US Admin still pushing for UN force in Sudan

US Admin still pushing for UN force in Sudan
Sept 30, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — The Bush administration Friday declined "to throw in the towel" on getting U.N. peacekeepers into Sudan to replace an ill-equipped and underfunded African Union force.
The Sudanese government is intransigent, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "But just because it is hard doesn’t mean we are going to give up. And neither should the rest of the international community."
Thursday, the U.N. chief envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, said did not expect the Sudanese government to accept a U.N. force anytime soon.
And so, he said, the international community should instead push for the African Union’s mission to be prolonged and reinforced.
But Friday, McCormack disagreed.
"I don’t think that there is a substitute for an international force at this point," he said. "Certainly, we are not going to throw in the towel on getting an international force into Sudan. OK?"
A U.N. Security Council resolution calls for 20,000 peacekeepers to replace the African Union force that has done little to prevent escalating violence in Darfur. But Sudan’s president Omar el-Bashir fiercely rejects the U.N. mission, and it cannot be deployed without his consent.

SUDAN: HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS CONTINUE SAYS U.N. EXPERT

SUDAN: HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS CONTINUE SAYS U.N. EXPERT

Genev, 29 Sept. (AKI) - Sudanese government forces, militias and armed groups such as rebel factions and opposition from neighbouring Chad are continuing to violate life in Sudan, particularly in the troubled western Darfur region, an independent United Nations rights expert has said. Discrimination and marginalisation of certain groups continued and basic rights such as access to food, shelter, health and education are not guaranteed, according to Sima Samar, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan.The right to life continued to be violated, in particular in Darfur, she said. The perpetrators were government forces, militia and armed groups such as rebel factions and Chadian opposition, while rape and sexual violence against women also continued, again especially in Darfur, Samar stated in a report delivered to the Human Rights Council, in session in Geneva from 18 September-6 October.In response, Sudanese representative Omar Dahab Mohamed said Sudan would continue to fully cooperate with Samar as well as with the numerous other Special Procedures and with all the work of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). However, he said Sudan wondered about the real motivation of states that were using international forums to put pressure on the country to affect negatively its fight against poverty. UN deputy secretary general Mark Malloch Brown has criticised "megaphone diplomacy" by the US and Britain in trying persuade Sudan to accept a United Nations force.The Sudanese government has rejected a call from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur , where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in three years of fighting. At least 350,000 people in North Darfur are cut off from any aid because of the intensified fighting there and at least another 100,000 people have fled their homes.The UN's chief envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, was quoted as saying on Thursday that he didn't expect Sudan to allow a UN peacekeeping force to be deployed in the country in the near future. "The international community should instead pushed for the African Union's mission to be prolonged and reinforced," Pronk told the Associated Press news agency. Khartoum this month agreed to keep the 7,000 AU troops in the country until end-2006.Pronk claimed a peace agreement signed in May between the Sudanese government and rebels was "in a coma," which he said reflected the worsening humanitarian situation in the country. Both the government and rebels violated the cease-fire more than 70 times between May and August, and there were new violations in September after Khartoum launched a large-scale offensive in northern Darfur, Pronk said.

US Rice issues sharp warning to Sudan government

US Rice issues sharp warning to Sudan government

Sept 27, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday called for an immediate cease-fire in Sudan’s western Darfur region and urged the Khartoum government to immediately and unconditionally accept a United Nations peacekeeping force there.
She said the government faces a choice between cooperation with the U.N. or confrontation. She warned of unspecified consequences if the government chose confrontation.
In a speech to the Africa Society’s National Summit on Africa, Rice said that if Sudan "works with the United Nations and welcomes a U.N. force into Darfur then it will find a dedicated partner in the United States."
She said President George W. Bush has told Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir the United States was prepared to examine all aspects of its relationship with Sudan. U.S. lawmakers are close to approving sanctions against the Khartoum government.
"If the Sudanese government chooses confrontation - if it continues waging war against its own citizens, challenging the African Union, undermining its peacekeeping force and threatening the international community - then the regime in Khartoum will be held responsible and it alone will bear the consequences," Rice said.
She said the Sudanese government wants a stable country and a good relationship with the international community, but its behavior is creating exactly the opposite result: isolation and instability.
President Bush used his address to the U.N. General Assembly last week to announce a new envoy for Sudan and to decry the violence.
Fighting between government-backed Arab militias and non-Arab rebels in Darfur has left more than 200,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced since 2002.
More than two years have passed since the U.S. government labeled the atrocities in Sudan as genocide, but the killing has accelerated in recent weeks as the Sudanese government has launched a new offensive.
A poorly funded African Union force in Darfur has been mostly unable to contain the violence and the U.N. Security Council has sought to take over the operation to provide better resources. Sudan opposes a U.N. takeover.

