UN’s Pronk calls for changes to Darfur peace plan
July 1, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan’s top U.N. official has said the Darfur peace deal should be amended to meet key rebel demands to save the foundering agreement, in an apparent shift from his previous statements.
Jan Pronk, on his Internet blog, said international guarantees of security, a more visible disarmament of the Arab militia and more compensation for war victims needed to be added to the pact.
All these have been demanded by two rebel factions who refused to sign the May 5 deal. Angry protests have erupted in some Darfur refugee camps against the agreement.
“None of the deadlines agreed in the text of the agreement has been met. The African Union is in charge but it clearly lacks the capacity to lead the process of implementation,” Pronk said in his blog, seen by Reuters on Saturday and dated June 28.
“We should stick to the text of the agreement, but be willing to add a lot,” Pronk said. “The flaw which has been built in the agreement has to be mended,” he added. It was not clear which specific flaw he was referring to.
The African Union (AU) mediated the accord.
The rebel Sudan Liberation Army leader who signed the deal, Minni Arcua Minnawi, and the Sudan government have both ruled out any change or addition to the May 5 deal. The AU and U.N. officials have so far agreed.
Tens of thousands have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes to miserable camps in Sudan’s remote west. Washington calls the rape, pillage and murder genocide, a description Khartoum rejects.
DIALOGUE
Pronk said the rebels who who did not sign, Minnawi’s rival Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur and the Justice and Equality Movement, should be brought on side by adding their demands when dialogue began with parties which have not yet joined the deal.
The committee to prepare for such dialogue was supposed to have been formed within 30 days of the signing of the deal but has not yet been.
“We need the support of Abdul Wahed and his followers, who together represent at least two thirds of the displaced people in the camps,” he said. “In Darfur the people who are the victims of the war turn against the Darfur Peace Agreement.”
Pronk has been mostly silent in the weeks since the deal, which two U.N. sources said was because he feared angering the AU, the lead player in Darfur.
Pronk signed the May 5 deal as a witness and expressed his support for the text immediately after the signing ceremony.
AU and U.N. officials declined to immediately comment on the blog.
Pronk also called for a U.N. takeover of the 7,000-strong AU force currently monitoring the shaky truce in Darfur, saying it was necessary to avoid a return to the insecurity seen prior to the peace deal.
The AU has been physically attacked and had its posts looted and burned by people in the camps. Rebels who reject the deal have threatened its patrols, hindering its ability to work.
The AU has expressed support for a U.N. takeover but Khartoum rejects it. Pronk’s comments are likely to cause friction between the pan-African body and the New York-based United Nations.
– Pronk’s blog can be seen on www.janpronk.nl.
– Pronk’s comment is also published at http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=16469
(Reuters)