UN chief shouted by pro-Sudan govt demonstrators in Darfur
September 5, 2007 (EL FASHER, North Darfur) — Protesters shouted at U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Wednesday on his first trip to Darfur, raising security fears over an already tense visit meant to give the U.N. chief a chance to meet some of the 2.5 million people chased to refugee camps by the violence in this western Sudanese region.
Ban was scheduled to meet North Darfur governor Mohamed Kebir upon arrival at the heavily guarded El Fasher airport, but their meeting was rescheduled to the governor’s compound. There, a crowd of demonstrators merged with the official reception and gave Ban a letter saying Darfur refugees want help from the U.N. to return to their original villages.
In an obvious mobilization by the ruling National Congress Party, the government wanted to say it is not only the rebel SLM which has supporters in Darfur. Khartoum seems bothered by capacity of mobilization in the camps by the supporters of the Key rebel leader, Abdelwahid al-Nur.
“We are being helped by the state party,” chanted some pro-government demonstrators, who said they came from the large refugee camps that circle El Fasher, North Darfur’s state capital.
Later, when Ban attempted to meet with delegates from the refugee camps, the demonstrators returned, this time a dozen people, mostly women, that slipped into the compound, demanded to meet the secretary-general and chanted slogans causing the meeting’s cancellation.
“We don’t care for UN! This is our country!” shouted the demonstrators in Arabic. “You want to destroy us.”
Ban later went on to meet with representatives chosen by the actual inhabitants of the three camps in the area, said U.N. associate spokesman Yves Sorokobi.
“After the incident, they chose three leaders who then met with the secretary-general,” he said.
The Sudanese government has appeared increasingly bent on reducing the population in the refugee camps, largely composed of ethnic African farmers chased from their homes by militias of nomad Arabs known as the janjaweed.
The central government denies accusations it uses the janjaweed as a counterinsurgency tool to fight the mostly ethnic African rebels in Darfur. But the International Criminal Court in The Hague has charged a Cabinet minister and an alleged janjaweed chief with 51 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur, where 200,000 people have died since violence began in 2003.
The government now says fighting has largely receded, and demonstrators greeting Ban at the governor’s house Wednesday said they wanted to leave the refugee camps.
A man who identified himself to the Sudanese media as Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed gave Ban a letter saying that Darfur refugees have been receiving what they need from the government but need help from the United Nations to return to their original villages.
“We are being helped by the state party,” said some, claiming to be from the large refugee camps that circle El Fasher, North Darfur’s state capital.
“We sincerely, obviously, and eagerly want to return back voluntarily to our villages and places,” said the open letter handed to Ban. The letter said the Sudanese government has been supportive and helpful with refugees wanting to return home.
Neither the letter nor the demonstrators mentioned the key concern keeping the millions of refugees from leaving the camps _ a lack of security, which is a key reason for the deployment of the AU-U.N. hybrid force.
When Kebir was asked after his meeting with Ban whether the government was anxious to get people home and what security guarantees would given to those who leave the overcrowded camps, he said, “many conditions are now ripe” for people to return to their villages.
“Of course, there are a lot of remaining issues to be settled in cooperation with the (U.N.) Security Council in order that the return is massive and durable,” he said.
Later, after the disruption by the clamoring women during Ban’s stop at the U.N. compound where he was supposed to camp representatives, “security precautions had to be taken,” U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said, and Ban left the area.
Ban later met with just three representatives instead of all those invited, and Okabe said the secretary-general would try to meet with the others if time permitted.
When a Security Council team visited Darfur last year, there was tremendous opposition to any deployment that would include U.N. troops.
But Ban said the planned deployment of the hybrid AU-U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur was now on a “good track” and that it was “crucially important that a political negotiation process start now.”
Officials from the AU mission currently on the ground, told Ban that their beleaguered force now had less then 6,000 peacekeepers in this region nearly the size of France _ down from its authorized strength of 7,000. AU officials said the groundwork for deploying the AU-U.N. hybrid force is on schedule, but that it isn’t expected to start arriving in Darfur until early next year.
Most international observers in Darfur say sporadic violence continues to afflict the region, and that the priority is to relaunch peace negotiations between rebels and the government. U.N. and AU envoys have been trying to get key rebel groups back to the negotiating table with the Sudanese government, and Ban said “we are coming close to agreeing on the venue and date.”
“I’m really going to step up this political negotiation process,” he said on the third day of his week-long trip to Sudan, Chad and Libya.
The secretary general also stressed the link between a political solution in Darfur and implementation of a 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement ending 21-years of a separate civil war between Sudan’s Muslim government in the north and mainly Christian and animist rebels in the south.
“I came to realize much more than I thought in New York, the importance and urgency of smooth implementation of Comprehensive Peace Agreement,” Ban said.
(AP/ST)