Sudan frowns on joint UN-African command in Darfur

Nov 14, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — Sudan is insisting the African Union remain in charge of any future peacekeeping force in turbulent Darfur, thereby rejecting a joint command with the United Nations, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.

The United Nations plans to strengthen a 7,000-member African Union force now in Darfur with a few hundred peacekeepers, as well as logistics and communication efforts, Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping told the U.N. Security Council, according to his speaking notes.

But the end goal, after Sudan rejected a U.N. peacekeeping force, is a large proposed “hybrid” U.N.-A.U. force under joint command and financed by U.N. members states, should Sudan and Security Council members approve.

Guehenno was reporting on current meetings among U.N., Sudanese and African Union officials in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Darfur where violence has escalated and more than 2.5 million people are homeless. Some 200,000 are believed to have died in the past three years.

Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Bashir was generally supportive of the “lighter option” of U.N. assistance to the African Union Mission in Sudan, known as Amis, Guehenno said.

But Bashir “insisted that U.N. military and police personnel deployed in support of Amis should wear ‘green’ — i.e. Amis berets, which will not be acceptable to the United Nations,” Guehenno told the council at a closed meeting.

“To this end, the government remains adamant that the African Union must remain in charge of any future peacekeeping arrangement in Darfur,” Guehenno said.

But he said Khartoum was willing to discuss U.N. support units to Amis and a greater U.N. role in the political aspects of the crisis. The U.N. support package now has been estimated to cost $150 million for the first six months, rather than $77 million has previously announced, Guehenno said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will participate in the Addis Ababa talks on Thursday, along with officials from the U.N. Security Council permanent members — Russia, Britain, France, China and the United States, which will be represented by its special envoy for Sudan, Andrew Natsios.

Others invited by Annan are envoys from Egypt, Gabon, the European Union and the Arab League. The AU also has asked Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa to attend.

In Washington, a senior State Department official urged Sudan to accept the “hybrid offer.”

“The proposal goes a long way to meeting the Sudanese government’s stated concerns about a U.N. force,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hedi Annabi, a U.N. assistant secretary-general in peacekeeping, has been in Addis Ababa since Monday conducting talks with various officials.

The African Union has been providing the bulwark in protecting civilians in Darfur but its force is under-financed and under-equipped and its mandate expires on Dec. 31.

The conflict broke out in 2003 when local people, mostly non-Arabs, took up arms to fight for a greater share in power and resources. The government then backed Arab militia known as janjaweed, who have pillaged, raped and killed.

Since then, anti-government rebels have unleashed violence, which has spilled across the border to neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic.

(Reuters)