US wants UN force to Darfur before AU decision

Feb 21, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS ) — The United States wants the UN Security Council to quickly approve a resolution to send UN troops to Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region before the end of the month, US ambassador John Bolton said.

Washington has introduced elements of a draft resolution that would deploy UN peacekeepers to the western Sudanese region to replace the beleaguered African Union (AU), Bolton said.

But Arab and African members of the Security Council said Friday that the world body should wait until the AU decides to give its consent on March 3, Bolton said.

“I said ‘no, we’re not going to wait for that, we’re going to go ahead and circulate these elements of the resolution,'” he said.

“It’s important that we proceed, we want to try and do what we can to get a resolution … by February 28, and we’ll go as fast as we can,” the US envoy said.

The African Union force, which was deployed in 2004, has been suffering from poor funding and inadequate resources to contain the escalating bloodshed in Sudan’s troubled western region.

The UN Security Council earlier this month approved contingency planning for UN peacekeepers to take over from the 7,000-strong AU force in Darfur but, despite strong pressure from Western governments, Khartoum has so far remained implacably hostile to the deployment of UN troops there.

The war there broke out in February 2003, when black ethnic groups launched a rebellion against Khartoum that was brutally repressed by the Arab Islamist regime of President Omar al-Beshir.

The combined effect of the war and one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises has left up to 300,000 people dead and an estimated 2.4 million displaced.

US President George W. Bush said Friday that ending violence in Darfur will probably require double the number of peacekeepers there now, led by the United Nations with strong NATO support.

(ST/AFP)