AU’s Konare lashes at Sudanese parties’ Darfur violations

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Dec 11, 2004 (PANA) — African Union (AU) Commission Chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare has expressed “serious concern” at the deterioration of the security situation in Darfur as a result of continued violations by all parties to the Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement.

Parties to the conflict in the troubled Darfur region
of western Sudan signed the agreement in N’djamena,
Chad, on 8 April 2004.

The same parties on 9 November 2004 signed
humanitarian and security protocols in Abuja, Nigeria.

In a statement issued Saturday by the AU Commission,
Konare cites attacks, carried out on various locations
in late November by the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army
(SLM/A).

He said the attacks took place at Tawilla in north
Darfur, Adwah village in South Darfur, the town of
Um-Asal and at Draida.

“These attacks constitute serious and unacceptable
violations of the afore-mentioned N’djamena Agreement
and the Abuja Protocols,” said Konare.

In the same vein, the military operation launched on 8
December 2004 by the Government forces at Bilel and
Isham, “equally constitute a serious and unacceptable
violation of the Ceasefire Agreement and the two
Protocols,” he noted.

He decried the operation pointing out that it was
undertaken on the eve of the resumption of the
Inter-Sudanese Peace Talks in Abuja.

Konare said this operation, which was meant to “clear
roads of lawless elements”, resulted in foreseeable
renewed fighting between the Government and the joint
forces of SLM/A and the Justice and Equality Movement
(JEM).

Following the launch of the operation, Konare urged
the Sudanese authorities to stop it immediately.

The chairperson’s Special Representative for Sudan,
Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, and the Force Commander
of the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS), Maj. Gen Faustin
Okonkwo, have maintained continued contact with the
Sudanese authorities with the view to ending the
hostilities.

Konare has once again called on the opposing parties
in Darfur to end all hostilities and abide by the
agreements they signed, as well as all the relevant
decisions and resolutions of the Peace and Security
Council (PSC) of the AU and the UN Security Council.

In the meantime, the AU Commission has pledged to
redouble its efforts towards the speedy deployment of
AMIS II, to enable it fulfill its expanded mandate of
peacekeeping.