UN envoy for Sudan says north-south peace impossible without Darfur solution

By NICK WADHAMS, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 4, 2005 (AP) — A peace deal that ended Sudan’s 21-year civil war will not hold unless a way is found to end the killing in Darfur, the top U.N. envoy for Sudan said Friday.

Sudanese in tribal clothes celebrates the peace treaty signed between Khartoum and SPLM in Nyala, in Sudan’s South Darfur region. (AFP).

Jan Pronk made the comments to reporters after briefing the Security Council and urging them to approve a request by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for a 10,130-strong peacekeeping mission to enforce the north-south peace deal, signed Jan. 9.

In a report made public Thursday, Annan stressed that Security Council efforts to enforce the peace deal must include the Darfur crisis, in which conflict between government-backed Janjaweed militia and rebels has killed tens of thousands and displaced some 2 million more.

“Without a solution in Darfur, north-south will not remain a sustainable peace agreement,” Pronk said.

Pronk spoke as the Security Council discussed the findings of a separate report released Monday by a U.N.-appointed commission that found evidence of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur, but stopped short of labeling the crisis genocide.

He said that Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha and John Garang, head of the main southern Sudanese rebel group that just signed a peace deal with the government, had agreed to appear before the council on Tuesday.

Benin’s U.N. Ambassador Joel Adechi, Security Council president for February, said the Security Council would soon take up a draft resolution to address Annan’s request for the peacekeeping mission.

It wasn’t known whether that resolution would also address ways of punishing those responsible for crimes in Darfur or other ways to stop the violence there.

Council members are considering sanctions, an arms or oil embargo, and referrals to a war crimes tribunal. There is disagreement over presenting the cases to the International Criminal Court, a move the report recommends but the United States opposes.

Pronk expressed confidence that the Security Council would eventually agree.

“Give the big powers a chance to reach a consensus,” he said. “They will find a solution.”

Pronk suggested he was getting frustrated with the Sudanese government, which has assured him that it ordered its air force to stop bombing villages in Darfur, a tactic the government has said is aimed at combating rebels there.

Some attacks have continued nonetheless, and Pronk said the Sudanese government told him that the military was carrying out the attacks against instructions.

“They are repeating that, and I have to believe them,” he said. “I tell them you have to go further, you have to prevent it by not flying, by not flying at all … The flights are scaring people.”