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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
SUDAN: AU mission extended with Arab League and UN support
NEW YORK, 20 Sep 2006 (IRIN) - The African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Sudan will be extended until December 31, with regional and United Nations support, Burkina Faso’s President and current AU President, Blaise Comparoré, announced today after a high-level meeting with AU Peace and Security Council members.
“There are a certain number of measures that were agreed upon, such as reinforcing the African troops, but also to strengthen the application of the Abuja agreement that was signed to bring all the parties involved to implement its terms,” said Comparoré through a translator. Other measures include “straightening the border with the countries that are next to Sudan. Again, all this is [part of] efforts to strengthen the whole process.”
The AU Peace and Security Council was postponed for nearly an hour while its fifteen members, primarily represented by foreign ministers and heads of state, met in a closed-door session with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, UN head of peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno, Arab League Secretary-General Amre Moussa and Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir.
Comparoré said that the AU would handle the financing and support from African countries, the Arab League states would commit to financing for troops until the end of the mandate in December, while the UN would provide logistics and material support.
“All the negotiations and all the contacts we had clearly indicate that they [Sudan] are willing and disposed to work together with the UN,” said Comparoré.
A UN Security Council resolution passed on September 1 called for a 20,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in Darfur, which would be expanded from the current UNMIS mission in Southern Sudan. The proposed peacekeepers would replace the poorly funded and understaffed 7,000 AU peacekeepers in the region.
Bashir, who left the negotiations an hour early, told reporters on Tuesday “the AU does not have the authority for a transfer to a UN mandate. If they fail in their mission, the alternative for them is to withdraw.”
However, the AU President maintained that there was a process underway. “The UN will come in because, eventually as we continue to strengthen the process, in the event that the regional group is unable to arrive at a concrete situation, then the UN would band together with the regional group and the country concerned [Sudan] would move into solving the process,” he said after the meeting.
Comparoré stressed the need for the AU to strengthen the relationship between Sudan and the UN, a relationship that has been strained following the passing of UN Security Council resolution 1706 (2006) in August, which Khartoum views as an encroachment on its sovereignty.
The resolution “obviously and solely served the ends of the [UN Security] Council and effectively put Sudan under the trusteeship of certain parties on the council,” Bashir said on Tuesday when he addressed the UN General Assembly.
Bashir told reporters yesterday that although the international community was calling on the Sudanese government to protect its civilians, no one would agree to the Sudanese proposal, which would send 10,000 army and police to Darfur.
“How can we protect civilians without having armed troops to protect them?” asked Bashir in Tuesday’s press conference. “You want us to protect civilians, but you don’t want us to send the army or the police force,” he said, referring to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s harsh critique of the Sudanese plan that was not considered.
Government forces have been implicated in overseeing and participating in massacres and summary executions of civilians and the forcible depopulation of wide swathes of land in Darfur, according to the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch.
Bashir on Tuesday considered the rallies against the crisis in Darfur the work of “Jewish organizations,” adding that the demands by non-governmental organizations for Sudan to stop widespread rape, abuse and murders was part of an effort to gain funding.
The ongoing fighting has displaced more than 1.9 million people, while three million are in need of food and shelter, according to UN agency reports.
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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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