UN chief urges patience in Darfur
Jan 31, 2007 (NAIROBI) — UN chief Ban Ki-moon has urged patience to end the bloodshed in Darfur and voiced hope that Sudan would keep a pledge to allow a joint African Union-United Nations force in the war-torn region.
“We need to be patient in following up this political process as well as the peacekeeping process,” Ban said in reference to Darfur.
“Both tracks are moving well at this time, it may take a little longer to have a detailed agreement,” the former South Korean foreign minister said Wednesday.
Earlier this week in Addis Ababa, where he attended an AU summit, the UN secretary general announced that Sudan had agreed to accept a joint visit by UN special envoy Jan Eliasson and AU envoy Salim Ahmed Salim to Khartoum and Darfur in early February to support peacemaking efforts.
In a 90-minute meeting with President Omar al-Beshir on Monday, Ban said the Sudanese leader renewed his commitment to accept the UN’s three-phase Darfur settlement plan that culminates in the deployment of a robust joint AU-UN force.
“I hope that he will keep his promise. I hope I will be able to trust him but I’ll have to see,” he said.
Ban also stressed the need to consolidate a shaky peace agreement reached by Khartoum and the main Darfur rebel group by getting holdout insurgents to sign up.
He added that the peacekeeping force was a critical element in restoring peace to Darfur where the UN estimates that three years of conflict has left 200,000 people dead and nearly 2.5 million people displaced.
“I have sent a letter to President Beshir a few days ago detailing the conditions on force generation (who will contribute to the force), command and control and funding,” Ban said.
“If we can agree on the third phase, then this should be the highlight of AU-UN cooperation.”
The joint AU-UN force is to take over from an ill-equipped and underfunded African Union mission that has been unable to end the fighting.
Ban also described the African swing on his first trip as the world’s top diplomat as an eye-opening tour that gave him a first-hand look at the problems facing the world’s most impoverished and least developed continent.
“My first visit to Africa one month into (the start of) my tenure has been very useful for me to learn all the development and progress as well as the challenges of African countries,” he said.
He came face to face with the reality of African poverty during a visit to a hospital treating AIDS patients in Kinshasa, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) last weeK, and during a Tuesday tour of Nairobi’s Kibera slum, one of the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.
He said that in his talks with African leaders in Addis Ababa he urged them “to promote political dialogue, good governance, good education and have good harmonious international coordination.”
He hailed progress in DRC following the country’s first democratic election in 40 years and urged other African leaders to emulate what the UN regards as a “success story.”
The DRC hosts the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation and Ban reassured President Joseph Kabila that the UN would not withdraw its 20,000-strong mission.
In a keynote address to the AU summit, Ban hailed the growing partnership between the UN and the 53-member pan-African body.
And he presented his own country, South Korea, as a model for African nations to develop, noting that with international assistance it had gone from a war-ravaged country to an economic powerhouse.
“I witnessed how, through unity of purpose, my country was able to transform itself from a traumatized nation with an non-existing economy into a vibrant, productive society and a regional economic power,” he told the African leaders.
Before visiting Africa, Ban stopped in Brussels, then Paris where he attended an aid conference for Lebanon reconstruction.
He is to travel to Amsterdam later Wednesday before heading to The Hague the following day for talks with Dutch leaders and a tour of the world court and the UN-backed International Criminal Court.
(AFP)