UN brands sex allegations as “false
CAIRO: After years of intense diplomacy, the Sudanese government finally agreed Tuesday to allow UN forces to enter Sudan jointly with African Union (AU) troops as a hybrid force to attempt to quell the violence in Darfur.
On Wednesday Egypt welcomed Sudan s acceptance of the joint AU-UN force, adding that any talk of sanctions against Khartoum was now futile.
By taking this step, Sudan has completed its obligations … It is now up to the international community to continue efforts for a political solution, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said.
Accepting the force unconditionally makes talk of sanctions futile, he said in a statement.
After trilateral talks at the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the AU, the UN and the Sudanese government released a statement, read by the AU s Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit, in which they “agreed on the need for an immediate, comprehensible cease-fire, accompanied by an inclusive political process.
“The proposed operation would contribute considerably to the stabilisation of the situation in Darfur, in its political, humanitarian and security dimensions, Djinnit added.
According to Djinnit, the Sudanese government has agreed to a hybrid force of between 17,000 and 19,000 troops with an additional police force of 3,700. Currently, there are only 7,000 under-equipped AU troops in Darfur who have been unable to stem the violence.
The international community have been pressuring Khartoum to allow international peacekeeping forces to enter Darfur since the conflict began. The Sudanese government had resisted such efforts, claiming they would impinge on the country’s territorial sovereignty.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the latest developments and released a statement which said “the secretary general welcomes today s positive conclusion of the high-level AU-UN consultations with the government of Sudan (in Addis Ababa) on the hybrid operation and looks forward to expeditiously implementing the three-phase approach to peacekeeping in Darfur.
Nabil Abdel Fatah, expert at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic studies, told The Daily Star Egypt, “The manoeuvre that the Sudanese government has done to distance UN troops has failed completely. International will has found a way to end the genocide by the Janjaweed and Sudanese army forces.
“What is shameful is that the Sudanese government is complicit in eradicating non-Arab Muslims. What is happening in Darfur is for ethnic reasons, not religious reasons. The Sudanese ruling government bases their platform on an Islamic ideology. What they are doing to non-Arab Muslims is a contradiction of their own stance.
There have been doubts cast on this latest development concerning overall command of the forces, and it is still subject to a funding vote in the UN.
Mutrif Siddig, head of Sudan s delegation in Addis Ababa, told Reuters that the “command and control structures should be under the AU with the support of the United Nations.
Doubts have also been voiced by the United States concerning the deal. US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad voiced concerns that Sudan had not specifically agreed to non-African troops.
He said, “If it [Sudan s acceptance] is conditional as we hear, that there will be only African troops involved and no non-Africans, that would be putting a condition on the acceptance . and that would be unacceptable.
The ambassador added that sanctions on Sudan would still be under consideration if it appeared that Sudan’s acceptance of the agreement was conditional.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also seemed sceptical about the agreement, saying the force would not be effective if the “fine print of the agreement limited the selection to African troops only.
He told reporters that in that case the troop quota would not be fulfilled because “the assets aren’t there.
McCormack added, “So, to say that the force would be limited to African troops is, in effect, to say that you are not agreeing to the full 17,000 to 19,000 troops, which everybody … believes is what you need in order to perform the mission.
200,000 people have died in Darfur since the beginning of the unrest in 2003, with an extra 2.5 million displaced, when local Arab militias known as the Janjaweed were used by the government to quell an armed uprising by non-Arab rebels who accused Khartoum of ignoring their plight.
In related news, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (Unmis) has refuted media allegations of sexual misconduct by its workers.
Sudanese newspaper Akhir Lahza claimed on its front page on May 8 that an Unmis peacekeeper perpetrated a sexual assault on a child in Wau. Additionally the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph had run a story earlier this year that children had been raped by Unmis peacekeepers.
The UN issued a statement refuting these allegations which stated: “Following a detailed investigation by the independent UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), no evidence of an incident of sexual abuse in Wau, as described by Akhir Lhaza, was uncovered. This was confirmed by local police and hospital services.
The statement continued, “A letter was sent to the editor of Akhir Laza explaining the results of the UN inquiry and requesting the editor to provide OIOS with evidence which might substantiate his newspaper’s allegations. If the paper was unable to provide evidence, Unmis requested that Akhir Lhaza should then publicly retract its story. On 23 May, Akhir Laza published on its third page, an acknowledgement that the Unmis inquiry results confirmed that the local police and Wau hospital, as well as the Unmis Head of Office, were never notified of such an incident. Akhir Laza also issued an apology to Unmis and to its readers for publication of the original article.
As regards the story that The Daily Telegraph published, the statement said “Unmis wishes to make clear that, since this story appeared in January 2007, OIOS investigators have repeatedly requested The Daily Telegraph’s editor and lawyers to provide them with evidence of the allegations. To date, the newspaper has refused to co-operate, leading the investigators to believe that no such evidence exists. Additional reporting by AFP
