UN’s Ban says delays on Darfur force unacceptable
Jan 30, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday unacceptable delays were preventing help reaching millions of victims of Darfur’s bloodshed, but negotiations on deploying U.N. peacekeepers were making only slow progress.
Ban met Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on the sidelines of an African summit on Monday but failed to get approval for details of the deployment of 3,000 U.N. personnel to support a struggling African Union mission in Darfur.
“I hope and look forward to a positive response from President Bashir,” Ban told reporters on Tuesday. “While the progress may be slow we are moving on two tracks, a political process track as well as a peacekeeping process track.”
U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno said the Sudanese had not yet agreed to the U.N. support package for the 7,500-strong AU mission, let alone the joint force former U.N. chief Kofi Annan proposed last year.
“The Sudanese government didn’t balk at the proposal but there was no agreement,” he said. “The devil is in the details.”
Experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven into miserable camps in Darfur in four years of rape, pillage and murder which Washington calls genocide.
Khartoum denies that description but the International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating alleged war crimes in the region.
Ban gave Bashir a letter on January 24 detailing a U.N. support package, called the second phase, which would include more than 2,200 soldiers, 75 civilians, 300 security forces and 600-700 police as well as six light tactical helicopters to move troops quickly when attacks are reported, Guehenno said.
“It’s very important to have military helicopters which fly come high or hell water,” he said, adding any force in Darfur — the size of France — had to be mobile to respond to attacks.
Two sources in the Sudanese delegation to the summit said there were “serious reservations” about the package. Sudan rejects deploying significant numbers of U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur.
Critics say Bashir fears U.N. troops would arrest any officials likely to be indicted by the ICC for alleged war crimes. The ICC has said it would present its first Darfur case in February.
(Reuters)