UN observers to oversee Sudan peace

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Jan 03, 2005 (UPI) — As many as 10,000 international observers will oversee the implementation of peace in war-torn Sudan under the auspices of the United Nations.

U.N. envoy in Sudan Jan Pronk told reporters in Khartoum Monday that the Security Council will convene soon to expand the U.N. mission to that of monitoring the implementation of final peace terms signed between the Sudanese government and southern rebels of the Sudan People Liberation Movement/Army.

Final peace will be sealed at a special ceremony Sunday in Nairobi, ending Africa’s longest civil conflict.

“The United Nations will deploy between 9,000 and 10,000 troops as part of a monitoring force whose mission will not be to keep peace but to boost it,” said Pronk, who is the special representative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

He said the U.N. mission in Sudan is expected to last for a minimum of six years, at the end of which the fate of southern Sudan will be decided through a national referendum. The people of the south will decided whether to secede or stay part of Sudan.

Pronk said that the newly found peace in the south “creates a unique possibility and chance to achieve a peaceful settlement in the province of Darfur.”

Darfur, in western Sudan, has been the scene of a devastating conflict, pitting local tribes against government-backed militias, which claimed thousands of lives and displaced more than a million people.