UN, AU finalize report on Darfur hybrid force

May 24, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) — The United Nations and the African Union (AU) have finalized a report on their proposed joint peacekeeping operation in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region, a UN spokeswoman said Thursday.

Marie Okabe said UN chief Ban Ki-moon, following consultations with AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare, sent the report on the so-called “hybrid” force to the current president of the Security Council, US ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad.

A three-phase plan floated last year by then UN chief Kofi Annan is supposed to culminate in the deployment of a joint 20,000-strong UN-AU force to take over peacekeeping from 7,000 under-equipped AU troops that have failed to stem four years of bloodshed in Darfur.

But Khartoum has accepted only the first two stages of the plan, accusing Western powers of plotting to recolonize the country under the guise of the UN mission.

Khalilzad told reporters here Thursday that the 15-member Security Council would pore over the UN-AU report on the hybrid force later Thursday and that council ambassadors were likely to adopt a statement on the issue Friday.

Okabe said meanwhile that the report would then be forwarded to Khartoum.

“The ball will now be in Sudan’s court,” Khalilzad noted.

But Sunday, the Sudanese government renewed its opposition to the proposed hybrid AU-UN force for Darfur after talks with a visiting Chinese envoy .

“The government has agreed on a combined operation and not joint forces for containing the crisis in Darfur,” said presidential adviser Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed after discussions with Liu Guijin, the Chinese foreign ministry’s Africa director.

Analysts say Khartoum is worried that a robust UN force might lead to the detention of senior officials who have been implicated in human rights abuses in Darfur.

At least 200,000 people have died in the western Sudan region and more than two million more fled their homes since the country’s military and allied militias met an ethnic minority rebellion with a scorched earth response.

(AFP)