Mbeki to push Sudan on UN force
2006-06-13 21:06
Pretoria - President Thabo
Mbeki will visit Sudan on June 20, hoping to press Khartoum to
approve a UN takeover of an African Union peacekeeping
operation there, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
Mbeki's one-day visit would include talks with Sudanese
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and first vice-president Salva
Kiir, who is also president of South Sudan, deputy foreign
Minister Aziz Pahad said.
"This will be a good opportunity for the president...to
discuss progress made," Pahad told reporters.
He said Mbeki's visit would seek ways to strengthen
implementation of Sudan's comprehensive peace agreement, the
deal struck 18 months ago that ended a 20-year civil war in the
southern part of the country.
However, he said Mbeki would also press Khartoum to agree to
an African Union proposal to allow the United Nations to take
over from a 7 000-member AU force that is struggling to monitor
a widely-ignored truce in Sudan's western Darfur region.
Situation 'grave'
"You cannot manage without it (a UN presence)," Pahad
said. "The situation is grave."
Pahad said South Africa hoped most of the peacekeepers would
still come from African countries
This could allay what
analysts say are Sudanese fears that a UN force would seek to
arrest officials and government-allied militia leaders likely to
be indicted by the International Criminal Court investigating
alleged war crimes.
He said Pretoria - which has 437 troops in the AU
force in Darfur - believed that only the UN would have the
resources needed to mount an effective peacekeeping operation.
A senior UN official said on Monday that
UN troops would not be able to deploy in Darfur before January
2007.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than
two million forced from their homes in fighting since non-Arab
rebels took up arms in early 2003, accusing the Arab-dominated
government of monopolising wealth and power and marginalising
Darfur.
Washington has described the violence as genocide, which is
denied by Khartoum.