May 16, 2006

Security Council Backs Darfur Peace Accord

UNITED NATIONS, May 16 — The Security Council unanimously passed a resolution today calling for strict observance of a new peace accord in Darfur and speeded-up arrangements on a United Nations peacekeeping force to replace the strapped African Union force now there.

The 15-to-0 vote came after a meeting of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Monday urged the Sudanese government to drop objections to putting the force in Darfur, an area the size of France, under eventual United Nations command.

In their communiqué, the African Union diplomats also gave two holdout rebel groups two weeks to sign the peace accord between the Sudanese government and the main rebel organization or face international sanctions against their leaders.

The accord, signed May 5 in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, was aimed at ending a conflict — marked by extraordinary brutality and labeled genocide by the Bush administration — that has killed more than 200,000 people and forced two million villagers from their homes.

The cease-fire is already being widely violated, and the 7,000- person African Union force is unable and ill-equipped to exert meaningful control over the marauding rebel groups and government- supported militias that are committing atrocities with impunity.

Jan Pronk, the United Nations envoy to Sudan, told reporters in Addis Ababa, "It is now high time to take very concrete steps towards a stronger force."

Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency aid coordinator who has just visited Darfur, told a news conference in Geneva that failure to put the peace accord into effect would bring on "a downward spiral which will get totally out of control and go into the abyss."

The resolution, drafted by the United States, sets up a timetable for beginning the transition to a redoubled United Nations force to be deployed by the end of September.

It says a joint African Union- United Nations assessment mission should go to Darfur within a week and that Secretary General Kofi Annan should make detailed recommendations on the force's size, mandate and makeup a week after the mission's return.

It also urges the government of Sudan to cooperate with the United Nations in planning the new force and says that "strong and effective measures" — a phrase used in past resolutions to mean asset freezes and travel bans — would be taken against any individuals or groups that try to sabotage the peace agreement.

Despite the urgency of the Darfur crisis, the resolution has been weakened somewhat since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for prompt action on Darfur last Tuesday at a special session of foreign ministers at the Security Council.

The draft at that point authorized immediate logistical assistance to the African Union troops in Darfur from the existing 10,000-member United Nations force monitoring a ceasefire that ended a separate conflict in southern Sudan.

It also included NATO in the planning stages of the proposed integration of the African Union force into the larger United Nations one, but that reference was changed to "regional and international organizations."

John R. Bolton, the American ambassador, dismissed the difference today, saying, "Regional organization means NATO, there's not the slightest doubt in anybody's mind."

In statements after the vote, China and Russia said they had voted for the measure despite misgivings about its being adopted under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which makes measures mandatory and enforceable. They said they supported it in the end because it was backed by the African Union and cited the need for obtaining the cooperation and consent of the Sudanese government.

Mr. Bolton said, "We wanted the obligation to protect civilians to be clear from the outset, that's why we felt it should be Chapter VII." He acknowledged that negotiations to overcome the Chinese and Russian objections had been difficult, but added, "The fact that it is unanimous shows what persistence can do."