Sudan & UN Troops: Contradiction?

Posted on November 28, 2006
Filed Under Sudan, Bashir, UN |

In this article Bashir says the following

“Any talk that we accepted joint forces is a lie,” Bashir told a news conference.

Bashir reiterated his rejection of a U.N. Security Council resolution authorising about 22,500 U.N. troops and police to take over from the ill-equipped AU force which has failed to stem the violence in Darfur.

“It is clear that any forces coming to Sudan under resolution 1706 are colonising forces,” he said.

And this article states the following

The African Union and United Nations have agreed on the first phase of transforming the cash-strapped AU peace mission in Sudan’s Darfur region into a “hybrid” AU-UN force, officials said.

Amid lingering questions over Khartoum’s readiness to accept UN participation in a joint peacekeeping operation, UN and AU officials signed a memorandum of understanding here Saturday for phase one of the plan, they said.

…The second is a “Heavy Support Package” and the third and most contentious stage is a merger, on which Khartoum’s position remains unclear after an agreement “in principal” was announced here on November 16 by UN chief Kofi Annan.

…Khartoum has given contradictory signals about its acceptance of a hybrid mission, with debate continuing over the exact number of UN personnel to be involved and what countries could contribute.

Has Sudan really accepted the deal and is simply downplaying that fact? Or are the UN and AU moving ahead without a clear “green light” from al-Bashir? The language used in recent reports is so blurry sometimes and I’m trying hard to make sense of it.

Comments

4 Responses to “Sudan & UN Troops: Contradiction?”

  1. The Raccoon on November 28th, 2006 2:55 pm

    Seems to me like Sudan is playing the waiting game, much like Iran. Just stall everything long enough and there won’t be a need for any troops… unless they come with shovels.

  2. Roman Kalik on November 28th, 2006 4:22 pm

    Yep. The logic seems to be to keep the clock ticking until the problem becomes an even bigger problem, as long as it isn’t the regime’s problem.

  3. Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Sudan: UN troops in Sudan? on November 29th, 2006 11:57 am

    […] Sudanese Thinker is trying to make sense of the deal between the Sudanese government and the United Nations, “Has Sudan really accepted the deal and is simply downplaying that fact? Or are the UN and AU moving ahead without a clear “green light” from al-Bashir? The language used in recent reports is so blurry sometimes and I’m trying hard to make sense of it.” Ndesanjo Macha […]

  4. Vigilante on November 30th, 2006 2:32 am

    I haven’t been following the Sudan as closely as the rest of the readers here. But my perception of Bashir is that he is doing the diplomatic dance,, and that he will forever retrace these dance steps, because only brute force will be persuasive. The world needs a super power with moral standing, ethical leaders not given to wreckless adventures. There used to be one. Where did it go? What happened to it?

Leave a Reply