UN chief hopes Darfur meeting will boost forces deployment
April 5, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday he hopes next week’s meeting of U.N., African Union and Sudanese officials will lead to a quick strengthening of African troops in Darfur and deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to beef up the force.
Monday’s technical meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, will be followed by high-level consultations on Darfur at U.N. headquarters on April 16-17 with AU chief executive Alpha Oumar Konare and the two envoys trying to promote a political settlement of the four-year conflict in the Sudanese region, the U.N.’s Jan Eliasson and the AU’s Salim Ahmed Salim, he said.
The United Nations and Sudan agreed in November on a three-stage plan to beef up the 7,000-strong AU force culminating with the deployment of a joint AU-U.N. force with 17,000 troops and 3,000 police officers. But Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has since backed off the deal, saying he would only allow a larger AU force, with technical and logistical support from the United Nations.
At a meeting in Saudi Arabia last week, Ban and al-Bashir agreed to work on defining the size of the African Union force and the participation of the United Nations in the peacekeeping mission. Ban did not win al-Bashir’s acceptance of the deployment of U.N. troops.
The secretary-general told reporters after briefing the Security Council on his Mideast trip that Monday’s meeting would finalize the second stage of the plan _ a heavy support package for the AU force featuring more than 3,000 U.N. troops, police, and other personnel as well as additional equipment. The first phase, a light support package including police advisers, civilian staff and additional resources and technical support, has already been sent to Darfur.
“This April 9 meeting is not intended to renegotiate the heavy support package proposal I made,” Ban said. “As the government of Sudan has made certain reservations on my proposals, this meeting will be used to clarify, and for an exchange of views on this heavy support package.”
“We hope that through these consultative meetings, we will be able to deploy hybrid forces as soon as possible,” the secretary-general said.
Acting U.S. ambassador Alejandro Wolff said many council members backed Ban’s intention not to renegotiate terms of the package.
“We are concerned by more foot dragging,” he said. “I don’t think the secretary-general has much patience for foot dragging on this either.”
The three-stage plan was introduced amid mounting international concern about Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million others displaced from their homes since fighting began four years ago. The conflict has spilled into neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic.
Asked whether the upcoming meetings in Addis Ababa and New York were a last chance for diplomacy before he would advocate tighter sanctions, Ban reiterated, “I need some more time at this time before we talk about other measures.”
He said the political dialogue being pursued by Eliasson and Salim “has been very useful, and my meeting with president Bashir was also very useful, particularly with the intervention of the king of Saudi Arabia,” he said. “Therefore, at this time, it is very much important for us and the government of Sudan and the African Union to engage in further negotiations on this matter.”
On Monday, the secretary-general urged the United States and Britain to delay a push for tougher sanctions against Sudan because of the efforts to promote political negotiations and to persuade the country to accept the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur.
Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said Wednesday Britain will hold off pushing for new sanctions, but he warned that “if there isn’t significant progress very soon, then we will be tabling this resolution” proposing new sanctions.
In April 2006, the Security Council imposed sanctions on four men accused of helping orchestrate and carry out killings, rape and other rights abuses in Darfur.
The Security Council heard a report Thursday afternoon from Italy’s U.N. Ambassador Marcello Spatafora, who chairs the Sudan sanctions committee. The U.S. and Britain made clear they were moving ahead on preparing a new resolution, council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.
Jones Parry said the new sanctions resolution will increase the number of individuals subject to an asset freeze and travel ban, look at an arms embargo, consider monitoring air movements over Darfur to determine who is breaking previous council resolutions, and discuss whether companies, organizations and other entities should be subject to sanctions.
(AP)