UN to approve peace mission in Sudan by mid-February: envoy
RUMBEK, Sudan, Jan 18 (AFP) — UN special envoy for Sudan Jan Pronk said he expects the Security Council to approve the deployment of a peace support mission to Sudan by mid-February.
“I expect somewhere in the second week of February the Security Council might give a mandate to the UN mission,” he told reporters at Rumbek airstrip on his first visit to the bombed-out southern town.
On January 9, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the government signed a peace deal in Kenya to end Africa’s longest conflict, which claimed at least 1.5 million lives and displaced four million people over 21 years.
The Security Council has promised to consider sending aid and as many as 10,000 military observers to southern Sudan as part of a peace support mission.
But proposed force will need a new mandate from the council.
“The full mission also will include military observers,” Pronk said. “What we are going to propose is 9,000 (military observers), including protection forces spread throughout Sudan.”
He said deployment of the peace support mission will begin “as soon as we get the mandate,” adding that they should all be in place within six months.
UN sources said deployment will first have to be approved by Khartoum and the SPLM and that Pronk will use a meeting with the rebel leadership to urge the movement to do so immediately.
“I hope to be able to have some talks with the leadership of the SPLM following the peace agreement,” the UN envoy said.
SPLM leader John Garang is expected in Rumbek later in the week as work continues to prepare the bombed-out town to host the new autonomous regional government for an interim period of six months.
The United Nations plans to close down offices in Kenya from which it ran its Sudan operations during the war and move them to the town.
“The purpose of my visit here is to start the business over here. We are going to set up a whole structure,” Pronk explained. He added that once everything is up and running, he will spend one week every month in Rumbek.
The UN envoy said post-war Sudan faced “major challenges”, particularly over the reintegration into civilian life of demobilized soldiers, the expected return of some four million displaced people to their homes and a poor harvest in the south.
“We have asked the international community for 700 million dollars for food aid for this year,” he said, adding that the appeal covered the Darfur region of western Sudan, where civil war continues, as well as the south.
The UN is also appealing for 1.5 billion dollars in development assistance and 100 million dollars for the peace support mission, Pronk added.
Details on how the money will be used are due to be presented at a donor’s conference in Oslo, Norway in early April.
Dutch Development Cooperation Minister Agnes van Ardenne arrived in Rumbek Tuesday for talks expected to focus on post-war reconstruction.
She was due to open a joint liaison office for Britain and the Netherlands here on Thursday, establishing the first Western diplomatic presence in post-conflict southern Sudan.
Dutch diplomats said they hoped the move would encourage other Western governments to set up shop in the town to ease coordination between the south’s new leaders and foreign donors.