AU may turn over Darfur mission
2006-01-13 08:29
Addis Ababa - The African Union said on Thursday it may be forced to hand over its peacekeeping mission in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region to the United Nations if international donors fail to plug a funding shortfall.
A report presented to the pan-African body's Peace and Security Council said the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) could not be sustained beyond March without a huge infusion of cash and that the operation might have to be turned over to the United Nations.
"At present, no commitment has been made by partners for the funding of the mission beyond March 2006," AU Commission chairperson Aplha Omar Konare said in the report, which called for a nine-month extension of the AMIS mandate provided that new money was forthcoming.
"If the financing is not coming for the extension, the international community may pass the mandate to the UN," he said, noting that the mission costs $17m a month, nearly all of which is paid for by donors.
In December, the AU said it needed more than $130m in new contributions to meet the $465m it needs for AMIS operations in the current financial year that ends in May.
AMIS, financed mainly by the European Union, the United Nations and the United States, currently has some 7 800 personnel, including peacekeepers and observers, in Darfur, where as many as 300 000 people have been killed and more than two million displaced in three years of conflict.
'Rampant rapes, killings'
Konare said the Addis Ababa-based AU was not trying to run from its commitments, stressing that if the money was made available, it would boost efforts to restore stability in Darfur.
"In the coming weeks and months, the commission will do everything to improve the performance of AMIS and enhance its effectiveness," he said.
In addition to those efforts, Konare urged the international community to press Darfur's two rebel groups - the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement - and Khartoum to hold to a shaky April 2004 ceasefire and truly engage in AU-mediated peace talks.
"It is a matter of exerting the greatest possible pressure on the Sudanese parties to bring them to honour the commitment made and to negotiate with the necessary flexibility the lasting resolution of the conflict," he said.
War broke out in Darfur in early 2003 when rebel groups began fighting what they say is the political and economic marginalisation of the region's black African tribes by the Arab-led regime in Khartoum.
UN agencies have said Darfur is the world's worst humanitarian crisis with reports of rampant rapes, extrajudicial killings and other atrocities.