Rwandan president calls for more troops in Darfur

KIGALI, Feb 28, 2005 (Xinhua) — Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Monday called on the African Union to deploy a larger peacekeeping force in Sudan’s war-torn region of Darfur in an effort to end violence there.

He said the present size of the continental force in the troubled Sudanese western region, where Janjaweed militias have killed thousands of civilians and forced over a million others to flee, is not adequate to help end what the United States has described as genocide.

“The issue of numbers of the troops will have to be critically examined by the African Union. If they had more troops on ground covering many positions, then you are likely to have fewer violations of the ceasefire and other agreements on the ground. I think this is a matter that the African Union would like to review, ” said Kagame, who was in Sudan for three days last week.

“We will give the AU information that we came with based on what we heard and saw and felt on the ground,” he added.

The AU has some 1,400 troops in Darfur, drawn from Rwanda and Nigeria, and their mission is primarily to protect an AU ceasefire monitoring team of about 1,800 personnel.

The AU monitors are there to enforce a ceasefire agreement between the government and two main rebel groups in Darfur – the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement.

Kagame said Khartoum seems intent on achieving peace in Darfur, along the same lines they have managed with the southern Sudan question.

An over 20-year civil war, the longest in Africa, was virtually brought to an end when the Sudanese government and the southern rebels signed a peace deal in January.