AU peacekeepers face serious funding crunch in Darfur

July 11, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — African Union peacekeepers in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region are facing a serious funding crunch that has affected morale ahead of deployment of a planned U.N.-AU force, the head of the joint mission said on Wednesday.

Under sustained international pressure, Sudan agreed last month to a combined U.N-AU peacekeeping force of 20,000 troops and police to bolster the cash-strapped AU force of 7,000 that is already operating in western Sudan.

But the United Nations said late last month the joint force was not expected to be in place for six months. In the meantime, the African Union does not have the funds to meet expenses.

“The financial problem is very serious. We have personnel in the field who have not been paid for four months. This is very bad for the morale of the troops in the field,” said Rodolphe Adada, the joint U.N.-AU special representative for Darfur and head of African Union’s Sudan mission.

In its first major venture into peacekeeping, the African Union sent thousands of troops and police to Darfur in 2004. These troops are expected to form the nucleus of a future joint force.

“One of the foundations of this hybrid mission is the work of AMIS (African Union Mission in Sudan) now,” Adada told Reuters at the end of a six-day visit to Sudan. He will be based in Khartoum later this month in his capacity as special representative.

“It is really of the greatest importance to have a good AMIS mission on which we can build the hybrid mission.”

On Thursday, European Union lawmakers are expected to ask for an investigation into delays in paying AU troops.

The European Union is the largest donor to the AU mission in Sudan, contributing more than 400 million euros (268 million pounds).

LACK OF EXPERIENCE

Five EU lawmakers were told during a trip to the region earlier this month that “apparently the money is stuck in Addis Ababa,” the Ethiopian capital, where the AU headquarters is based, a European Parliament spokesman said in Strasbourg.

The EU’s executive Commission believes the delays are due to lack of experience and administrative capacity and there has been no indication of fraud, a spokesman for EU aid Commissioner Louis Michel said.

“There are delays … but as far as we are aware one cannot talk about embezzlement,” the spokesman said on Tuesday.

The European Union said last month it had run out of cash for the African troops in Darfur.

Adada said he would travel via Europe on his way to the United Nations in New York to try to make the case for European financial support for the AU troops.

“I will go and see them and show how crucial the financing of the mission is and seek more aid from them because this will be the foundation of a sound hybrid mission,” he added.

Sudan has sent mixed signals about the joint force, saying it should be under the AU’s command and control rather than the United Nations, and has suggested it should be mainly African.

International experts estimate 200,000 have died in ethnic and political conflict in Darfur since the conflict flared in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms after accusing the central government of neglect.

Washington calls the violence genocide, and blames the government and its allied militia. Khartoum rejects the term and says only 9,000 have died.

(Reuters)