Mission to determine government's commitment to peace in Darfur

A joint mission comprising UN staff, government officials, ambassadors and Sudanese government ministers will travel to Darfur next week to observe at "first hand" whether Khartoum is making progress on its pledges to disarm the Janjawid militias attacking civilians, and to improve security, the UN said on Thursday. Jan Pronk, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's recently appointed special representative for Sudan, told reporters that the mission would spend three days in Darfur assessing three questions: the degree of security; the current state of the mainly Arab militias; and the future for the over one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have been driven from their homes by militia attacks. The mission would discuss what measures, if any, might be necessary to stop the Janjawid, Pronk added. The visit has been organised under the auspices of the Joint Implementation Mechanism (JIM), a body set up by Annan and the government to monitor progress made on the implementation of a joint communique signed by the UN and the Khartoum government on 3 July. Under the terms of the agreement, Sudan promised to disarm the Janjawid, improve humanitarian access to the region, provide security for the IDPs and end impunity for perpetrators of human rights abuses. The UN vowed to deliver urgently needed aid and to play its part in any peace talks that were held. So far, Pronk said Sudan had shown progress on improving access for humanitarian workers, but that there had been no improvement in security for the over one million IDPs in Darfur. He added that it was crucial for the 15-member UN Security Council to formally endorse the JIM and "give teeth to the mechanism".