AU forces for Darfur soon
INDICATIONS emerged at the weekend that African Union (AU) forces should be fully deployed in the crisis-torn Darfur region of Sudan by the end of the year despite the delays in providing housing infrastructure for the troops.
Speaking in Sudan at the weekend, the new head of the AU mission, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, said a joint declaration of principles negotiated and largely agreed upon should be signed within the first two weeks of resumption of Darfur peace talks in Abuja by this weekend.
Kingibe, a former Nige`rian Foreign Affairs Minister, told reporters in Khartoum: "We expect that before long, within a week or two, the declaration of principles which was negotiated and largely agreed upon would be finalised and signed."
"We believe that early in the New Year, we will be making a robust approach toward inching to a final peace deal."
The United Nations (UN) has threatened Sudan with possible sanctions if it fails to stop the violence in Darfur, which it says has created one of the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
More than 1.6 million people have been driven from their homes into makeshift camps. The United States (U.S.) says the violence is genocide, a charge Khartoum denies.
The AU has been slowly increasing its force in remote Darfur toward a 3,300-strong contingent with a stronger mandate, which includes monitoring a shaky April cease-fire, monitoring Sudanese police and limited powers to protect civilians.
But Kingibe who claimed that the slow progress was not because of lack of funding or difficulties in finding suitable troops said: "It is better that we synchronise the deployment of the troops to the availability of facilities on the ground. We are working on how we can speed up the provision of infrastructure on the ground to the deployment of the troops."
"I think that by December 15, we should have quite a number of troops in. By the end of December, we should have all the complements of the troops on the ground."
After years of skirmishes between Arab nomads and mostly non-Arab farmers over scarce resources in arid Darfur, rebels took up arms early last year accusing Khartoum of neglect and of arming Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages.
Khartoum admits arming some militias to fight the rebels but denies any link to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws.
Kingibe, who was the AU's special envoy to south Sudan, where a separate and bloodier civil war has raged for more than 20 years, said a peace deal for the south would help solve the Darfur conflict when the southern rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), joins the post-peace central government in Khartoum.
"A deal in the south will also involve the participation of the SPLM in the government of national unity in Khartoum and I am sure that they will make their contributions to perhaps approaching more creatively the solutions to the other problems facing the country," he said.
Meanwhile, Sudan has accused rebels in north Darfur of continuing attacks that have forced the withdrawal of the aid group, Medecins Sans Frontieres and affected thousands of people.
The group, also called Doctors Without Borders, confirmed that an attack forced its team and 2,000 civilians to flee the village of Saraf Ayat recently, but the aid group did not identify the attackers.
Abdul Rahman Abu Doum, an under-secretary at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, said the violence in Saraf Ayat and Korma affected 4,500 people, but he gave no details.
The area has seen numerous attacks despite a November 9 cease-fire between the government and rebel groups.
Also recently, Sudan told the local director of the British aid group, Oxfam International that he had to leave the country. And Amnesty International accused Sudan of not only allowing people to get away with murder, torture and displacement, but suggested that it follows a policy of including human rights abusers in its state security forces.
Sudan had ordered the expulsion of the directors of Oxfam and Save the Children UK, accusing them of issuing statements that sent "signals of support" to Darfur rebels. It later said it had postponed the order, following mediation by Western embassies and the UN.
However, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs has reportedly told the Oxfam director that although his expulsion was postponed, he had to leave Sudan because he had applied for an exit visa.
