AU chief urges Sudan to keep Darfur vow
By Andrew Quinn
ADDIS ABABA, July 4 (Reuters) – Sudan must keep its pledge to disarm Arab militias rampaging through the western region of Darfur or risk an even more disastrous humanitarian crisis, the top official of the African Union said on Sunday.
AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare said he remained concerned about human rights abuses in Darfur and the AU was stepping up preparations, possibly including African peacekeepers, to monitor a shaky ceasefire in a region where more than a million people have been uprooted.
“The humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region is extremely serious. Unless immediate action is taken, the situation will further deteriorate, with far-reaching implications,” Konare said in a report to the AU’s Peace and Security Council ahead of a two-day AU summit.
“… I would like to appeal to the (Sudanese government) to follow through with its stated commitment to ensure the protection of the civilian population and to disarm and neutralize the Janjaweed militia.”
The crisis in Darfur is expected to top the African leaders’ agenda at the summit as they try to show that the organisation can be an effective guarantor of peace and security on the war-ravaged continent.
Sudan pledged on Saturday to disarm the militia, accused of a campaign of murder, rape and pillage against African farmers in Darfur, and to accept human rights monitors in the area.
Sudan’s promise, after visits by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, drew attention to what the U.N. says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with more than one million people driven from their homes.
Konare, who visited Darfur on June 20-21, said the AU was setting up its observer mission, of AU officials and military officers from Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria and Senegal, to monitor the ceasefire agreed in April by Khartoum and two rebel groups.
He said Rwandan military officers had also visited Darfur to assess the feasibility of sending in peacekeeping troops as a “protection element” for the observers.
Sudan has resisted foreign troop deployments in the area, but the AU says it may send in peacekeepers if the security situation demands it.
Sudan’s promise to disarm the Janjaweed has been greeted with scepticism by some human rights groups, which have joined U.S. officials in accusing the militia of carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign against black Africans.
Some 10,000 to 30,000 people are estimated to have been killed in Darfur, and the U.N. has said that two million people have been caught up in the fighting. About 200,000 refugees have fled to neighbouring Chad.
Konare said all sides in the Darfur crisis had agreed to meet at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa on July 15.
But there were already signs of strain with one of the two main rebel groups saying on Saturday it wanted the Janjaweed disarmed before new peace talks got under way.