Sudan denies criticism over Darfur hybrid force deployment
November 23, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — President Omer Bashir on Friday denied western criticism that Sudan was setting out to delay the deployment of the African Union –United Nation peacekeeping for in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region.
“We are not holding up this mission. The ones who are hindering the process are those who are trying to impose their agenda on us. If there is any delay in the issue it is from the United Nations and those who are standing behind the United Nations,” he said.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, UN peacekeeping head, has warned the world could face a choice between delaying the takeover form African force or starting the deployment with an ill-equipped force that may not be able to protect its own peacekeepers, let alone civilians. He urged Sudan to relax its opposition to non-African troops.
Speaking at as his National Congress party wound up a three-day conference, Bashir said the incoming peacekeepers would have to be led by an African wearing an African Union helmet. It had been widely expected that the peacekeepers would switch to blue UN helmets in January when they replace a struggling 7,000-strong AU force currently on the ground.
Bashir said his country had accepted Chinese, Egyptian and Indian contingents despite the UN trying to impose Scandinavian and Thai troops.
He said his original agreement with the AU and the U.N. was for a force made up of African troops, backed up from logistics and technical units from the UN.
Bashir further said “When they told us that they wanted to bring other troops from other countries, we rejected them.”
Offers from all other non-African countries, apart from China and Pakistan, had also come in “too late”, after Sudan had signed its agreement with the U.N. and the AU over the force.
“These Swedish and Norwegian troops are not acceptable. We shall not accept them,” said Bashir.
Speaking about a proposed Thai infantry battalion, Bashir added: “Even if there is a shortage of troops from the African continent, we are not going to accept those people. Because we were not consulted about it.”
It was the strongest public statement yet of Sudan’s resistance to outside involvement in the war-torn region — a stance that many in the U.N. see as a delaying tactic to undermine the peacekeeping mission.
However UN negotiators say they have not yet had any concrete refusal from Sudan on non-African troops, just a constant request for more technical discussions. But Bashir’s speech was a clear rejection of further outside involvement.
UN officials, a part the non-African forces, say the need for ground transport equipment may also lead to delay to 26000 force in Darfur. The U.N. requests 18 transport helicopters and six attack helicopters.
The force is tasked with ending more than four years of bloodshed in which more than 200,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease in Darfur while 2.2 million others have been left homeless.
(ST, agencies)