EU must contribute more to peacekeeping, particularly in Sudan: UN chief
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer
DUBLIN, Ireland, Oct 14, 2004 (AP) — European Union nations must contribute more soldiers to United Nations peacekeeping and more money to promoting stability in Sudan, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed Thursday.
Annan, speaking to Dublin’s Forum on Europe at the start of a weeklong visit to Ireland and Britain, said he wanted the 25-nation EU to build a military capability that would be put at the disposal of U.N. peacekeeping operations.
“The EU and its member states pay a lot of the U.N.’s bills and support our work right across the spectrum. I am deeply grateful for that — but I look to Europe for even more,” Annan said in the gold-gilded St. Patrick’s Hall of Dublin Castle, a government conference venue.
Annan noted that 56,000 troops in U.N. uniform were deployed worldwide — but just 10 percent of them were from Europe. He said U.N. deployments “desperately need” another 30,000 soldiers.
“I want to leave you in no doubt of how important strengthened EU capacities are to the United Nations,” Annan said. “The EU is in a position to provide specialized skills that our largest troop contributors may not be able to give us, and to deploy more rapidly than we can.”
He thanked EU states for providing financial aid to the African Union, which is spearheading efforts to stop ethnic bloodshed in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
“But let me be very frank: Much more help is needed,” he said. “Darfur is an enormous region and a huge number of people are suffering. The humanitarian effort needs more money. And the (African Union) needs concrete support — including logistics, equipment and financing, as well as political pressure on the parties. Every country and organization that can help must do so, now.”
In May, EU defense ministers unveiled a six-year plan to develop 1,500-soldier “battlegroups” for rapid deployment to global hot spots. The move, promoted by Britain, France and Germany, has been officially welcomed by the NATO alliance, which last year formed its own 20,000-strong rapid response force.
Annan said he believed elite EU-organized military units could be ideal for U.N. purposes. He cited as an example France’s speedy deployment of 1,700 soldiers to northeastern Congo in June 2003 at the height of ethnic unrest there. That three-month mission saved many lives and was “a model of EU cooperation with the U.N.,” Annan said.
– On the Net:
Ireland’s National Forum on Europe, http://www.forumoneurope.ie