US House of Representatives passes bill

US House of Representatives passes bill on Sudan sanctions
Sept 27, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — The House of Representatives has sent to the Senate a bill that would impose sanctions on the government of Sudan as punishment for its failure to stem the suffering and dying in the nation’s Darfur region.
The bill, passed by unanimous consent, authorizes sanctions against anyone President Bush determines is responsible for atrocities and war crimes in the conflict that has left more than 200,000 people dead and 2.5 million homeless since 2003.
The Senate passed a nearly identical measure last week and is expected to endorse the House version this week, sending it to the president’s desk for his signature.
Penalties under the measure include blocking assets, refusing to grant Sudanese officials entry to the United States and preventing certain ships from entering U.S. ports. The legislation encourages Bush to deny the government of Sudan oil revenues and access to military equipment.
"This bill will do much to help the death and suffering in Darfur, but we, along with the international community, must do more," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who has championed the measure. "Aid workers are being killed and the people they were helping are disappearing. The situation is growing worse each day and the world must continue to help in any way we can."
The measure also asks the United Nations Security Council to suspend the Sudanese government’s rights and privileges of membership in the U.N. until it agrees to halt attacks against its people.
Passage of the sanctions bill had stalled over language in the House version that would have encouraged the growing movement in some states to divest from companies doing business with Sudan. The Bush administration insisted the provision be removed due to legal questions of whether state divestment interferes with foreign policy.
The Darfur conflict began when rebels of ethnic Africans revolted against the Arab-led government. The government responded with a brutal suppression and Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, attacked villages.
Last month, the U.N. Security Council authorized a peacekeeping force for Darfur of about 20,000 troops to bolster a smaller African Union force that is undermanned and underfunded. But the Sudanese government has refused to consent and the region has become more insecure for aid workers trying to help refugees.
"As we stand here ... the Janjaweed militia is continuing to rape and kill, wiping out generations of people in Darfur," said Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., who sponsored the House measure. "It is unacceptable and the world must act."
Bush last week named Andrew Natsios, the former director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, as his special envoy to work for peace in Sudan. Natsios met Monday with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and other lawmakers to discuss his mission and how Congress can continue to work on the issue.

This week brought a clear path forward for the Darfur conflict and humanitarian crisis.

