Indonesia to send up to 150 civilian police to Darfur
August 2, 2007 (MANILA, Philippines) — Indonesia is prepared to contribute 100 to 150 civilian police to a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said Thursday.
The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday unanimously approved the 26,000-strong force _ which, if fully deployed, would be the world’s largest peacekeeping operation _ to help end four years of rape and slaughter of civilians in the vast Sudanese desert region. The peacekeepers are to be in Darfur by year’s end.
“We have made necessary preparations in Indonesia to contribute to the civilian police elements,” Wirayuda told reporters on the sidelines of a security forum in Manila. “Perhaps not that big as we have in Lebanon _ I guess between 100-150 civilian police.”
The force is expected to be made up mostly of peacekeepers from Africa with backup from Asian troops.
Major Western powers are expected to provide limited manpower in the force, as many are already overstretched in other peacekeeping efforts and conflicts such as Iraq, observers say. Britain’s military, for example, has 7,100 service members in Afghanistan and 5,500 in Iraq.
The conflict in Darfur began in February 2003 when ethnic African tribes rebelled against what they considered decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated government.
Sudan’s government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed _ a charge it denies. More than 200,000 people have died, and 2.5 million have been uprooted.
(AP)