UN envoy hopeful for Darfur peace progress
Jan 11, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — A top United Nations envoy for Sudan was hopeful that progress to end the brutal conflict in the western frontier province of Darfur can be made in the coming months.
“I hope we will not celebrate the next DPA anniversary without making progress,” interim UN special representative Jan Eliasson told reporters, referring to the Darfur peace agreement.
The pact was signed in the Nigerian capital Abuja on May 5 last year between the Sudanese government and the main faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army.
But other factions did not put their names to the agreement — prolonging a war that has claimed some 200,000 lives and displaced two million people in nearly four years, according to UN figures disputed by Khartoum.
Hopes for peace were raised Wednesday when Sudan and rebel groups, prodded by visiting New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, agreed to a 60-day ceasefire and a peace summit no later than March 15.
The United Nations and the African Union would meanwhile step up their diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, according to a joint statement from Richardson and Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir.
In New York on Thursday, new UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon put Darfur at the top of his to-do list ahead of an African Union summit on January 29 in Addis Ababa, which he will attend.
Eliasson, speaking on the third day of his visit to Sudan as Ban’s interim special representative, seemed intent on working in collaboration with his African Union colleague Salim Ahmed Salim.
He said he had spoken to Salim several times, including Thursday, to discuss coordinating efforts towards “a political process” leading to peace.
“We are here to assist the African Union in its difficult job,” said Eliasson, who during his visit met Beshir and Foreign Minister Lam Akol, among others.
“President Beshir and all other officials I met here told me that there will not be a military solution to the Darfur problem and I hope I will hear this from the non-signatories,” he said.
He noted that he planned to meet rebel leaders who had not signed the peace agreement when he goes to Darfur on Friday.
“Our task is mainly to explore the road to a political process,” he explained.
The UN Security Council called on the Beshir government last July to accept the deployment of 20,000 UN peacekeepers in Darfur to replace the overstretched African Union force currently in place.
But the call went unheeded and in November, the United Nations, the African Union and Sudan reached a compromise agreement providing for a mixed AU-UN peacekeeping force — a deal which has yet to be implemented.
Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki said the conflict in Darfur could only end if the Sudanese rivals are given a chance to hold dialogue with much external pressure.
Khartoum and the rebels “could reach a reliable peace agreement provided they hold serious dialogue among themselves with a view to overcoming differences without external pressure and interference,” Issaias said, according to statement published in the country’s information ministry website.
(AFP)