Darfur sun
This week brought a clear path forward for the Darfur conflict and humanitarian crisis. The UN Security Council’s confrontational approach was dealt a near fatal blow and the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan Jan Pronk outlined a five step solution for Darfur and suggested a compromise solution of a Chapter VIII approach.
At a press conference following his Security Council appearance, Pronk suggestion that using the UN Charter’s Chapter VIII to support the African Union (AU) deployment in Darfur was a viable option.
“Chapter VIII is a possibility,” Pronk said, “whereby there is another force (which acts) on behalf of the United Nations which has been requested by the Security Council and fully financed by the UN.”
He stressed that AMIS, the AU force, could continue to be led by the AU with AU peacekeepers, and that he believed the Government of Sudan was willing to accept this solution. Pronk, however, stressed the caveat that the force must be more effective than if it is now.
Contrary to the continued calls by some governments for the UN to act unilaterally against Sudan, AU Commission Chairperson Alpha Konare was quoted in the Sudan Tribune as contradicting this view.
“That means this has to be done with the Sudanese government’s approval and we have clearly said that even if the UN was to come, the bulk of the troops would be AU forces, the command would be African and the AU political leadership will be there,” Konare said, after the AU extended presence of its Darfur units until the end of the year.
He also contradicted certain members of the Security Council, which have consistently placed the blame solely on the Government of Sudan. According to Konare, the current instability in Darfur is more the direct result of fighting between the rebel movements themselves than between the rebels and the Government of Sudan.
As discussed in last week’s article, Darfur Crisis: Shared Responsibility (Sudan Tribune Comments 18 September 2006) the primary solution is the restoration of the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA). Pronk, in supporting that position, outlined a five step program to get the DPA into “intensive care” before it dies.
The first step is to “get everyone on board.”
“Abdul Wahid’s group,” Pronk said, explaining one of the core problems of the DPA, “are out of the agreement and we need to bring them on board.”
This is vital to the DPA because Abdul Wahid’s group, which mostly represents Furs, is a significant portion of the population. He stressed that Abdul Wahid’s group maintained the original ceasefire and has not resumed fighting and that peace will not be possible without their cooperation.
He concluded the description of the first step by stating bluntly, “they must be brought on board.”
Pronk called for establishing a truce as the second step. He stressed that the approach used at the peace talks caused the rebel movements to split into different, uncontrollable factions.
“They were told: First sign, then talk. That further split the rebel movements,” he reported to the Security Council. According to Pronk, this led the National Redemption Front to break the ceasefire in July and contribute to the current escalating events in Darfur.
He stressed it was “an outright violation of the DPA”, and that a truce was needed to bring the DPA out of its coma. Pronk said, “Mini Minawi can play a role, maybe, in mediating between his present and his former allies in order to finally get peace on the ground.”
Reforming the non-functioning Ceasefire Commission (CFC) was identified as the third step.
“It simply does not function,” Pronk said. “It has been hijacked by the signatories, it is not well chaired, non-signatories have been excluded, and the United Nations has been silenced.”
He urged the CFC to start addressing the violations of the DPA. In addition, he envisions a renewed and authoritative CFC that is fully representative of all parties.
“In the southern Sudan,” he recalled, “the CJMC is one of the most important pillars of the CPA. If it were taken out, the CPA would be paralyzed. That is exactly the present state of the DPA, so the third condition is to start addressing the violations of the DPA through a renewed, fully representative, but authoritative CFC.”
The SRSG called for improving the DPA as the fourth step. According to Pronk, many people of Darfur have lost faith in the DPA and a new round of consultations should be started.
“We must talk, add, improve and give an opportunity to those who feel excluded and form at least one third of the population of Darfur. We must get their interests guaranteed, on paper as well as in reality,” he said, stressing that the new talks can not be seen as reopening the peace negotiations.
Finally, Pronk called for all parties to get off the collision course of confrontation and work on rebuilding trust and respect.
“Secretary-General Kofi Anan has clearly said that “without the consent of the Sudanese Government, the transition will not be possible”, reported Pronk, directly contradicting the position of unilateral action. “However, getting the consent of the Government requires consultations. A transition to a United Nations force has to be made attractive to the Sudanese leadership in order to get its support. That also requires trust, confidence-building and time. It requires that those in favor of a transition and those against it should refrain from the present collision course.”
Clearly, SRSG Pronk recognizes by stressing his last point that the hostile rhetoric by certain members of the Security Council has continued the crisis in Darfur and raises suspicions by the Government of Sudan. Once again--as this author stated after the DPA was signed, in July, and now--the quickest solution to the Darfur humanitarian crisis is a robust AU peacekeeping force.
This is the ideal time for the Government of National Unity to demonstrate to the world that this was not a war of Arabs against non-Arabs. This is the time for the Government of National Unity to work closely with SRSG Pronk and initiate his five step program. It is time for the Government of National Unity to demonstrate that Africans—North Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans, regardless of their ethnic or religious background--will solve African issues, without outside political rhetoric.
The Great Lakes Centre for Strategic Studies is a London-based think tank, with offices in Central and East Africa. Ilham Kocache may be reached at Ilham.kocache@glcss.org

UN goal in Darfur is humanitarian, not Sudan independence – UK
Darfur sun
Sunday 25 September 2006 03:30.
a British minister said international community wants to help Sudan to implement Darfur peace deal. He said the main motivation is a humanitarian goal
The British Foreign Office Africa Minister, Lord Triesman said to Al-Jazeera TV Friday 22 September that International Community cannot tolerate seeing a large number of people dying because of military actions, starvation or humanitarian problems facing the relief agencies.
Triesman accused the Sudanese government of violating Darfur Peace Agreement signed with a rebel faction last May. Government “sent helicopters to attack civilians. It also sent planes to attack villages in northern Darfur every night”, he said.
Speaking in the show, Sudanese Presidential Advisor Gazi salah Eddin defended Sudanese president rejection of the UN takeover in Darfur. He said his government has the right to be suspicious because the world can simply support the current AU force instead of UN force. The British official replied by saying that AU forces would be withdrawn at the end of the year and there would be a security vacuum.
Invited at the same programme, a Sudanese political analyst Mohamed Hassan Ahmed said the peace agreement was not good and all parties to it made mistakes. These are the government, the international community and the AU. The DPA was signed under big pressure on the rebel groups.
He also read a paragraph on from UN resolution 1706 stating the Security Council’s strong commitment to the sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity of Sudan. He said government has no reason to invoke that the resolution will undermine Sudan’s sovereignty and independence.
He then says the president violated the constitution and the agreement reached with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement by ignoring the need to get the approval of the first vice-president when war or a state of emergency is declared in the country.

