Darfur: African Union to bolster observers with armed protection force

ADDIS ABABA, July 5 (AFP) — The African Union (AU) on Monday said it planned to send a 300-strong armed protection force to Sudan’s war-torn western Darfur region, where it has already deployed observers to monitor a shaky ceasefire.

AU Peace and Security Director Sam Ibok told a news conference here that the pan-African body was working up to the full deployment of a protection force for returning refugees and observers.

The move came a day after a seven-hour meeting of the AU’s Peace and Security Council, where the Darfur crisis took center stage.

Ibok said Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Botswana had been approached to provide troops for the protection force, one of the first of its kind mandated by the two-year-old AU.

“We are confident (Sudan) will accept. It has been difficult but we are talking,” Ibok said, describing the force as a confidence-building measure.

He said the AU lacked the means and resources to send a fully-fledged peacekeeping mission to Darfur, an area the size of France where 15 months of attacks have sparked what the UN has termed the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe, with more than a million displaced and a major famine in the offing.

UN chief Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State Colin Powell both paid brief visits to Darfur last week to push for a resolution to the conflict pitting rebels against government forces and their militia allies.

The AU is playing a lead role in mechanisms to monitor a ceasefire signed by the rebels and Khartoum in April and is building up a monitoring mission on the ground.

Existing agreements provided for the deployment of a protection force in the event that warring parties proved unable to ensure the security of the observers.

“We have had continued activity of the Janjaweed,” said Ibok, referring to Khartoum-backed militia blamed for much of the atrocities in Darfur.

“What is happening is serious, it is grave it is a human tragedy (but) at this point we are unable to describe what’s happening in Darfur as genocide because the AU has not conducted an intensive investigation,” he added.

The AU, which opens a summit level meeting in Addis Ababa on Tuesday, is working to develop a continental standby force with roles varying from assisting UN missions to full-scale intervention, but this will not be fully operational for several years.