Fifteen African leaders open a crucial summit meeting on Darfur in New York on Wednesday at which Sudan is expected to consent to extending the mandate of a cash-strapped African Union force in the strife-wracked Sudanese region.
The meeting, set to kick off at the AU office on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, brings together heads of state of the AU’s Peace and Security Council (PSC).
It was initially scheduled to take place on Monday but was put off to allow Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Paul Kagame of Rwanda to attend, AU officials said.
The meeting is to decide whether or not to extend the 7 000-strong AU force’s mandate, which expires on September 30.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution late last month, which calls for the deployment of up to a 20 000-strong UN force, to take over peacekeeping in Darfur from the AU.
But Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, who flew into New York on Monday from Havana where he attended the Non-Aligned Movement summit, on Tuesday reiterated his steadfast opposition to the UN deployment in Darfur.
Despite intense world pressure for him to reconsider, he remained defiant, saying he would, however, accept a beefing-up of the AU contingent, provided the additional troops were African. ”We will not accept any African forces under UN command,” he added.
Al-Beshir, who is to attend Wednesday’s PSC summit, suggested that Sudan might be prepared to accept non-African ”advisers” to the AU force.
He also said he would not accept the proposed transfer of the 12 273-strong UN force currently operating in south Sudan to Darfur.
UN officials said that even that if Khartoum were to give its consent to a UN contingent, it would take some time to assemble such a force and the AU force would need to remain in Darfur until at least the end of the year.
Addressing the General Assembly late on Tuesday, al-Beshir appealed to the two rebel groups that did not sign the AU-brokered Darfur peace accord in Nigeria last May to do so promptly.
And he urged the international community ”to isolate” those who would refuse to sign it.
”Should these armed groups continue in their refusal and in their determination to pursue violence, they must be isolated and prevented from reaching their objectives,” Beshir told the Assembly.
In May, Khartoum signed the AU-brokered peace deal with the main Darfur rebel group, the faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Minni Minnawi.
But another smaller SLM faction and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) refused to sign.
Between 180 000 and 300 000 people have been killed in Darfur and at least 2,4-million others displaced since fighting broke out between local rebels and the pro-government militia in February 2003. — Sapa-AFP