UN envoy blames rebels for renewed fighting in north Darfur

By JASPER MORTIMER, Associated Press Writer

CAIRO, Egypt, Nov 25, 2004 (AP) — The rebel Sudan Liberation Army was solely responsible for the breaching the cease-fire and restarting the fighting in north Darfur, the U.N. envoy for Sudan, Jan Pronk, said Thursday.

U.N. envoy for Sudan Jan Pronk gestures during a news conference in Cairo Thursday Nov. 25, 2004. (AP).

“This was a unilateral violation of the agreements by SLA, not by the government,” Pronk told a news conference in Cairo, referring to a cease-fire accords signed earlier this year and in Abuja, Nigeria, on Nov. 9.

The SLA has rejected it is responsible for the renewed fighting in north Darfur, telling the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera earlier Thursday it was responding to attacks by the state air force and pro-government militia.

The World Food Programme says the battle in north Darfur has forced it to suspend deliveries of food to about 300,000 displaced people in camps in that part of western Sudan.

Pronk said the people in those camps would have “on average” food stocks to last for two weeks.

The fighting broke out last week between the SLA and the pro-government Janjaweed militia, apparently after a tribal dispute over livestock. On Monday, African Union troops rescued 45 humanitarian aid workers who were trapped in the conflict zone.

Pronk said he could not confirm reports that Sudan’s air force has bombed two towns in the recent fighting because the African Union monitors had not been able to reach those districts for security reasons.

The U.N. envoy, who had flown to Cairo for talks with the Egyptian government and the Arab League, called on the world to double the peacekeeping force assigned to Darfur and to put pressure on the Sudanese government and the southern rebels, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, to meet their Dec. 31 deadline for a permanent settlement to the rebellion in southern Sudan.

The African Union force of cease-fire monitors and troops in Darfur is currently being increased to about 4,000 personnel. Pronk declined to suggest a figure for AU troops, but he called for a force large enough to provide “protection by presence” in all of Darfur’s hotspots.

“You cannot do that with 4,000 (troops). I would argue: ‘let’s try twice as many. The problem is twice as big as many people think,'” he said.

Referring to the number of displaced people in Darfur, Pronk said: “If you have 1.6 million people who have to return back to their places, which have to be protected, you cannot do that with 4,000 people.”

The latest estimate for Darfur’s displaced people is now 1.8 million.

The conflict, which the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Army and allied Justice and Equality Movement took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin.

The government responded with a counter-insurgency campaign in which the Janjaweed, an Arab militia, committed wide-scale abuses against the African population.