Annan urges Sudan to accept UN forces in Darfur
Sept 23, 2006 (PARIS) — United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan urged Sudan on Saturday to accept UN peacekeepers in the troubled Darfur region and condemned a new bombing offensive by Khartoum’s army.
UN SG Kofi Annan
In an opinion piece in a French newspaper he said UN troops would be better-equipped than the African Union force that has agreed to stay in the region until the year’s end to help stop atrocities in Darfur.
The 7,000 AU forces have been unable to halt violence that has driven 2.5 million people from their homes and killed an estimated 200,000 since 2003.
Annan saidthe Sudanese government was at risk of “disgrace” and “shame” in Africa and around the world.
”I strongly urge the government to avoid such a situation by accepting the decision of the Security Council to deploy a UN peace operation that would be better-equipped and better-financed than the current African Union mission and would have a clearer mandate,” Annan said in the Le Figaro newspaper.
The United States and Denmark sought on Friday to increase world pressure on Sudan to accept the 20,000 peacekeepers, but Khartoum has yet to agree.
UN human rights monitors accused Sudan’s army on Friday of bombing villages in North Darfur, killing and wounding civilians and forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes.
They also reported that sexual violence, which has been a feature of the conflict, continued in South Darfur, particularly near camps for the homeless near the town of Gereida.
“I strongly condemn this escalation,” Annan said.
”The Sudanese government should immediately stop this offensive. All parties should keep their promises and respect the resolution of the UN Security Council.” Annan said a solution to the crisis was not a military one and urged all parties to work towards a political accord.

Konare presents African conditions for UN takeover in Darfur

Konare presents African conditions for UN takeover in Darfur

Sept 23, 2006 (PARIS) — African Union Commission Chairperson Alpha Konare has said the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region is "absolutely necessary" but he indicated that the UN would “come, but with a number of conditions”.
AU Commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare inspects African soldiers in Darfur.
Speaking in an interview broadcast by Radio France Internationale on 22 September, Konare said that the AU force did a lot but the lack of resources leads the AU to wish the UN forces.
“It is for this reason that we hoped that the UN would come, but with a number of conditions”.
“That means this has to be done with the Sudanese government’s approval and we have clearly said that even if the UN was to come, the bulk of the troops would be AU forces; the command would be African and the AU political leadership will be there”.
"It is thus clear that we are facing some difficulties with the government of Sudan. The Sudanese government needs to be reassured, but we think that the arrival of the UN force is absolutely necessary and indispensable."
To explain the deterioration of security in Darfur despite the signing of Darfur peace agreement, Konare said “the instability is less by the fact of fighting between the government and the rebels. It was not that at all. There was fighting between the rebel movements themselves.”
He also accused Sudanese official of opting for the military solution to quell the rebellion after the peace accords.
“Some political leanings, in Khartoum of course, thought, well, if we did not obtain peace after the agreement, after all we have military means to solve the problem. This is an illusion. This will lead us to a catastrophe because those who support the logic of war believing they have the ability to resolve the problem is only suicidal”.
“This means the strengthening of military troops and bombings by Sudan should stop. The Darfur problem does not have any military solutions”.
The Au official invited the holdout rebel groups to negotiate with the African Union.
“We are ready to listen to them. It is not a question of renegotiation, but where reassurance need to be given, we are ready to do it. Things cannot continue like this”.
Sudanese government and a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Minni Minawi signed the Darfur Peace Agreement on 5 May in Abuja, Nigeria. The other rebel groups rejected the deal saying the DPA does not meet their demands for more political representation in Darfur and on the national level, they also ask for individual compensations and more guaranties in militia disarmament.

