Donors meet African Union on funding of military observer mission in Darfur
ADDIS ABABA, April 21 (AFP) — Officials of the African Union (AU) and western donors were holding talks in Addis Ababa on the funding of an AU military observer mission in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, which has suffered 14 months of devastating civil conflict, an AFP journalist reported.
The discussions were taking place as the Sudanese government and Darfur rebel leaders were to resume talks in Chad aimed at ending a war that has claimed some 10,000 lives and which the UN has described as causing the worst humanitarian catastrophe in today’s world.
The two sides signed a temporary humanitarian ceasefire two weeks ago.
The Chad talks were reportedly delayed by the absence of AU delegates. AU Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit was due to fly to Ndjamena on Thursday.
“We are discussing with our partners on how we and the international community can help the peace process in Sudan, mainly that of the Darfur agreement,” Djinnit told AFP by phone.
“The African Union has formulated its own action plan and we are discussing it with our partners of the European Union, UN agencies, USAID, and other donors to hammer out a joint plan to help the implementations of the agreement,” he added.
“The African Union, as a leading sponsor for the peace plan agreement, is trying to mobilize all necessary logistical and financial means for the observer mission and other needed mechanisms,” said Djinnit.
The Darfur truce deal contained provisions for a mechanism to monitor the ceasefire.
Djinnit did not elaborate on the AU’s plans.
Last week, the AU’s Peace and Security Council passed a resulution calling on four countries that had been approached by the AU — Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria and Senegal — to provide military observers for a Darfur mission.
The resolution also called on the chairman of the AU commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, “to take urgent steps, including the dispatch of a reconnaissance mission to Darfur, to ensure the early setting up and deployment of the Ceasefire Monitoring Commission.”
Since it replaced the notoriously impotent Organisation of African Unity in 2002, the AU has placed much emphasis on the continent’s security and on developing a wide range of peacekeeping mechanisms, from military observer missions to robust forces that would intervene in the case of “grave circumstances” such as serious war crimes.
Some 2,700 troops from Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa are deployed under an AU mandate in Burundi to facilitate a peace process there, while a much smaller contingent of AU-flagged military observers, mostly from South Africa, are in the Indian Ocean’s Comoro isles overseeing a delicate political transition.