U.N. Prepares Darfur Force Resolution

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UNITED NATIONS – The Security Council is expected to adopt a new resolution on Darfur today, laying the ground for a new peacekeeping force, estimated at 20,000 troops, which is intended to better protect lives in the troubled region of Sudan.

The American-backed resolution follows a peace agreement last week, which had been negotiated for months by the African Union, but was reached only after Undersecretary of State Robert Zoellick arrived in Abuja, Nigeria to personally push the sides to sign the pact.

Yesterday the African Union met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to endorse the Abuja peace agreement and to call on two smaller Darfur rebel groups to join the largest rebel group and the government, both of whom had already signed on to the agreement.

“As hard as [the peace agreement] was, what lies ahead may prove harder,” the U.N. envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, told the A.U. Peace and Security Council’s meeting in Addis Ababa. “All efforts, all energies must now be devoted to its implementation and to improving the situation of the people on the ground.”

The African Union urged the Sudanese government and the United Nations to cooperate to prepare the ground for the new U.N. force that would replace overwhelmed African troops in Darfur. The E.U. force of 8,000 in the region now is equipped with a mandate that allows them only to observe atrocities, not stop them.

So far, however, Khartoum has refused to grant entry visas to U.N. military experts who were dispatched to Darfur to survey the terrain and prepare for the peacekeeping mission. Last week Secretary-General Annan wrote a letter to President Bashir of Sudan, urging him to accept the mission. That letter came shortly after Mr. Bashir had snubbed Mr. Annan, refusing to even answer a phone call placed personally by the secretary-general.

The new resolution, which was circulated to the 15 members of the Security Council last night, will call on the United Nations, the African Union, and Khartoum to “accelerate transition to a United Nations operation.” It will also call for “the deployment of a joint African Union and United Nations technical assessment mission within one week of the adoption of this resolution.”

The onus will shift to the Sudanese government, forcing it to come to terms with the transition to the U.N. force. Until now the force, which America hopes will include a NATO contingency, was seen in Khartoum as an infringement of its sovereignty. Eying that concern, the A.U. decision yesterday reaffirmed the “sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of the Republic of the Sudan.”


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