UN becomes anxious, links decisions to Darfur talks
April 20, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — Two pending UN decisions could shake up peace talks being held in Nigeria on the conflict in Sudanese region of Darfur.
The United States has proposed UN Security Council sanctions against four Sudanese officials, while the United Nations wants to take over the cash-strapped African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in strife-torn Darfur.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday that Khartoum has used the Darfur peace talks in Abuja to justify delaying a UN mission to assess plans for the UN takeover in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands are said to have died in recent years.
Sudanese officials told UN deputy under secretary general for peacekeeping operations Hedi Annabi “that this was not the time for a UN assessment mission to go into Darfur and that they would rather wait till the Abuja process is completed,” the spokesman added.
The UN Security Council had pressed for the dispatch of the assessment team before the end of the month to determine the size, scope and equipment needs for a UN force in Darfur.
After months of inconclusive negotiations, the AU and the international community have set an April 30 deadline for wrapping up a deal at the Darfur peace talks.
Salim Ahmed Salim of Tanzania, the AU mediator at the Abuja talks, on Tuesday told the UN that “the conflict in Darfur … seems at last to be ripe for resolution.”
“For the first time, there are intensive bilateral and direct discussions between the parties, as well as meetings facilitated by the (AU) mediation,” he said. “We are hopeful that the differences can be narrowed.”
Three years of fighting between rebels and Khartoum-backed militias in Sudan have left up to 300,000 people dead and 2.4 million displaced, according to international estimates.
Meanwhile, a peace accord in Abuja is also crucial to resolving the future of 200,000 Darfur refugees living in camps in neighboring Chad.
Chad believes that rebels who tried to oust Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno last week were backed by Khartoum, and it has withdrawn from the Abuja peace talks in which it served as co-mediator.
The AU has deployed 7,000 troops in Darfur, but they are poorly equipped and lack adequate logistical support. On March 10, the AU agreed to transfer peacekeeping duties to a UN force over the objections of some of its members, including Sudan.
Rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the National Movement for Reform and Development, are demanding greater autonomy and a bigger share of Sudan’s national resources — chiefly oil — for Darfur, which they say has been marginalized by the Khartoum government.
Diplomats said the UN Security Council was unlikely to decide before Friday on a US draft resolution calling for targeted sanctions against four Sudanese officials — an air force commander, a pro-Khartoum militia leader and two rebel commanders — linked to the Darfur bloodshed.
On Monday, China’s UN envoy Wang Guangya, the president of the council for April, argued that “this is not the right moment” to impose sanctions, because of the Abuja talks.
The AU, meanwhile, is hesitating about the timing of sanctions, Tanzanian Ambassador Augustine Mahiga said. He added that such measures “could have negative or positive consequences on the Abuja peace process.”
“There are three possibilities: Do we adopt the sanctions now, do we adopt them shortly before (April 30), or later?”
To avoid discouraging the peace talks in case sanctions are approved, Tanzania suggested that the Security Council also adopt a non-binding statement “to recognize and encourage the efforts which are going on in Abuja.”
The suggestion was accepted and Tanzania was tasked with drafting the statement, Mahiga said.
(ST)