African Union wants beefed up force for Darfur
June 7, 2006 (ADDIS ABABA) – The African Union wants its forces in Sudan’s Darfur region to be strengthened with more troops from Africa and supported with logistics from NATO, visiting U.N. Security Council members were told on Wednesday.
The 15-nation Security Council came to Addis Ababa, seat of the African Union, to consult AU officials before returning to Sudan where it is trying to persuade the government to accept U.N. peacekeepers by the end of the year.
The under-financed and ill-equipped AU has 7,000 troops and monitors in Darfur, who are the only bulwark against atrocities in the region where ethnic cleansing has driven 2 million people from their homes.
“Before the U.N. actually takes over the African Mission in Sudan needs to be reinforced and we will be working together to make sure AMIS is reinforced,” Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, said after a meeting with Alpha Oumar Konare, chairman of the AU commission.
Konare, according to a council member at the meeting, expected more troops from Ghana, Rwanda and Nigeria to make a total of 10,000 soldiers and observers in Darfur. He also wants back-up support, such as transport and communications, from NATO countries.
However, Konare stressed he did not want Western soldiers on the ground, which Sudanese officials regard as invaders, one envoy reported, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Sudan signed a peace agreement with the main Darfur rebel group on May 5, but two other rebel factions refused to sign, further adding to the mayhem that has cost at least 200,000 lives from fighting, hunger and disease.
Jones Parry said the AU reinforcements were needed for a tougher mandate to protect civilians, agreed in the peace pact negotiated by the AU in Abuja, Nigeria.
‘INDEED CONFIDENT’
Konare told reporters he would like U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur as soon as possible but only after permission from the Sudanese government.
He said was “indeed confident” that this would happen, adding that the African Union and the United Nations were in full agreement on how to proceed.
Sudan has agreed to a military planning team comprising U.N. and AU officials.
Undersecretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of U.N. peacekeeping, begins his mission at AU headquarters on Wednesday before heading to Sudan.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir took a tough line with Security Council members in Khartoum on Tuesday against any kind of robust U.N. force, invoking the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and fearing a U.N. mandate would give foreign troops free military reign, council members reported.
Analysts have said Khartoum objected to U.N. troops because it feared they would arrest any officials or militia leaders likely to be indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.
The AU is expected to hold a high-level meeting in Gabon later this month to discuss Darfur and on Thursday is expected to meet members of rebel groups who object to their leaders’ rejection of the peace pact.
Besides visits to Khartoum and Addis Ababa, the Security Council’s 10-day trip includes stops in southern Sudan, Darfur and Chad. The whirlwind tour ends in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The fighting in Darfur escalated in early 2003 between African rebel farmers and Arab tribesmen, armed by the government and blamed for many of the atrocities, including widespread rape.
(Reuters)