Control conflict in Darfur, Annan urges African Union
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged an African Union summit yesterday to back peace in Sudan's vast Darfur area, saying the crisis threatened to destabilize the region if attacks on civilians were not stopped.
Sudan reluctantly agreed to about 300 African Union troops being deployed to protect truce monitors in Darfur, where fighting has driven more than a million people from their homes in what the United Nations says is the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Annan told the summit of about 30 heads of state that conflicts, including the fighting in the west of oil-producing Sudan, were holding back the 53-member union's struggle to defeat poverty and hunger on the continent of 830 million.
''The vision you are working so hard to achieve is imperiled by the persistence of deadly conflict. I am thinking of the horrific situation in Darfur," said Annan, who visited the remote area last week and held talks with Sudan's leaders.
The Darfur crisis is seen by analysts and diplomats as a major test for the two-year-old AU, which is trying to win more Western investment in return for ending wars and despotism and curbing corruption.
It is preparing to send hundreds of Nigerian and Rwandan troops to Darfur to guard an eventual 60 African peace monitors as well as to patrol refugee camps and border areas between Sudan and Chad. Some 200,000 Sudanese have fled to safety in that area from attacks by Arab militias.
''As long as this is a will and the decision of the [AU] commission to take protection forces for the monitors, we are not going to block it," said Mustafa Osman Ismail, the Sudanese foreign minister. . ''[But] we'd prefer not to take this step now."
After years of tension in Darfur between nomadic Arab tribes and African farmers, two groups rebelled last year, accusing Khartoum of arming the Arab militias known as Janjaweed. The Sudanese government denies it.
US officials and human rights groups say the Janjaweed are carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Khartoum says the Janjaweed are outlaws and has promised to try to disarm them.
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, whose country is among those ready to send in armed forces, said he believed the AU should act swiftly and decisively.
''I think there is the need to create a big force and go and deal with the problem," Kagame said. ''The thing is to protect the people who are targeted, not observers."
The summit was considering a resolution on Darfur voicing grave concern about human rights violations by the Janjaweed.
Khartoum has agreed to attend AU-mediated talks on Darfur in Ethiopia this month and said it would cooperate fully.
Despite pressure from the AU, the United Nations, and the United States, the path to peace in Darfur appears uncertain.
Two rebel groups say they will not negotiate unless Sudan first disarms the marauding Arab militias and respects a shaky cease-fire agreed to in April.
