Appeal to the African Union: UN peace-keeping force for Darfur now!

In the light of the visit of the President of the Commission of the African Union (AU), Alpha Oumar Konaré, in Berlin today (Thursday) the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) appeals to the AU not to stand in the way of a UN peace-keeping force being sent to the west of the Sudan.

"Further delays in the stationing of a peace-keeping force will cost several thousand human lives every month” warned the GfbV Africa expert, Ulrich Delius. It is not reasons of state, but humanity which counts in the decision on the future of the Darfur mission of the AU on Friday. The Peace and Safety Council of the AU in Addis Ababa will decide whether the Darfur mission of the AU will be handed over to the United Nations as planned. The Sudanese government spoke out strongly in the past few days against the stationing of UN peace-keeping forces in the west of the Sudan.

The situation in Darfur will also be at the centre of today’s meeting between Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the President of the AU Commission. Konaré held discussions on Wednesday in Brussels with the European Commission, the United Nations, the USA and the Sudanese Vice-President, Ali Osman Mohamed Taha on the details of a Darfur missionof the United Nations. The AU declared on 12th January 2006 its general preparedness to hand over its mission to the UN. However the Sudan threatened to resign from the AU if the AU were to accede to the request of the UN General Secretary and open the way for a UN peace-keeping force. A UN operation is not an expression of "neo-colonialism”, as the Sudan declares, but the consequence of systematic and continued violations of fundamental international conventions for the protection of the civilian population by the government in Khartoum, said Delius and made the appeal: "The international community of states must no longer appease the Sudan and allow itself to be browbeaten. Nearly 400,000 people have so far fallen victim to the delaying tactics of the Sudanese leadership and their inhuman policies in Darfur. The AU mission has not in the past 23 months succeeded in noticeably improving the protection of the civilian population in the west of the Sudan.” The consequences must at last be drawn from this failure. For in the last resort Darfur is not a sandbox game for the solution of regional conflicts, it is a matter of the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. This mission was from the outset too much for the AU and everyone knew it. Only a few weeks after the arrival of the AU observers in Darfur it was clear that the Sudanese authorities were playing a cat and mouse game with them: for example they hindered the arrival of the AU representatives and refused to supply their helicopters with fuel.