Germany plays down military role in Sudan
May 31, 2006 (BERLIN) — A senior German diplomat on Wednesday played down the possibility that Germany could send troops by year-end to stabilise Sudan and said Berlin must still convince Germans a separate mission to Congo was worthwhile.
“This is not a question that is being posed at the moment,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler told Reuters in an interview, when asked whether Germany could send troops to Sudan as part of a possible U.N. peacekeeping force later this year.
Erler, who visited the troubled Darfur region of Sudan in recent weeks, said that before any discussion of troops could take place, it needed to be established whether a peace deal for the region had sufficient political and popular support.
He said his visit had given him the impression that support was lacking and suggested Germany could play a political role in helping Sudan — by broadening support for a peace deal to help pave the way for a U.N. force.
“It’s an interesting question whether Germany couldn’t take the initiative in broadening support,” Erler said.
Talks were taking place on Wednesday to convince two Darfur rebel factions to sign a deal to end a three-year-old conflict in Sudan’s violent west where tens of thousands have been killed.
A third rebel faction signed the deal on May 5. The other two groups have been given until midnight to sign or face possible U.N. sanctions.
A U.N. military team is due to travel to Sudan next week to convince the government in Khartoum peacekeepers are needed.
In an apparent reference to Sudan, SPD parliamentary leader and former defence minister Peter Struck told members of his party at a meeting on Tuesday that Germany’s planned mission to Congo would not be its last in Africa.
WORK TO DO ON CONGO
The German lower house of parliament, where the ruling conservatives and Social Democrats (SPD) hold an overwhelming majority, is expected to approve the Congo mission on Thursday, but it remains highly controversial within the population.
A survey by polling group Forsa for Stern magazine showed on Wednesday that 57 percent of Germans oppose the mission, under which 780 German soldiers will be deployed in the capital of Kinshasa and elsewhere to keep the peace during a July election.
“The government and the parliamentary majority, which is sure to approve the Congo mission, have a lot of work to do to explain this deployment,” Erler said.
“Until now, we have focused strongly on the decision in the Bundestag. From tomorrow a new phase can begin where we explain to the public in more detail our reasons for this mission.”
The election in Congo is meant to draw a line under a five-year war and humanitarian crisis which involved six neighbouring countries and killed at least 4 million people. The vote will be the first multi-party poll in over four decades.
Over 60 years after the Nazis were defeated in World War Two, sending troops abroad remains a delicate subject in Berlin.
It was only seven years ago that German soldiers participated in their first post-war combat operations, taking part in NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia. Germany currently has troops in Afghanistan and the Balkans.
(Reuters)