A United Nations Security Council team and African Union officials on Saturday discussed the speedy deployment of a hybrid force in Darfur following Khartoum’s long-awaited nod for the peacekeepers.
Khartoum, which had previously rejected attempts to send large numbers of UN peacekeepers to Darfur, finally relented this week in the face of intense world pressure and threats of tougher UN sanctions.
At least 200 000 people have died in a four-year conflict in Darfur and more than two million have been forced from their homes, according to the UN.
South Africa’s ambassador to the UN Security Council, Dumisani Kumalo, said Khartoum’s nod was ”a major breakthrough”.
”We believe it is time for implementation of this agreement and the hybrid force, and we want it as soon as possible,” he said after talks with AU officials in Addis Ababa.
The UN team and top officials from the AU, which is headquartered in the Ethiopian capital, also discussed other flashpoints in the world’s most restive and violence-prone continent.
Somalia, Côte d’Ivoire, the Great Lakes region, especially the effects of the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, as well as border tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea were on the agenda.
The UN and the pan-African body pledged to cooperate more closely on ”conflict prevention, management and resolution, peacekeeping and peace building, including post-conflict reconstruction and development”, a statement said.
Kumalo, meanwhile, said a meeting scheduled on Sunday between UN officials and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum was ”to find out a confirmation that the government is ready for the implementation of the hybrid force”.
Said Djinnit, the chief of the AU’s Peace and Security Council, said much work remained to be completed after Khartoum’s go-ahead for the peacekeepers. ”We have achieved a great breakthrough; next is the implementation. It has to start. A number of things have to be put in place.”
There are currently about 7 000 AU peacekeepers in Darfur, but they have been unable to halt the clashes in a region the size of France because of a severe shortage of funding and equipment.
The Khartoum government has been accused by the UN of bombing civilians in the region.
The conflict in the western Sudanese region erupted in February 2003 when ethnic minority rebels attacked an army garrison in Darfur. Government forces backed by Janjaweed militias responded with a scorched-earth campaign.
Once just raiding nomads, the Kalashnikov-wielding Arab tribesmen were transformed into well-armed militias during the brutal suppression of the rebellion, which Washington has said amounted to genocide.
Khartoum has meanwhile repeatedly denied charges that it sponsored the Janjaweed militias. — Sapa-AFP