UN, AU urge Sudan to implement Darfur force deal
April 17, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) — The United Nations and African Union on Tuesday again pressed Sudan to swiftly implement its pledge to allow 3,000 UN personnel into the war-torn region.
“While we were encouraged by the positive signs we have received from the Sudanese government, the more important thing is how to implement these agreements,” UN chief Ban Ki-moon said at the end of two days of talks here with AU Commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare.
Monday, after five months of deliberation, Khartoum finally approved the deployment of 3,000 UN personnel — mostly military and police staff — and six attack helicopters in Darfur.
The UN peacekeepers are to provide logistical, communications, intelligence and air support to 7,000 under-equipped AU troops that have failed to stem four years of bloody ethnic strife in the western Sudanese region.
Ban said both the UN and the AU have agreed to expedite implementation of the deal so that they can move to the third and final phase of their plan for a “hybrid” peacekeeping operation involving some 20,000 troops in Darfur.
He also pressed Khartoum and all Darfur rebel groups to enforce the peace agreement signed last May and tasked UN special envoy for Darfur Jan Eliasson and his AU counterpart Selim Ahmad Selim “to come up with a more detailed and workable roadmap for a political process.”
The UN secretary general urged the 15-member Security Council to authorize funding for the peacekeeping operation.
“Robust funding and support for this (UN) peacekeeping operation heavy support package (the 3,000-strong force), as well as AMIS (the AU force) is crucial,” Ban said.
The cost of the deployment of roughly 3,000 UN personnel in support of the under-equipped AU force in Darfur is estimated at around 288 million dollars (220 million euros) for a six-month period.
Ban also appealed to African countries to contribute troops both to the AU force in Darfur as well as to the future joint UN-AU peacekeeping operation.
“We need the full participation and support from African countries,” he noted.
Monday, UN under secretary general for peacekeeping operations Jean-Marie Guehenno said troops for the hybrid force would come mainly from Africa but said the UN would look elsewhere if it could not find enough.
And he said he would confer Thursday with potential troop contributors to the 3,000-strong interim UN force, which is to serve under AU command.
More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed and two million others displaced in Darfur since 2003 when government forces and allied Janjaweed Arab militias began fighting with rebel groups who had taken up arms in protest at the distribution of resources.
Khartoum disputes those figures, but some sources say the death toll is much higher.
(AFP)