NATO officials cautious on support for Darfur peacekeepers

April 10, 2006 (BRUSSELS) — NATO officials gave a cautious response Monday to a report that the United States will propose sending several hundred alliance advisers to beef up an African peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s violence-wracked Darfur region.

Rwandan soldiers deploying to the troubled Sudan’s Darfur r as part of an African Union mission, board a US Air Force C-130 heading for El Fasher, Sudan.

The Washington Post reported the Bush administration wants the advisers assigned to African Union headquarters units to assist with logistics, communications, command and intelligence.

Citing administration officials, the report said plans under consideration envisaged fewer than 500 NATO advisers including some U.S. troops.

NATO military planners are drawing up options for boost the alliance’s support for the AU force in response to a request last month from U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. However, officials at alliance headquarters said the U.S. would struggle to persuade allies to commit so many troops.

One official said the military planners were looking at dozens rather than hundreds of NATO experts to support the AU. The military is expected to submit options to NATO’s political authorities this month, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning.

NATO planes helped fly in the current 7,000-strong African peacekeeping force and the alliance has send a small number of experts to AU headquarters in Ethiopia to provide training and advice. Officials said the number of NATO experts there rarely reached double figures.

The ill-equipped AU force has failed to end violence which has left more than 180,000 people dead in Darfur over the past three years and driven millions more from their homes.

The Arab-dominated Sudanese government has been accused of supporting Arab militias that have launched scorched-earth attacks on ethnic African villagers, which the United States has characterized as genocide.

The United Nations is seeking to replace the AU force will a stronger U.N. peacekeeping mission and has asked NATO to help prepare the changeover.

NATO has agreed to increased support, but allied and U.N. officials want to keep the mission African-led. They are concerned any deployment large numbers of European or North American troops could inflame regional sensitivities — particularly if the mainly Muslim Sudanese government opposes a NATO deployment.

There is also little taste for taking on a large scale and dangerous operation among NATO nations, many of whom are stretched by deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans. NATO’s Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has repeatedly said increased support for the African peacekeepers will not entail allied “boots on the ground” in Darfur.

(ST/AP)