New UN Darfur force won’t bring peace – Turabi
April 21, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — A support package to help African troops in Darfur that includes the deployment of 3,000 U.N. police and military personnel will not stop the violence in Sudan’s war-torn west, a key opposition leader said on Saturday.
But Hassan al-Turabi told a news conference Sudan’s acceptance of the package was an indication Khartoum could ultimately agree to a larger U.N. presence.
“They will not do much,” Turabi said, referring to the U.N. package, which also includes heavy support equipment and six attack helicopters to reinforce the 7,000-strong African Union force in Darfur.
“The government, under pressure, agreed to this but those 3,000 will prepare for the larger (U.N.) force of 20,000. The government has conceded a bit so it will have to concede more.”
Turabi also said the war between government forces and rebel groups had evolved into a wider conflict among Arab and African tribes, while poverty has triggered an increase in lawlessness and banditry.
Sudanese officials have denied the government agreed to the U.N. support package under pressure, saying it was part of a November deal with the United Nations and the African Union.
The world body said Sudan agreed at the same meeting in Addis Ababa to a hybrid AU-U.N. force. Khartoum denies this and said it would not allow U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur despite recent threats of sanctions by the United States and Britain.
Turabi said the larger force would secure the remote region but would not put an end to the conflict as long as the government does not address the root causes of the problem.
“If the issue is not fixed, then it will be like giving a patient a sedative without the presence of a surgeon,” said Turabi, the Islamic ideologue behind the rise of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir who was gradually pushed out by the general.
He said the government should give the people of Darfur a fair share of power, wealth and state jobs, along with health and educational services.
Khartoum signed a peace agreement in 2006 with one rebel faction and appointed its leader as a senior presidential adviser. The deal, however, has failed to stop the violence, and other rebel factions want a new agreement giving them more power, a demand that Khartoum rejects.
The United Nations says around 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur and 2.5 million displaced since the conflict flared in 2003 when rebel groups took up arms against the government, charging it with neglect. Khartoum says only 9,000 have perished.
Turabi said an absence of state institutions to settle disputes has been partly to blame for a rise in tribal conflict.
“Banditry has become a way to earn living,” he said.
Analysts and aid workers say the situation in Darfur has become a bloody free-for-all, with militia, rebels, splintered rebel factions, bandits and some of the more 70 tribes fighting for everything from power to cattle.
(Reuters)