UN’s Pronk back in Sudan on farewell visit
Dec 9, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The expelled United Nations envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, has returned to the country to hand over power to his deputy and bid farewell to his staff, the U.N. said.
Pronk was declared persona non grata in October after reporting on his Internet blog that the Sudanese army had twice been defeated by rebels in Darfur and was mutinous. He has since said that he did not regret making the comments that led to his early departure.
Pronk, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative in Sudan, returned to the country on Thursday to hand over the mission to his deputy, Taye-Brook Zerihoun, collect his belongings and bid farewell to U.N. personnel.
In his latest personal blog entry, Pronk said many people had asked him whether he regretted his vocal criticism of Khartoum’s role in the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced since 2003.
“I don’t,” Pronk wrote in his Nov. 27 posting. “The (Sudanese) government is still violating peace and cease-fire agreements as well as principles, norms and values of the UN.”
A Dutch politician, Pronk became the head of the U.N. mission in Sudan in June 2004 and was due to finish his term at the end of the year, but was ordered to leave on Oct. 23 by the Sudanese government.
It was the first time in years that a high ranking U.N. official was expelled from his mission. Although Pronk enjoyed immunity as a U.N. representative, the world body chose to avoid a diplomatic incident by saying it had recalled him for consultation.
The U.N. said the outgoing envoy’s little-publicized tour was due to end Monday.
“Mr. Pronk will not be available for any interviews during his visit to Sudan,” Radhia Achouri, the spokeswoman for the U.N. mission in Sudan, said in an e-mail.
Authorities had allowed the envoy back in the country on conditions that he kept a low profile and didn’t talk to the media, said a U.N. official in Sudan who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Pronk had repeatedly denounced the Sudanese government for continuing to arm militias known as the janjaweed, whose attacks on civilians in recent weeks have killed hundreds of people according to top U.N. officials.
He has said that he was outspoken in his blog because he felt accountable to the public on developments in Darfur and wanted to reach beyond the self-censorship of Sudanese media on the crisis.
International aid workers and officials are regularly expelled or hindered in their work by Sudanese authorities, U.N. officials say.
The aid group non-governmental Norwegian Refugee Council was banned last month for reporting the alarming incidence of rapes and harassment against refugees in Darfur camps, and the government has refused for the past several weeks to grant permits for foreign journalists to visit the wartorn region.
The U.N. has 10,000 peacekeepers monitoring the end of a civil war in South Sudan, but Khartoum rejects a U.N. Security Council resolution for the world body to also deploy in the western Darfur region.
(AP)