UN steps up pressure for "hybrid" force for Darfur
Source: Reuters
By Irwin Arieff UNITED NATIONS, Nov 13 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked the major powers to join him at a meeting of African leaders with reluctant Sudanese officials to discuss how to get a bigger and better-funded peacekeeping force into Darfur, a U.N. official said on Monday. Intensifying efforts to move a "hybrid" U.N.-African Union force into Darfur, Annan invited the foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China to send high-level representatives to the meeting scheduled for Thursday in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the official said. Senior officials from Egypt, Gabon and the Congo Republic have also been invited, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the invitations have not yet been made public. Annan issued the invitations as the U.N. Security Council on Friday canceled plans to send a delegation to another meeting on the Darfur crisis on Monday in Addis Ababa, unable to agree on who could go and what the delegation would be authorized to discuss. Both meetings were intended to explore how to work around Sudan's flat-out opposition to the deployment of a large U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur, to take over from the under-financed and ill-equipped African Union force now there. More than 200,000 people have been killed and another 2.5 million left homeless in three years of fighting between mostly non-Arab rebels and the Arab-dominated government, backed by brutal militia. An Aug. 31 Security Council resolution authorized up to 22,500 U.N. troops, police and civilians for Darfur, providing the Sudan government agreed. But President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has refused to accept their deployment, calling it colonialism. His stance has put pressure on the United Nations and the Security Council to look at alternative ways to beef up peacekeeping operations in Darfur. Annan also circulated a position paper to the countries invited to Thursday's meeting that called for a phased approach to a strengthening of the existing AU force and a revival of the Sudanese economy through greater U.N. participation, the official said. The goal would be an African Union-U.N. force that would have a "predominantly African character" but be adequately funded and equipped to better protect Darfur's civilian population and refugee camps, according to the paper. The United Nations has already sent some U.N. experts, communications equipment and logistics support, and as its next step could send several hundred soldiers, police officers and civilian personnel as well as aircraft, the official said, citing the paper. While African states would be the first to be asked to provide troops and police, other U.N. members might also be approached if needed, and the 192-nation U.N. General Assembly could be asked to fully fund the mission, the official said.
| AlertNet news is provided by |  |
