Annan optimistic over deployment of UN force in Darfur
July 3, 2006 (BANJUL) — African leaders were on Monday pinning their hopes on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to end the impasse over international intervention in the crisis in Darfur.
Annan said he was hopeful of persuading Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir to accept a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur after African leaders agreed to keep their forces there until the end of the year as a stopgap.
“I think we had constructive conversation,” said Annan after “long and substantive” talks with the Sudanese leader on Sunday during which al-Beshir promised to give his plan to end the crisis within the month.
“We are dealing with a leader who might have genuine difficulties and genuine reasons for the position he is taking and it is my responsibility to explain to him why he will need the assistance of the UN,” Annan said.
“I am still suspecting that in time there will be a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur,” added Annan, whose mandate as UN chief expires end of the year.
African Union leaders agreed on Sunday to extend the 7,000-strong force in Darfur until the end of the year to allow the UN to finalise its preparations to deploy in the vast troubled region.
The AU had planned to withdraw its poorly-equipped force by the end of September citing a financial crunch.
But Annan asked the African leaders at the summit for “flexibility” on their original plan, promising he would raise funding for the force at a donors conference on July 18.
Western powers want to deploy a robust NATO-backed UN force to the devastated western region of Darfur, a plan opposed by al-Beshir.
The UN donors’ conference will also raise funds to improve humanitarian aid to some 2.4 million displaced people in the region after funding shortages forced international aid organisations were forced to halve food rations due to shortages.
“We hope to be able to go up to full (food) rations by October,” said Annan.
A civil conflict has for three years been raging in Sudan’s Darfur region, an area roughly the size of France where up to 300,000 people have been killed in fighting with rebels opposed to Khartoum.
Al-Beshir’s opposition to the deployment of UN peacekeepers to the devastated western region of Darfur has deeply divided a national unity government formed after a landmark peace deal last year.
First Vice President Salva Kiir, who heads the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) which waged a deadly two-decade war against government troops in the south that ended with the January 2005 deal, has sharply distanced himself from Beshir by calling on the Security Council to deploy the UN force.
Al-Beshir on Sunday gave the UN chief an update on efforts being made to disarm the militias in the west and those across the border in eastern Chad.
(ST)