Military planning team to visit Darfur

A joint team of the African Union and the United Nations is scheduled to visit Darfur on Tuesday to determine what measures are needed to strengthen the ill-equipped peacekeeping force in the troubled western Sudanese region. "The political team will arrive tomorrow in El Fasher [the capital of North Darfur state] and stay for 3 to 4 days," a source in the region said on Monday. "Members of the technical assessment team already arrived in Darfur on Sunday and are expected to stay in the three states for 10 days to do their work." The UN is preparing for the potential deployment of a stronger peacekeeping force in Darfur by the end of the year to take over from the underfunded AU troops, who are unable to enforce a much violated ceasefire in the region. Khartoum, which has repeatedly rejected such a transition, allowed the assessment team to go to Darfur after weeks of diplomatic haggling. The team, led by Jean-Marie Guehenno, UN under-secretary general for peacekeeping operations, and Saeed Djinnit, the AU commissioner for peace and security, met the leaders of the four main northern opposition parties in Khartoum on Sunday to discuss the 5 May Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) and plan for a transition from AU to UN forces. The Popular Congress Party, the National Umma Party, the Sudanese Communist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party criticised the DPA as non-inclusive but acknowledged that a UN deployment would assist the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population and help protect civilians. The meeting came a day after the team discussed a possible UN peacekeeping role in Darfur with Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol. Guehenno said the UN was "concerned with supporting peace in Darfur in the same way it is supporting, through UNMIS [the UN Mission in Sudan], the implementation of the CPA [the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the 21-year civil war in the south]". The team was also exploring ways to strengthen the "AU forces in Darfur in the coming stage and finding mechanisms for a possible transition of AU to UN," he said. Sudan remains opposed to a UN deployment in Darfur, and a foreign ministry spokesman later told reporters that priority ought to be placed on reinforcing the AU’s capabilities. "Our official position is now to emphasise the need for strengthening the African Union forces in Darfur," Jamal Mohamed Ibrahim said. He left the door open for a UN role in the region, however, by adding there might be "some sort of UN participation complementing the AU role in Darfur." Akol said the joint team could not tell Khartoum what the mandate and aim of a possible UN force in Darfur would be until after they had visited the region and assessed what was required. "Any decisions of any sort will be taken after that," he said. The joint mission will return to Khartoum for further talks after visiting Darfur. The mission, which began on Friday, is expected to last around 18 days.