United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan intends to propose a ”hybrid” African Union-UN force for Darfur in talks with Sudanese officials and has invited major powers to take part, the United Nations said on Monday.
Sudan has been adamantly opposed to a UN force, authorised by the UN Security Council, so the United Nations is considering alternatives to get a larger and better-funded peacekeeping operation acceptable to Khartoum.
The African Union is holding a series of meetings in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa this week on its under-financed 7 000-member force in Darfur that has been unable to stop the violence, which has thrown some 2,5-million people out of their homes over the past three years.
Annan has proposed a three-step enhancement of the African Union. The third, to be discussed in Addis Ababa on Thursday, would be an AU-UN joint operation that would be financed by the United Nations and be controlled by both organisations, according to a position paper he has prepared.
In Dakar, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said Sudan was ”not saying no to the United Nations but he’s limiting the intervention of the United Nations.”
Wade said he had received a letter from Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir proposing solutions on Darfur. But Wade did not say whether Bashir, who has approved some UN beefing up of the African Union force, would accept a larger foreign military presence, such as a hybrid AU-UN operation.
Since the Security Council has to approve any new arrangement, Annan asked the foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China, the permanent council members, to send high-level envoys to join him in Addis Ababa, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
Senior officials from Egypt, Gabon, Egypt, the Arab League and the European Union are also expected to attend, the spokesperson added.
Annan issued the invitations as the UN Security Council on Friday cancelled plans to send an eight-member British-led delegation to another meeting on the Darfur crisis on Monday in Addis Ababa, unable to agree what the delegation could discuss and how their visit would mesh with Annan’s trip.
Violence in Darfur has escalated for months. An African Union official reported that up to 30 villagers were killed and 40 wounded on Saturday when armed men riding horses and camels attacked a village in Sirba, about 45km north of el-Geneina, capital of West Darfur state and close to the Sudan-Chad border.
The attackers are suspected to be janjaweed — pro-government militia who have killed, raped and plundered non-Arab villagers. About 200 000 people are estimated to have been killed since rebels took up arms in early 2003 to fight the government for a greater share in power and resources.
African character
Hedi Annabi, an assistant secretary general for peacekeeping operations, now in Addis Ababa, said Sudan had agreed for UN support for the Darfur operation — including several hundred UN military, police and civilian personnel — worth about $77-million.
But this enhancement is to strengthen the Africa Union without any UN command. Sudan still has to agree to a much larger AU-UN operation that would report to both bodies.
Such a hybrid force would have a ”predominantly African character” but be adequately funded and equipped to better protect Darfur’s civilian population, according to the paper.
In his monthly report, released on Monday, Annan said he was ”gravely concerned” about the Sudan government attempt to find a military solution to the crisis by sending thousands of soldiers to Darfur in violation of a faltering May peace agreement between the government and one rebel group.
”I particularly deplore the use of aerial bombardment by government forces, which fails to distinguish civilians from combatants,” Annan wrote about developments in September.
Violence has spilled across the border to neighbouring Central African Republic and Chad, which on Monday declared a state of emergency in the capital Ndjamena and some eastern areas on the Sudanese border.
Sudan and Chad support each other’s rebels, according to UN relief officials. Both Chad and the Central African Republic have called for the deployment of international troops to secure their borders. – Reuters