Dying as Darfur awaits peacekeepers

Tawilla town is completely empty. Its dust roads still and quiet.
Repeated attacks from pro-government Janjaweed militia have forced the residents to leave.
Some fled for miles, others moved the short distance to the edge of the AU peacekeepers' base where they huddle close to its barbed wire fence.
On a small hill in between the camp and a government position, about 30 men with white robes and caps are gathered. They are digging a grave for a two-year-old girl.
Laid out on the red sand is her frail body - wrapped in cloth and a plastic grain sack. She died without ever seeing a doctor.
"I think she had a liver problem," said her father, Adam Abdel Majid. "I tried everything to get her medicine but there is nothing here."
'Washed away'
Next to Hawa's grave are 11 other mounds of red sand. Some of these graves are decorated with thorns. An elder takes me to one side.
"These are the people who have died since the last rain," he said. "When the rain comes again, this is all washed away."
Hawa died as a direct consequence of Darfur's increasing levels of violence.
Relief International, the last aid agency in Tawilla, closed down their clinic a month ago after rebels hijacked their vehicle. Twenty thousand people now live without healthcare or sanitation facilities.
A few hundred metres from the graves is where Tawilla's new arrivals build their shelters.
A Sudanese government offensive has displaced thousands more people with a return to the bombing campaigns of earlier in the war.
Military tactics
Hassania Abubakar has been in Tawilla just over a week. She fled her village of Tina on 11 September.
"We were farming near our homes when we saw the planes coming," she said. "I ran to get my children from the water hole where they were playing and we kept on going."
After a day's walk Hassania and her four children arrived at Tawilla. She has not seen her husband since the attack.
Bombing from Russian built Antonov aircraft has become a standard part of Sudanese military tactics. There is no precision targeting - the cargo hatch is simply winched open and the explosives rolled out.
Two other children from Tina were not so lucky. They were hit by the explosions and sustained injuries to their legs. Their parents carried them the 10km (six miles) to the AU base. Their injuries were photographed before they were flown on to hospital.
On the same day the AU says the government also bombed the villages of Tabre, Kalma and Sandingo. The next day, having emptied them of people, ground troops and militia moved in and looted everything.
Across Darfur there have been similar reports of the government clearing rebel-held villages through a combined air and ground campaign.
Khartoum has denied any bombing, calling it "lies designed to further the agenda of those who want to impose United Nations peacekeepers".
Tawilla is one of the worst places in Darfur but it is also a possible vision of the Darfur of the future. A Darfur too dangerous for aid workers to operate.
A Darfur where peacekeepers can only shake their heads at the mess all around them.

U.N. says Sudanese forces indiscriminately bombed areas of North Darfur

U.N. says Sudanese forces indiscriminately bombed areas of North Darfur
Darfursun Sep 23, 2006
GENEVA The United Nations said Friday Sudanese government forces have indiscriminately bombed areas of North Darfur in recent weeks, forcing hundreds of civilians to flee their homes."Civilians in villages in North Darfur are forced to flee due to indiscriminate aerial bombardment by government aircraft waging a military campaign against rebel groups," said Jose Diaz, spokesman for U.N. human rights chief Louise Arbour.Diaz, citing clashes in the locality of Tabarat that led some 400 people to arrive recently in a Darfur camp, said "the military campaign against rebel movements in North Darfur that have not signed on to the peace agreement continued through the first two weeks of September."He said the government attacks were causing more people to be uprooted from their homes and an increase in civilian casualties, but did not provide any figures for civilians recently killed or wounded by the fighting.At least 200,000 people have died and more than 2 million people have been displaced in the Darfur conflict, which began in early 2003 when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Khartoum government. The government is accused of unleashing Arab militiamen blamed for rapes and killings.Despite a May peace agreement, aid workers and rights groups say the violence has increased in recent months. Sudanese government forces on Aug. 28 launched a major offensive believed to involve thousands of troops backed by bomber aircraft and helicopter gunships in a bid to flush out rebel strongholds in the troubled western region.Diaz cited reports from U.N. monitors in Sudan in making the accusations against Khartoum. He said some of the airstrikes have reportedly been carried out by forces dropping bombs from the back of a white plane — appearing to corroborate a claim made earlier this month by Human Rights Watch that the government was indiscriminately attacking villages.Amid the violence and death in Darfur, Diaz said the conviction two weeks ago of a soldier in North Darfur for raping an 11-year-old girl was a positive note. The soldier was sentenced by a court in Kabkabiya to five years in prison."The court heard testimony from the victim, a child witness, and an adult, and considered a medical report that confirmed the victim was raped," Diaz said. "The conviction shows that there can be action to stem sexual violence when there is the required will."U.N. human rights reports have criticized authorities in Sudan for failing to punish acts of sexual violence committed in Darfur. Diaz said women remain vulnerable to attack by militia members when leaving towns or camps for displaced people. Human rights monitors have warned of a recent increase in rape cases in the region.