Sudan rejects indefinite African force in Darfur
Oct 2, 2006 (CAIRO) — Sudan rejects an indefinite presence of African Union troops in war-ravaged Darfur although it welcomes a planned increase in troop numbers for now, a Sudanese official said on Monday.
“Sudan agrees that the African Union troops stay until the crisis is over, but not indefinitely,” an aide to Mohamed al-Dabi, the Sudanese president’s top Darfur representative, told Reuters.
The remarks came as Sudan is under heightened international pressure to allow a robust force of United Nations peacekeepers to deploy in the country’s west, where roughly 200,000 people have died since the conflict flared in 2003.
More than 2.5 million people have also been displaced in fighting between Darfur rebels, government forces and militias. Western leaders and humanitarian groups say a U.N. force is the only way to stem the violence.
But Sudan has ruled out allowing 20,000 U.N. troops to replace a poorly funded, ill-equipped African Union force of 7,000 tasked with monitoring a shaky ceasefire.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has likened U.N. peacekeepers to an invasion force bent on regime change in Khartoum. Analysts say his government is also worried that some officials could be arrested on war crimes charges.
The mandate for African forces in Darfur expires at the end of the year, and European Commission aid chief Louis Michel said it needs increased United Nations support if it is to continue.
The aide to Dabi said Sudan was not opposed to beefing up the African forces, echoing remarks by the European Union’s head in Sudan, Kent Degerfelt, that Khartoum seemed open to strengthening the African role with increased logistical and financial support from the United Nations.
The EU is the biggest financial contributor to the AU mission in Darfur.
Aid officials and diplomats, fearing the possibility of a security vacuum in Darfur if African forces leave, have begun discussing an option for an enhanced African role in Darfur that has been dubbed ‘AU-Plus’.
That would involve an extended mission, augmented by U.N. support, with greater policing power for African troops.
“The AU-Plus is a Sudanese demand. We want the AU force supported by more troops and logistics,” Dabi’s aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Only one of three rebel factions signed an AU-negotiated peace deal with the Sudanese government in May, and a top U.N. envoy has since described the deal as comatose.
Since May, violence in western Sudan has increased as rebel groups fracture and all sides try to make territorial gains ahead of possible international intervention.
(Reuters)