KENYA: U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the UN has not given up on Darfur force plan and calls on countries to stop interfering in Somalia

The U.N. may post observers on Chad's border with turbulent Darfur and has not given up on a plan to strengthen a peacekeeping force in Darfur itself, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday (November 15). The African Union (AU) has 7,000 troops in Darfur, where some 200,000 people have died in three years of violence and more than 2.5 million have fled their homes -- many into Chad. Speaking to reporters in Kenya, Annan said the situation on the Chad-Sudan frontier was fragile. l "We need to continue our efforts to calm the Darfur and try and stabilise the situation and get assistance to the internally displaced people and to gain access for humanitarian workers while we press ahead with the implementation of the political agreement signed in Abuja. The two issues are linked in the sense that the border area between Chad and Sudan is very fragile and volatile and we've had cross border attacks and we are looking at the possibility of putting UN observers or some international presence on the border and working with the government of Chad to ensure that the refugees who are in Chad are protected and to ensure that cross border attacks would also be minimised but we have not given up the idea of strengthening the force in Darfur because you need to do the two. If you abandon Darfur and try to strengthen the Chad side of the border it is not going to work," he said. The U.N. hopes to reinforce the AU force with hundreds of peacekeepers and technical support, eventually forming a proposed large "hybrid" force under joint command. Sudan has rejected that, insisting that the AU must remain in charge. Annan will take part in high level talks on the Darfur crisis on Thursday (November 16) in Ethiopia. He also spoke on the ongoing tensions in Somalia. "The people of Somalia have suffered for a long time. It is a country that has been in crisis for well over 15 years and can be described as a failed state and I hope that they will wake up. The international community would want to assist, but the Somalis have the primary responsibility and I hope they will really continue the talks, I would also urge neighbouring countries to avoid interfering in Somalia, it is a very difficult and volatile situation, we do not need to see it further complicated by neighbouring countries rushing in with troops or guns to support one side or the other, it will only compound the problem," said Annan. United Nations Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland, appealed on Wednesday for an end to attacks against civilians and aid workers in the war-ravaged Darfur region. Egeland, also the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator, made the call after a meeting in Khartoum with Sudanese minister for Humanitarian Affairs Costi Manibe. It came amid increased attacks against civilians in Darfur, the majority of them believed to be carried out by janjaweed, militiamen who have killed and plundered across the region, helping to drive some 2 million people into camps. At least 12 aid workers have also been killed in Darfur since May when one of three negotiating rebel factions signed a peace agreement with the government in Abuja, Nigeria. "In this hour of need for the people of Darfur we need to see that everything is done to avoid further attacks against civilian population and further attacks against humanitarian workers," Egeland said. Humanitarian workers and journalists have also accused the government of obstructing their work in Darfur, a charge the authorities denied. "We will continue to offer help and facilitate the work of humanitarian officials in Darfur," said head of Sudan's Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), Hasabo Mohammed Abdallah. The AU 7,000-strong peace force in Darfur that has been unable to stem the violence. A U.N. official said on Monday (November 13) the world body will give the AU 77 million U.S. dollars to pay for more troops and equipment. But some analysts say only a greatly expanded force with a more robust mandate will stop the killing that Washington has called genocide, a charge Khartoum denies. The conflict in Darfur has intensified after a short-lived lull which followed the partial peace agreement signed by a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement in May. The conflict broke out in 2003 when local people, mostly non-Arabs, took up arms to fight for a greater share in power and central government resources. Since then, the violence has spilled across the border to neighbouring Chad and Central African Republic. The United States and UN have tried to persuade the Sudanese government to let a UN peacekeeping force deploy in Darfur but Khartoum has refused, saying that to accept foreign troops would be like a return to colonialism. In the face of Khartoum's refusal, advocates of a UN mission are looking at alternatives that will protect the people of Darfur while winning Sudanese government approval. Until a future peacekeeping force can be agreed, the AU force has said it needed funding for equipment and at least 4,000 more troops to enforce a ceasefire. A web of nations and armed groups are fuelling Somalia's march to war, according to a U.N. commissioned report which gave detailed evidence of cooperation between Somali Islamists and established Islamic militants. An advance copy of the report to the U.N. Security Council, obtained by Reuters on Monday (November 13), paints the most comprehensive picture yet of disparate foreign interests hardening into alliances with Somalia's interim government and its powerful Islamist rivals. It also says Iran may have sought to trade arms for uranium from Somalia or elsewhere in Africa to fuel its nuclear ambitions. Both groups vying for control of the Horn of Africa nation since Islamists took the capital Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords in June have extensive foreign state backing. Ethiopia and Eritrea, backing the government and Islamists respectively, are the biggest violators of a 1992 U.N. arms embargo on Somalia, the report says, adding they have sent in vast quantities of weapons and equipment, and provided training. "There is the distinct possibility that the momentum towards a military solution inside Somalia may spill over into a direct state-to-state conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, as well as acts of terrorism in other vulnerable states of the region," it says. The report by the panel, which includes two arms experts from Belgium and the United States, a maritime expert from Kenya and a Colombian finance expert, covers violations of the Somali arms ban since June. A Security Council committee was due to meet on Friday (November 17) to discuss the report with the experts present. Earlier reports by the experts monitoring violations of a the world's most flouted arms ban have documented state intervention, but for the first time the panel's report gives evidence of organised intervention involving foreign militants. The Islamists have always denied the presence of foreign fighters in the ranks of their military, which far eclipses the government in size, strength and organisation.

ITN Source | November 16, 2006

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