U.N. Council divided over Darfur measures
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 16 (Reuters) – On the eve of a high-profile U.N. Security Council visit to Nairobi on Tuesday, members were split over a draft resolution on atrocities in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
The main purpose of the rare meeting out of New York this week is to help seal an agreement ending a separate 21-year-old civil war in southern Sudan, which would change the structure of the Khartoum government and constitution.
“Strong political language is needed. They will listen to it if the big powers say it,” said Jan Pronk, the chief U.N. envoy for Sudan, earlier this month after telling the 15-nation council that Darfur could easily slide into anarchy.
But council negotiators on Monday were divided over a draft resolution to be adopted in the Kenyan capital. China, Russia, Pakistan and Algeria want to keep references to the brutalities in Darfur, in the west of Sudan, to a minimum, diplomats said.
Two previous Security Council resolutions have threatened sanctions against Khartoum if the violence does not stop in Darfur but China has vowed to veto imposing penalties.
One argument in the new draft resolution is whether to refer to the previous measures, diplomats said.
The Security Council’s trip to Kenya, only the fourth official set of meetings away from New York in more than 50 years, was organized by U.S. Ambassador John Danforth, this month’s council president and the Bush administration’s former envoy to jump-start the north-south Sudan talks.
These talks have been conducted in the Kenyan capital and council members as well as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will meet Sudanese officials from all sides.
DEVELOPMENT PACKAGE
The council’s draft resolution “encourages” the European Union, other nations and the World Bank to devise a development package, including possible debt forgiveness, for all parties in Sudan once a north-south pact is concluded.
But Danforth believes little long-term assistance will materialize if no progress is made in Darfur, where 1.2 million African villagers have been driven from their homes by Arab militia, backed by government security forces, in a campaign of rape, killings and pillaging.
“Obviously the rest of the world is not going to be there if they conclude a north-south peace agreement and then the next day start bombing villages in Darfur,” Danforth said.
In the meantime, a force of 3,300 African troops and monitors are making their way to Darfur to serve as a bulwark against abuses but not take direct military action.
Darfur’s war goes back to years of low-intensity fighting between Arab nomads and mainly African farmers over dwindling water and arable land in Darfur’s sprawling desert. Two rebel groups have organized against the government and are blamed for banditry and provoking the militia, known as Janjaweed.
In the south, some 2 million people, mostly civilians, have died from violence, disease and famine in a country rich in oil. Sudan has known only 11 years without war since it became independent from Britain in 1956.
But a final north-south accord is not expected to be completed this week in Nairobi. At best, diplomats expect a memorandum setting a date by the end of the year.
Preliminary agreements have already been signed between Khartoum and the southern opposition but are not in force. They include accords on governmental power sharing, oil wealth as well as integrated security forces in southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, the Southern Blue Nile and Khartoum.
In six years, southerners would be entitled to a referendum to determine whether they want to form their own state. The main outstanding issue is who pays for the military.