afrol News, 28 May - Only technical formalities stand in the way for a large-scale UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan when the final peace agreement is signed, according to diplomatic sources. Several countries are already planning to send troops to Sudan and have made capacity preparations.
As the last peace protocols between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the Sudanese government were signed in Naivasha, Kenya, on Wednesday, an end to the 21-year old civil war in South Sudan was mostly secured. Now, only a final ceasefire agreement and the official signing ceremony of the entire peace agreement remains before the war is officially over.
The UN and the trio - the United States, Britain and Norway - that has headed the Sudanese peace negotiations in Kenya expects that the final signing ceremony will take place in Washington "within two or three months." Even before that, Norway is to host a major donors' conference to "ensure that the country receives broad international support for the implementation of the peace agreement and for reconstruction."
While the Washington ceremony and the Oslo conference are officially agreed upon, the last link in securing a lasting Sudanese peace however still remains in silence. It is widely expected that UN peacekeepers will be sent to Sudan in large numbers to oversee the ceasefire and assure militias are disarmed. The UN however yet has to comment on this.
Within the mediating trio, however, a major deployment of UN peacekeepers is nevertheless prepared. According to Norwegian diplomatic sources, the Sudanese warring parties were promised a UN peacekeeping mission during the peace negotiations. This pledge was made both by the trio and by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has plaid a major role in the process behind the scene.
In Washington, US Assistant Secretary Affairs for African Affairs, Charles Snyder, yesterday told the press that the UN certainly would live up to its expectations and send peacekeepers. "We have to go through the usual technical kabuki dance, but the UN has been involved in this all along, and so I don't foresee there being a problem," said Mr Snyder.
- Kofi Annan has been very active behind the scenes on this as well, Mr Snyder emphasised. "The [US Secretary of State, Colin Powell] and he have talked about this several times," the US diplomat assured local journalists.
Also in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, the Foreign Ministry has made it clear that a UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan is to see the light of day. Foreign Minister Jan Petersen already in December last year announced that Norway probably would be sending peacekeepers to Sudan in 2004.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry used the Sudan peace process as an explanation for its withdrawal of troops from Iraq, saying Norway had pledged to send peacekeepers to Sudan. The deployment of Norwegian peacekeepers in Sudan has been commented by all political parties in Norway and met great support.
Norwegian diplomatic sources suggest that other countries also are in the process of preparing to send peacekeepers to Sudan as soon as a UN Security Council resolution on the establishment of a mission has been made. It is believed that a full-fledged mission could be put together more rapidly than usual.
Also the African Union (AU), which has plaid a major part in the peace negotiations, has hinted it would assume responsibilities. While AU Chairman Alpha Omar Konaré so far only has publicly pledged to send AU peacekeepers to war-ravaged Darfur - not included in the current peace agreement - he yesterday promised to "assist the parties consolidate and implement the agreements they have signed, particularly, during the critical post-conflict reconstruction period."
Only the UN remains silent on the issue of its planned peacekeeping mission. In a statement, the UN this night said its agencies were "ready to assist Sudan as the peace process moves forward." The statement referred to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) - which was ready to assist the 500,000 Sudanese refugees and more than 3 million displaced persons in the south - and the UN's children agency (UNICEF) - which pledged to invest in Sudan's social services.
There was however no mention of a UN peacekeeping mission. The UN will have to go through a bureaucratic process to approve of such a mission, which includes the previous financing and negotiations over the mission's mandate with the warring parties. When the technical aspects are agreed upon, the mission will have to be established by the Security Council and thus recruitment and deployment may begin.
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