EU to send peacekeepers to Chad for Darfur refugees
July 18, 2007 (BRUSSELS) — European Union foreign ministers were expected next week to start planning for a possible 12-month peacekeeping mission to protect tens of thousands of Darfur refugees in Chad, diplomats said Wednesday.
Preliminary planning foresees sending 1,500 to 3,000 troops from the 27-nation bloc to refugee camps bordering Sudan’s western Darfur region, where civilians face violence from fighting that is spilling over the border from Sudan, diplomats said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of negotiations.
The idea has been pushed by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and gained support from other EU capitals, diplomats said.
Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband discussed the idea in Paris Wednesday.
“We have the possibility to be very useful in Darfur, I hope, and in any case, to cooperate on this operation in Chad for its civilian populations,” Kouchner said.
Miliband said Britain was “very supportive” of France’s initiatives on Sudan and Chad.
Last week, France’s U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said France’s aim is to put “the elements for a decision, with the agreement of Chad,” on the table in Europe and the U.N. by the end of July.
EU foreign ministers were expected to give the green light at their talks on Monday to start planning for a possible mission which could be launched in early 2008, diplomats said.
The mission would focus on providing security and training and humanitarian relief for the Darfur refugees in Chad and would eventually hand over to a United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force.
The four-year conflict between ethnic African rebels and pro-government janjaweed militia in Darfur has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million.
A 7,000-member African Union force has been unable to stop the fighting there. The conflict has spilled over into Chad and the Central African Republic, which have also faced attacks from rebels in their own countries.
In London Wednesday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told his parliament Britain was prepared to take further sanctions against Sudan and Sudanese leaders “if they do not cease the violence, stop the militias and make sure that people have a decent living standard in a region that for too long has suffered from poverty, famine and war.”
Sanctions efforts, though, have faltered. A draft U.N. resolution circulated last week by Britain, France and Ghana that would approve the “hybrid” African Union-United Nations force for Darfur has run into strong opposition from some council members and Sudan, in part because it threatens “further measures”, which usually means sanctions, against combatants who obstruct peace efforts and raises other humanitarian and political issues.
In Brussels, diplomats said Chad’s government was in favor of allowing in European peacekeepers which would eventually hand over their mission to a full-fledged U.N. mission.
They said a EU force could be deployed for an initial six months up to a maximum 12 before handing over to the United Nations. A final decision after planning and troop contributions are made could be taken before the end of the year and could deploy around the same time as the current African Union force in neighboring Darfur is strengthened.
Aspects of the mission could include European troops and police being used to train locals to police the refugee camps while more robust forces would be used to secure the perimeter of the camps, diplomats said.
The idea for the mission was discussed by EU envoys this week in Brussels and was also discussed between the EU’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana and French President Sarkozy last week in Paris.
The U.N.’s new humanitarian aid chief John Holmes said Monday he hopes the EU agrees to send peacekeepers adding it was key to secure the camps so they can operate “in reasonable safety” within which humanitarian workers can do their job as well.
Holmes said some 170,000 uprooted Chadians and over 200,000 refugees from Darfur were living “in an extremely difficult area with very little water, huge environmental pressures” in eastern Chad.
The U.N. is also discussing sending peacekeepers to Central African Republic, which is also receiving thousands of Darfur refugees.
(AP)