UN chief says Sudanese reply is not “satisfactory”
March 15, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) – UN Secretary-General today said he had told Sudan’s President that his reply to UN calls for speedy deployment of a UN-African Union (AU) hybrid force for Darfur was “not satisfactory,”.
The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, spoke with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al Bashir last Saturday March 10 by phone, when Sudan’s leader also invited him to visit the country, Ban told reporters at UN Headquarters Thursday, adding that he had not yet made a decision on this.
“I told him that while I accept his invitation in principle the details…should be discussed through diplomatic channels. I expressed my regret [about his reply]…that he made a number of reservations on ideas that were jointly proposed by the United Nations and African Union,”. Ban said, adding that he had urged Bashir to accept the proposals for the hybrid force.
“There is growing frustration among the members of the United Nations, particularly the Security Council,” the Secretary-General said in response to questions. “What is important at this time, even though we are frustrated, the political process has been going on. My Special Representative and the AU Special Representative are going to visit Sudan next week again.”
“My own hope is that as we have been going through this political dialogue with the Sudanese Government and even though the response letter of President Bashir was not a satisfactory one, now I’m in the process of making all diplomatic efforts, including AU leaders.”
Ban received the President’s letter, responding to correspondence he’d sent in January, last week. The reply also contained a 14-page annex in Arabic.
President al-Bashir wrote to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon that he wants to renegotiate the terms of a deal to bolster a force of about 7,000 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur with thousands of U.N. troops. The Sudanese leader claims that the plan violates key provisions of last May’s Darfur Peace Agreement between his government and Darfur’s main rebel group.
Bashir told Ban that U.N. and African troops have no authority to use force to protect civilians, saying Sudan bears the primary responsibility for civilians’ security. He refused a U.N. proposal to place the force under the overall command of a U.N. general, demanded that the United Nations dramatically reduce the number of troops it intends to send to Darfur, and called for the elimination of helicopter and air reconnaissance units. “The African Union is mandated to lead a monitoring, not a combat mission,” he wrote.
Sudan also intend, according to Bashir’s letter to control the activities of the deployment of UN police. Sudanese president wrote that “police stations shall be determined by the Sudanese police and the Government of Sudan Only.” The AU-Un police “have only a monitoring role”, in side or out side the IDPs camps, Bashir wrote.
The hybrid force represents the final phase of a three-phase plan agreed to by the UN, AU and Sudanese Government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in November 2006 to help end the fighting between the Sudanese Government, allied militias and rebels seeking greater autonomy. So far the brutal conflict, which started in 2003, has killed over 200,000 people and uprooted 2.5 million more.
(ST/UN)