Sudan should accept to hand over Darfur mission to UN – AU

Jan 14, 2006 (ADDIS ABABA) — Sudan should accept calls for the African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in the war-torn western region of Darfur to be handed over to the United Nations, a senior AU official said Saturday.

Nigerian soldiers of the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur. (.

Patrick Mazimhaka, the deputy head of the executive AU Commission, said that as a member of AU’s Peace and Security Council (PSC), Sudan was obliged to abide by the decisions of the 53-member pan-African body.

“Sudan will have to accept that decision (when it its made). They are part of the PSC, they will have to comply with it,” said Mazimhaka. “All the member countries of the AU have to accept the decisions taken by majority of the PSC.”

On Thursday, the AU said it may be forced to hand over its peacekeeping mission to the United Nations if international donors fail to plug a funding shortfall.

Although Darfur’s main rebel group welcomed the call, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Lam Akol dismissed it, saying that if the international community wants to put an end to the Darfur conflict, then it has to pressure rebels to reach a peace agreement.

The cash-strapped AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) costs 17 million dollars (14 million euros) a month, nearly all of which is paid for by donors.

“We hope they will accept the decision … we cannot continue to run a peacekeeping mission indefinitely,” Mazimhaka said.

“We can intervene to stabilise the situation, but we do not have the resources for a long-term peackeeping mission,” he added. “The mission is beyond the capacities of the AU (so) we think the UN may take over.”

The AMIS, financed mainly by the European Union, the United Nations and the United States, currently has some 7,800 personnel, including peacekeepers and observers, in Darfur, where as many as 300,000 people have been killed and more than two million displaced in three years of conflict.

In December, the AU said it needed more than 130 million dollars in new contributions to meet the 465 million dollars (387 million euros) it needs for AMIS operations in the current financial year that ends in May.

War broke out in Darfur in early 2003 when rebel groups began fighting what they say is the political and economic marginalisation of the region’s black African tribes by the Arab-led regime in Khartoum.

UN agencies have said Darfur is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with reports of rampant rapes, extrajudicial killings and other atrocities.

(STAFP)