UN-Truth

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, senior UN official sent to Khartoum by the Secretary-General to follow up on the three-phase approach to the deployment of peacekeepers in Darfur, met with Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir Thursday and delivered a letter from UN SG Kofi Annan (the letter has since been circulated to the members of the UN Security Council).

The UN Spokesman told journalists at UNHQ/NY that Abdallah would wait in Khartoum for a response.  

On Tuesday, the UNSG said in his farewell news conference that the UN troops would not be ”going to Darfur to arrest Sudanese leaders. Their responsibility and mandate will be to help create a secure environment in Darfur that will allow us to protect the internally displaced, allow access to the needy by the humanitarian workers, as well as give us time to speed up the political process and strengthen the ceasefire and ensure that we have an effective ceasefire commission that monitors it. But we are not going there to arrest; that is not our mandate. And, so, I don’t think one should keep the troops out because they think we are coming there to arrest them.”

The SG also said that: “Ould-Abdallah is going with very specific questions and clarifications, which will allow us to move forward expeditiously. I have also made it clear to him and to the African Union that the possibility that the United Nations will pay for the operations will only happen if the Council has confidence that the arrangements that are being put in place will make a difference and there will be a credible force on the ground to do what is required. So when Ahmedou comes back, we will have a sense of whether he’s got the commitments or not.”

The Associated Press reported on Friday that a Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman suggested that his Government has agreed to a UN peacekeeping role in the troubled Darfur region, but in a mission with mostly African Union troops — and he added that the force would be commanded by the African Union.  Sadeq Al-Magli said the UN would mainly provide technical assistance, consultants and military and police experts.  Al-Magli’s comments reflected his government’s longstanding opposition to the deployment of 20,000 UN troops as proposed by the UN Security Council.  Though the UN had been pushing for a much larger role in Darfur–where AU peacekeepers are already operating– in an effort to put an end to fighting, the UN scaled back its plans to replace the current AU force of 7,000 troops in Darfur with a much bigger UN operation; since early November, the UN has been talking about putting in smaller numbers of UN personnel as well as technical and financial assistance to reinforce the AU troops.  Earlier on Friday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was encouraged that Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir will shortly agree to a hybrid AU-UN force, along with a ceasefire and renewed peace efforts.”

Filed under: Kofi Annan, Sudan - Darfur, UN Secretary-General