Top United Nations envoy Jan Pronk left Khartoum on Monday after the Sudanese government raised the stakes in a running dispute with the world body by ordering him out of the country.
Khartoum was already on a collision course with the international community over its rejection of a UN Security Council resolution to send 22 500 UN troops and police to its violent western Darfur region. It calls the plan a Western invasion aimed at recolonising Sudan.
Sunday’s order to expel Pronk came after he published comments on his website www.janpronk.nl saying the Sudanese army lost two major battles to rebels in North Darfur, morale was low, generals were sacked and soldiers refused to fight.
The remarks infuriated Sudan’s powerful armed forces who called Pronk a threat to Sudanese security. Observers say his expulsion exacerbated existing tensions between the government in Khartoum and the United Nations.
”The hardliners within the government of Sudan are trying always to escalate the confrontation with the international community and Mr Pronk has given them a good chance to succeed,” said Faysal el-Bagir, head of the Khartoum human rights centre.
UN spokesperson in Sudan Radhia Achouri said Pronk left on Monday night and was en route to New York. He was expected to brief the Security Council on the expulsion order on Wednesday.
Chief UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Pronk still has the full support of Secretary General Kofi Annan, who summoned him back for consultations. ”As far as we are concerned, his status remains unchanged,” Dujarric said at UN headquarters.
Pronk ”continues to be the special representative of the secretary general,” Dujarric added.
Dujarric would not say whether Pronk’s expulsion complicated efforts to move a UN peacekeeping force into Darfur to replace a smaller, ill-equipped African Union force now there.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Sudan’s decision to expel Pronk ”unfortunate in the extreme,” and said she intended to discuss it with Annan.
”The situation in Darfur has been deteriorating and the international community needs very much to be able to act there,” Rice said at a meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei in Washington.
Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said it would continue to cooperate with Pronk’s replacement and the United Nations.
Summonds
Pronk (66) came to Khartoum in 2004 mainly to head a UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s south and to monitor implementation of a north-south accord which ended Africa’s longest civil war.
But he spent more time on the separate Darfur crisis.
Experts estimate 200 000 people have died in three-and-a-half years of fighting and that 2,5-million have been forced from their homes in Darfur. Washington calls the rape, looting and murder in Darfur genocide, a charge Khartoum rejects.
Some observers questioned whether the expulsion was little more than political theatre because Pronk, as Annan’s political appointee, was likely to lose his position when Annan leaves the world body at the end of the year.
”Mr Pronk … his period is nearly finished so it is more political manoeuvre than genuine political action from the government,” said el-Bagir.
Others said Pronk himself may have made a political move to ”go out with a bang”. Earlier this year, Pronk had problems with comments in his blog that changes needed to be made to a Darfur peace deal signed in May by only one of three rebel factions.
”He is very savvy. He must have known what the government’s reaction would be to this,” said one diplomat who declined to be named. One UN source said Pronk had already been warned about his blog by UN headquarters.
Dujarric would not say whether Annan had spoken to Pronk about the contents of his blog or whether rules were needed to limit what UN staff can say on personal blogs.
Annan ”has fairly liberal rules in terms of staff members being able to write or speak freely, but obviously they need to exercise the proper judgement in doing so,” Dujarric said.
Some observers said whoever replaces Pronk is likely to be less outspoken and Darfur rebels hailed his expulsion as a victory for those who want to silence criticism of Khartoum.
”Now the world will not know what is really happening in Darfur,” Darfur rebel leader Khalil Ibrahim said. – Reuters