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UN accord on Darfur

Security Council votes unanimously to hasten deployment of forces into Sudan to enforce peace deal

BY TINA SUSMAN | Newsday Staff Writer

May 17, 2006

In a rare show of unanimity, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution yesterday intended to speed the deployment of UN troops into Sudan's war-torn Darfur region to enforce a new peace accord.

The resolution, which passed 15-0, demanded that Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a longtime opponent of UN intervention in Darfur, permit a UN team into the region within a week to assess needs for the peacekeeping mission. The UN troops, which Bush administration officials have said should number at least 14,000, would replace an all-African force that was deployed in Darfur in 2004. The new force is not expected to include Americans.

Within a week of the assessment team's return, the Security Council is to be advised of the UN mission's ideal size and other requirements, the resolution said.

China, Russia and Qatar, which have opposed tough resolutions in the past because of economic and political ties with Sudan, voted for the measure after the African Union expressed support for it. On Monday, the union, which never had the manpower or the mandate to quell Darfur's violence, had reiterated its plan to pass the task to the UN.

The U.S. government, which has deemed Darfur's 3-year-old war a genocide, sponsored the measure and its UN representative, John Bolton, said the unanimous approval "sends a strong message" to Sudan that it must drop its resistance to a UN force.

The resolution, however, does not state what action Sudan might face if it does not let the team in.

Bolton said he expected Sudan to cooperate. "I think that's inherent in their decision to sign the peace agreement," he said, referring to an accord signed May 5 by Sudanese officials and one of Darfur's three main rebel groups. "I think the government of Sudan would find itself in a very difficult position if it didn't cooperate."

Darfur's war began in February 2003 when non-Arab rebels took up arms against al-Bashir's Arab regime, accusing it of neglecting the remote region. Since then, as many as 400,000 people, mostly civilians, have died and at least 2 million people have been left homeless.

The peace accord called for the government to disarm pro-government militiamen known as janjaweed and to grant more political autonomy to Darfur. It also called for an immediate cease-fire. But critics of the plan say it doesn't have a chance of success without the support of two holdout rebel groups, and without deployment of UN peacekeepers to enforce the cease-fire.

Already, UN officials say there have been several janjaweed attacks in violation of the truce.

In Washington yesterday, seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who accuse Khartoum of atrocities in Darfur, were arrested outside the Sudanese embassy and face $50 fines for blocking the entrance to the building. Five other House members were arrested last month after a similar protest.