Sudan hints its rejection of UN-AU report on Darfur hybrid force

By Wasil Ali

May 28, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s government has suggested that some of the proposals set forth in the UN-AU report on Darfur hybrid force violate the terms of the Abuja peace accord. The spokesman for Sudan’s foreign ministry Ali al-Sadek called the joint report “illogical” since Sudan did not take part in preparing it.

The United Nations and the African Union (AU) have finalized a report on their proposed joint peacekeeping operation in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region last week. The UN Security Council endorsed the report in a non-binding statement issued last Friday. The report proposed two options for the military force – one with 19,500 troops including 18 infantry battalions and the other with 17,605 troops including 15 infantry battalions.

Al-Sadek stressed that the number of troops deployed to Darfur was to be determined by the tripartite commission consisting of UN, AU and Khartoum in accordance with the Abuja peace agreement. He accused some parties of blocking the implementation of the first and second phase of UN-AU hybrid force as outlined by the Addis Abbaba communiqué signed last November.

Sudanese officials have consistently said that the number of troops proposed by the UN is too large. Sudan’s envoy to the UN Abdalhaleem Abdalmahmood has criticized what he called “jumping over stages policy adopted by those who are speaking about hybrid operation at a time that the second phase of heavy support package did not begin”. Khartoum wants the UN to fund the African Union forces and provide logistical support only.

A three-phase plan floated last year by then UN chief Kofi Annan is supposed to culminate in the deployment of UN peacekeepers to bolster the embattled African force in Darfur, a region the size of France.

But Khartoum has accepted only the first two stages of the plan, accusing the Western powers of plotting to recolonize the country under the guise of the UN mission. Critics say Sudan fears U.N. troops would enforce International Criminal Court warrants for the arrests of war crimes suspects. The second phase is supposed to set the infrastructure for the UN-AU hybrid forces as part if the final stage of the plan.

Khartoum’s acceptance of the second phase of the plan is still in question given the contradictory statements of Sudanese officials. Last week al-Sadek, said that his government will not provide the logistics needed for the accommodation of the UN troops that will be deployed in Darfur without funding from the UN to the AU troops.

At least 200,000 people have died in the western region and more than two million more fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels rose up three years ago drawing a scorched earth response from the military and allied militias.

(ST)