Khartoum government, Britain and the United States proposed a draft Security Council resolution on Thursday to send 17,000 UN peacekeepers to Darfur to take over from the current cash-strapped African Union operation.
Given the urgency of the situation on the ground, Annabi urged the Council to consider re-engaging the Government of Sudan directly for a final discussion on this matter.
"We are looking at the possibility of bringing all the major players to a meeting here, the League of Arab States, the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference], the African Union and a representative of the Sudanese government," the Council president, Ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng, told reporters following the meeting.
Meanwhile, Darfur rebels accused the AU on Thursday of supporting what they said was government aggression against them by suspending the representatives from rebel groups that had not signed the DPA from existing ceasefire monitoring commissions.
The decision was taken due to the commissions' failure to address the recent deterioration in the security and humanitarian situation in Darfur, arising from an escalation in fighting between DPA signatories and non-signatories, the AU said. The AU added that it took the decision after the government of Sudan declared the non-signing groups "terrorists" and told the AU it could no longer guarantee the safety of their representatives.
"Rather than challenge the government of Sudan and attempt to patch ceasefire agreements in Darfur, the AU effectively disowns any claim to residual neutrality and turns itself into an executive body for [Sudanese President Umar] al-Bashir’s junta," Abdullahi Osman El-Tom said in a JEM statement on Thursday.
"The decision effectively dismantles the Ceasefire Commission, the Joint Commission and all related ceasefire Agreements and Protocols that have been painfully negotiated in Darfur crisis," he added.
Observers fear the move could hamper investigations into ceasefire violations as AU troops may not be able to travel safely in areas controlled by the two factions that did not sign the peace deal.
In a statement on Wednesday, the AU called on the rebel movements to refrain from targeting its personnel and stressed that it remained a neutral body that had tried to help to end the conflict and the suffering of the people of Darfur.
The three-year Darfur conflict began when rebels rose against the central government, complaining that the vast region remained underdeveloped due to neglect. The government is charged with arming local Arab militias called the Janjawid to embark on a campaign of rape, looting and murder, aimed at crushing the rebellion.
Darfur’s civilian population has borne much of the brunt of the violence, as non-combatants have been forced to flee their villages for the relative safety of teeming camps. According to Annan’s latest report on Darfur, more than 200,000 people are believed to have died, with millions more displaced by the fighting.
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This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006
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