Sudan Urged To Accept U.N. Peacekeepers
11 September 2006
United States call on Khartoum government to cooperate on helping Darfur
United Nations -- The United States called on Sudan September 11 to work with the U.N. Security Council to help the suffering people of Darfur.
William Brencick, U.S. minister counselor for political affairs, said that the United States will submit a draft of a presidential statement "to allow the council to speak for the international community with one strong clear voice and to say to the Government of National Unity: Work with us because the situation in Darfur cannot stand."
The U.N. Security Council held its second meeting in 10 days on Sudan in an effort to resolve the impasse with senior Sudanese officials over the deployment of 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers to replace the overburdened African Union mission in the region. Senior Sudanese officials have not met with the council; Khartoum was represented at the meeting by the chargé of the government's U.N. mission.
The Security Council adopted Resolution 1706 on August 31 asking the secretary-general to arrange for the rapid deployment of the U.N. Mission in Sudan (UNMIS). But Sudan is opposing any U.N. involvement in Darfur peacekeeping and has threatened to expel the African Union troops at the end of September. (See related article.)
Brencick, questioned Sudan's claim to be open for talks with the United Nations.
The Sudanese chargé did not deliver Sudan's consent to the deployment of U.N. forces, he said.
"How many people need to describe the horror of the situation in Darfur or how much worse must the situation become before the Government of National Unity gets the message?" Brencick said. "Adoption of Resolution 1706 was a first step. The second and more crucial step is implementing it."
The U.S. representative said that the international community must support the African Union and its Darfur peacekeepers at this critical point.
"If the AU Peace and Security Council decides to extend AMIS through the end of the year, everyone, including the Government of National Unity, must do all we can to support it," he said. "This includes immediately implementing Resolution 1706, which provides for robust assistance to AMIS."
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that the situation in Darfur is critical. It is a crucial test of the council's authority and effectiveness, its solidarity with people in need and its seriousness in the quest for peace.
For two years, the Security Council has worked to stem the fighting and improve the situation, "yet once again we find ourselves on the brink of a new calamity," he said. "I urge you, I urge you in the strongest possible terms, to rise to the occasion."
The secretary-general also called on the governments and individual leaders in Africa and elsewhere to press Sudan to consent to the transition to a U.N. peacekeeping mission.
Annan discussed the reports of renewed fighting among the various factions in north Darfur, fighting that not only violates the peace agreement but is bringing "even greater misery to a population that has already endured far too much."
The fighting has made it difficult for humanitarian workers to provide aid and the workers themselves are becoming targets of brutal violence and physical harassment, he said. Twelve aid workers have lost their lives in the last two months, more than in the previous two years.
"Unless security improves, we face the prospect of having to drastically curtail an acutely needed humanitarian operation," Annan said. "Can we, in conscience, leave the people of Darfur to such a fate? Can the international community, having not done enough for the people of Rwanda in their time of need, just watch as this tragedy deepens?"
Recalling the U.N. General Assembly's acceptance of the principle of the international community's responsibility to protect civilians suffering violence and human rights abuses, Annan said, "Lessons are either learned or not; principles are either upheld or scorned."
"This is no time for the middle ground of half-measures or further debate," the secretary-general said.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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