AU has troops - but no money
2004-09-23 11:06
New York - The African Union can quickly mobilise up to 5 000 troops to help end the looting and killing in western Sudan, but it needs hundreds of millions of dollars to deploy the force, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has said.
"The troops are ready," said Obasanjo, president of the 53-nation regional bloc. "The first pledge which we got was from Canada," which contributed $20-million on Wednesday, he said, but the vastly expanded force now requires "hundreds of millions."
In an interview on Wednesday night, Obasanjo expressed hope that the United States will be generous in helping Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region.
On Saturday, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution strongly endorsing the deployment of a beefed-up African Union force with an expanded monitoring mission that would try to prevent attacks and mediate to stop the conflict from escalating. It threatens oil sanctions if the government doesn't move quickly to help stop the attacks.
Conflict started in 2003
The resolution "will caution the government of Sudan to know that the world is not just folding its hands looking - and that the Sudanese government cannot do what it likes," Obasanjo said.
"The internal affairs of every country today is the concern of the international community and more so, in Africa, the concern of the AU," he said.
The African Union has about 80 military observers in Darfur - a region about the size of France - protected by just over 300 soldiers, monitoring a rarely observed cease-fire signed in April by the government and rebels.
The conflict began when two Darfur rebel groups with roots in the region's ethnic African tribes rose up in February 2003, accusing the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum of neglect and discrimination. The government is accused of trying to suppress the rebellion by backing ethnic Arab herdsmen known as Janjaweed.
During the past 19 months, over 50 000 people have been killed, dozens of villages have been burned, and more than 1.2 million people have fled their homes. The United Nations calls it the world's worst humanitarian crisis and the US Congress has called it genocide, a label Obasanjo disagrees with because he does not see deliberate targeting of a religious, racial or ethnic group.
5 000 troops
The Nigerian leader also vehemently disagreed with reports that peace talks between the government and rebels which he has been hosting in the capital, Abuja, had broken down.
The parties have agreed on a month-long recess and when they return they will sign a humanitarian protocol, then tackle security issues, and eventually head on to the difficult issue of political arrangements for a permanent solution to the Darfur problem, he said.
"We need between 3 000 and 5 000 troops to carry out protection of the observer team, of the force itself," he said.
- AP