African Union extends Darfur mission to Sept 30
Mar 10, 2006 (ADDIS ABABA) — The African Union on Friday extended its mission in Darfur until Sept. 30 to buy time to break an impasse over the transfer of peacekeeping duties in Sudan’s vast west to U.N. forces.
“The (African Union Peace and Security) Council decided to extend the mandate of AMIS until Sept. 30, 2006,” Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin said of the African Mission in Sudan.
The pan-African group was under intense international pressure to turn over Darfur peacekeeping to the United Nations but Sudan said any such action would spell the end of AU-mediated peace talks on Darfur.
The EU and United States say African Union troops have failed to stop the killings in the region, where a three-year-old conflict has displaced more than 2 million people and created a major humanitarian crisis.
Sudan says an international presence would only worsen the conflict and result in the turmoil seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare said extending the AU mandate would give the organisation time to persuade Sudan to accept a U.N. presence.
He had suggested the mission continue until Dec. 31 but diplomats said donors pressed for a shorter extension to increase pressure on Sudan and rebels to make progress at peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
The AU communique extending the mission called for a heads of state committee to be established to push the peace process forward and set an April 30 deadline to reach an agreement.
Konare said in a report at the start of Friday’s meeting any extension would be predicated on funding commitments from AU partners, intensified pressure for a peace deal and a diplomatic solution to the Chad-Sudan crisis.
CASH CRISIS
The AU Darfur mission could run out of money by the end of the month. “It is envisaged that a pledging conference could be sought for the sustenance of the mission,” Seyoum added.
It is monitoring a shaky ceasefire with 7,000 ill-equipped troops. Security has deteriorated recently to the point that vast areas of Darfur are off limits to aid workers.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol called the AU decision a “success” for Sudan.
“The mandate of the AU has been extended for six months and this is what we had been calling for,” he told Reuters. “It is good that Africa now is fully behind a peace agreement.”
Darfur rebels at the Abuja talks said on Friday they would support an extension of the AU mission if the international community gave African troops a full mandate to ensure security.
The top U.N. envoy to the talks, Taye-Brook Zerihoun, has said the world body would also accept an extension.
The United Nations usually needs at least six months to recruit troops after authorization from the 15-nation Security Council. Consent from Sudan is also a requirement.
Sudan said earlier on Friday it would reinforce AU troops in Darfur with 10,000 men, half of them Sudanese armed forces and half former southern Sudanese rebel SPLA soldiers who have been integrated into the Sudanese army.
Seyoum also said the AU wanted to strengthen its forces in Darfur during this extended mandate but details had yet to be worked out. He called Sudan’s offer of more troops “innovative” but said any such deployment would have to be agreed in Abuja.
INTENSE PRESSURE
Friday’s ministerial level AU meeting follows two days of intensive negotiations between the European Union, which has provided the bulk of the funding for the peacekeeping mission, the United States and Sudan’s government.
Washington and the EU tried unsuccessfully to persuade Sudan to accept a U.N. force, the possibility of which prompted government-led protests in Khartoum this week and threats of jihad against any U.N. troops.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said extending the AU mandate need not and should not preclude a U.N. mission.
“The AU mission is not sustainable in the long run,” she said, adding that this force would need to be enhanced before a U.N. mission could go into Darfur.
“A U.N. mission will be a necessity for Darfur,” she told reporters en route to a presidential inauguration in Chile.
Akol said Khartoum would consider U.N. peacekeepers if security improved in Darfur and a peace deal was reached at talks in Abuja. He said he saw an agreement by the end of March.
Ahmed Tugod, chief negotiator for the Justice and Equality Movement at the Abuja talks, was less optimistic. “The chances of success or failure are about 50/50,” he said.
The United States has condemned the violence in Darfur as genocide. It accuses Sudan’s government of fighting mostly non-Arab rebel movements by arming Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, who have terrorised villagers across the region with a campaign of rape, murder, and crop and home destruction.
Khartoum denies genocide and denies links to the Janjaweed.
(Reuters)