UN considers peace mission in Chad near Darfur

Oct 28, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — The United Nations is considering a monitoring mission or peacekeeping force in Chad where the spillover from violence in Sudan’s Darfur region has resulted in more than 200,000 refugees.

Jean-Marie Guehenno, the head of U.N. peacekeeping, told the U.N. Security Council on Friday he was sending a mission to Chad and the Central African Republic, which is also affected by the Darfur conflict, to investigate options.

A monitoring operation would include a standby rapid reaction force, supplied by one country or the United Nations, to check for trouble, especially at border points. It would observe the “security situation in the region and cross-border activities of armed groups” and alert local authorities, Guehenno said in his briefing notes, obtained by Reuters.

Although the mission would not “have a major and direct impact on protection of civilians,” its presence could bring about a limited improvement in the situation through deterrence, active monitoring and reporting, Guehenno said.

Both Sudan and Chad are supporting each other’s rebels and at least one Sudanese rebel group is forcibly recruiting in the camps, according to the U.N. refugee agency. The war in Darfur, where 200,000 people have died over the past three years, has forced villagers to flee to Chad.

“We would want to be as expeditious as possible because we feel that this is a situation that needs to be urgently addressed,” Guehenno said.

A peacekeeping force could help protect camps, patrol border areas and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, Guehenno said.

But Guehenno said a peacekeeping mission would come “with considerable challenges and risks,” including finding troops, and getting the Chad government to approve.

Part of the problem is the lack of a U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur, which the Khartoum government has turned down, to bolster an under-equipped African Union operation in Sudan’s vast western region.

In the Central African Republic, rebel groups have destabilized border regions with Sudan and Darfur, forcing about 200,000 people out of their homes. Some of the armed groups are youths and bandits with no other form of employment, according to Toby Lanzer, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator there.

Guehenno spoke at the same council session as Jan Pronk, the top U.N. envoy in Sudan, expelled by Khartoum for writing on a personal Web site that the Sudanese army was mobilizing Arab militias in Darfur following heavy losses fighting rebels.

Pronk, a former Dutch Cabinet minister, who had been due to leave Sudan anyway on Jan. 1, will return to Khartoum to hand over his duties to a deputy. He said he was expelled because of his “incessant criticism” of the government, which he said violated a peace agreement by bombing raids in Darfur.

While some diplomats said Pronk had been particularly outspoken, others speculated Sudan was signaling for Ban Ki-moon, who takes over as U.N. secretary-general on Jan. 1, to be careful about who he named as his representative.

(Reuters)