Sudan slows UN plan for Darfur mission

Mar 13, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — Sudanese government opposition is preventing a U.N. team from laying the groundwork for its planned peacekeeping mission in the troubled Darfur region, a senior U.N. official said on Monday.

Without a visit by the assessment team, which the government is opposing, it would be difficult for the Security Council to send in peacekeepers to take over from an underequipped African Union force, said Hedi Annabi, a U.N. assistant secretary general for peacekeeping.

“In order to fine-tune and finalise our planning, we will need to carry out a detailed technical assessment mission on the ground, and for that we will need the co-operation of the government of Sudan,” Annabi said.

“We will be working on that in the days and weeks to come,” he told reporters after briefing the Security Council.

The United Nations and Western leaders accuse Sudan of arming marauding Arab militias that have raped, killed and driven into squalid camps some 2 million Darfur villagers.

The charges have put the African Union under intense international pressure to turn over Darfur peacekeeping to a larger and better equipped U.N. operation.

But Sudan, which denies the allegations, has warned that any such action would spell the end of AU-mediated peace talks between Darfur rebels and the government in the Nigerian city of Abuja.

The African Union’s Peace and Security Council voted last Friday to extend its mission in Darfur to September 30 and to “support in principle” its transformation into a U.N. force.

An AU statement said Sudan was prepared to accept a U.N. mission “after and as part of the conclusion of a peace agreement” emerging from the talks in Abuja.

Without government approval, the only way to send in a U.N. peacekeeping mission would be “to shoot our way in, and what country would want to provide troops for that,” said one U.N. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After hearing from Annabi, the council issued a statement welcoming both the AU decision and U.N. contingency planning for an eventual U.N. mission, which is already under way.

Annabi said he was not disturbed by the AU decision to extend its Darfur mission through September, saying U.N. planners had said all along it would take six to nine months to assemble, equip and deploy a U.N. force.

“The speed with which we deploy is always a function of how fast member states are willing to make the necessary resources available,” he said. “If experience is any judge, it is going to take us a while.”

(Reuters)