UN Security Council arrives in Sudan vowing no takeover
June 5, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The U.N. Security Council arrived in a wary Sudan late Monday with assurances that the U.N. has no intention of taking over the country and sees the government as a partner in promoting peace.
The government has been very reluctant to allow a U.N. peacekeeping force to take over from the 7,000-strong African Union force now in conflict-wracked Darfur, and fears of U.N. intervention were fueled last month when a council resolution to spur planning for a handover was adopted under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which allows military action.
Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, who is leading the council mission, said shortly after the delegation arrived at a Khartoum hotel that he recognized some Sudanese “took amiss” the last council resolution, which they had hoped would pay tribute to the government for signing a peace agreement with the largest rebel faction in Darfur.
The U.N. has become increasingly involved in Sudan since November 2003 – following the eruption of the Darfur conflict – and is running a massive humanitarian operation in the vast western region as well as a 10,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping operation to monitor the January 2005 peace agreement that ended a 21-year civil war between the government and southern rebels.
At least 180,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced in Darfur since rebel groups made up of ethnic Africans rose up against the Arab-led Khartoum government in early 2003. The government is accused of responding by unleashing Arab militias known as the Janjaweed who have been accused of some of the worst atrocities – but it denies any involvement.
Jones Parry said the U.N. is involved in Sudan “because of the responsibility of the international community to alleviate hardship, to avoid the atrocities and so on.”
“We’re doing it in support of the people of Sudan. We’re not doing it for any takeover. We’re doing it with the government of Sudan all the time, and we’re not seeking in any way to usurp the powers of the government of Sudan,” he said.
But many Sudanese feel otherwise, in varying degrees.
An editorial Monday in the independent opposition paper Rae Al Shaab, called the Security Council mission “a visit by an unwelcome guest.” An editorial in Al-Intibaha, a hard-line daily supporting Sudan’s Muslim-dominated north, was entitled “No Welcome for U.N. Security Council.”
“The visit of the council is meant to be a full international siege, a load on the chest of the Sudanese people and a continuation of the pressure to dispatch yet more foreign troops to Darfur, nothing else, nothing more,” Rae Al Shaab said, calling the council “a tool used by some superpowers to serve their own ends.”
Al-Intibaha condemned the council’s plans to discuss the Darfur Peace Agreement – which two key rebel groups have refused to sign – saying that if the government can’t defend “our faith and people” then it should be replaced.
Mustafa Osman Ismail, the ruling National Congress Party’s political relations chief and a presidential adviser on foreign affairs, was quoted in Sudan’s independent newspaper, Akhbar Al-Youm, as saying the party will welcome the Security Council, but the country will make its views heard.
“We will not be sitting and listening only,” he was quoted as telling journalists after a party meeting Saturday night. “On the issues where the Security Council and the U.N. have had a positive role we will express our appreciation therein. And in situations and issues where the U.N. and the Security Council have negative roles we will also explain our position clearly.”
The council is expected to hear those views Tuesday during daylong meetings with government leaders and officials, opposition parties and relief and humanitarian organizations.
While the council is focused primarily on Darfur, Jones Parry said it has a broader agenda as well.
The council wants to endorse the government’s actions in signing the north-south peace agreement and last month’s Darfur peace deal. “We’ve come to urge implementation of what the government has said it will do – better, quicker, implementation,” he said.
The council also wants to assure the government of its “full respect for the territorial integrity of Sudan as a country,” he said. “We see the government of Sudan as a partner in what is now unfolding … and the government of Sudan has an opportunity to move things in the right direction because of the actions it’s taken.”
Jones Parry said the Security Council will be trying to get the Sudanese government’s agreement for a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur to take over from the African Union late this year or early next year – and to beef up the A.U. force in the interim so it can more effectively monitor the Darfur peace agreement.
“If we can do anything now to further that up, so much the better,” he said.
(ST/AP)