Rebels would welcome UN force in Darfur, govt cautious
Dec 5, 2005 (ABUJA) — Darfur rebels would welcome the United Nations taking over an African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s western region, their leaders said on Monday, but government delegates at peace talks in Nigeria reacted negatively to the possibility.
A joint mission will assess problems facing the 6,000-strong AU force monitoring a rocky ceasefire in Darfur on Dec. 10 and look at the idea of the United Nations taking over, diplomats and U.N officials in New York said.
“We will welcome and cooperate with any international force in Darfur,” said Ahmed Tugod Lissan, chief negotiator of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the smaller of two rebel groups at the Abuja talks.
The main Darfur rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), said the AU was doing a good job, but needed more troops, help with equipment and logistics, and a wider mandate to protect civilians.
AU forces currently have a mandate to monitor ceasefire violations, but only limited powers to intervene.
“Right now civilians are being raped, killed and burned and the AU is just writing reports,” said one of two SLA leaders, Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur. “They need at minimum 20,000 troops, more vehicles and a clearer mandate.”
The Sudanese government has in the past rejected any proposal for the United Nations to deploy in Darfur and Amin Hassan Omar, a government spokesman at the talks, said it preferred the AU because they were Africans and understood the culture of Darfur.
“The government will look at the proposal on its merits when it is made,” he said. “But we don’t want the U.N. to control so much of our country,” he added.
More than 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers and police are being deployed to Sudan’s south to preserve a separate peace deal signed in January to end more than two decades of civil war there. The forces include Indian, Bangladeshi and Nepalese soldiers.
The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when rebels rose up against what they called marginalisation by the government in Khartoum. The government dispatched Arab militias to put down the rebellion but they have been accused of a campaign of rape, looting and murder.
(Reuters)