Impasse Over Darfur Force

The Security Council voted Thursday to send a new peacekeeping force to Sudan’s Darfur region, but the country’s government immediately rejected the resolution as “illegal.”

The rejection heightened diplomats’ concerns about a looming humanitarian crisis in the troubled region, where an African Union contingent has been largely unable to protect civilians and monitor a cease-fire.

The Sudanese government said the U.N. force was unwelcome and that its own soldiers would pacify the region in tandem with the African Union troops.

“Our stand is very clear: that the Sudanese government has not been consulted, and it is not appropriate to pass a resolution before they seek the permission of Sudan,” presidential advisor Ali Tamim Fartak told the Reuters news agency. Another presidential advisor, Majzoub Khalifa, told Al Jazeera satellite television channel that the resolution was “illegal.”

The government has begun massing forces in Darfur, and it informed the U.N. last month that it would deploy 10,500 troops to stabilize the region. U.N. officials, however, believe Sudan is preparing an offensive against rebel groups that did not sign a recent peace agreement and have attacked government troops.

U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland warned this week of “hundreds of thousands of deaths” if another conflict causes aid operations to collapse. Aid workers already are at grave risk because of increasing violence and lack of funds, he said. The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed Thursday that a staff member had been killed after being kidnapped two weeks ago during an attack on a food convoy.

Three years of conflict involving government forces, their allied militias and rebel groups have caused about 200,000 deaths and displaced around 2 million people. Sudan signed a peace agreement with one rebel group in May, but other anti-government factions refused, and have stepped up their attacks.

The resolution passed Thursday “invites the consent” of the Sudanese government for the deployment of as many as 17,300 troops, 3,300 civilian police and technical support for the 7,000-member African Union force. China, Russia and Qatar abstained from the vote because they object to deployment without Sudan’s explicit permission.

The United States and Britain, the co-sponsors of the resolution, urged quick action to ensure the U.N. force could begin deploying by Oct. 1, when the African Union mandate expires.

“Every day we delay only adds to the suffering of the Sudanese people and extends the genocide,” U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton told the Security Council.

Bolton told reporters that the U.N. could begin to send equipment and a limited number of troops immediately to support the African Union mission, based on a previous resolution to which Sudan has assented. He said he hoped the government in Khartoum would agree to the expanded U.N. force in Darfur, or at least not block it.

“The resolution simply said we invite their consent,” he said. “I think what we need is acquiescence. It would be nice to have cooperation. But the U.N.’s role should proceed; the planning should proceed; the operational work should be done and, as they say, silence gives consent.”

Tanzanian Ambassador Augustine Mahiga said that quietly allowing a buildup, ostensibly in support of the African Union force, could be “a facesaving approach” for Khartoum, but he added that he hoped the Sudanese government would cooperate more directly with the U.N. and its aid agencies.

“I think it would be good to get clearer signals from Sudan than to do it surreptitiously or through the back door,” he said.

The resolution refers obliquely to the world’s “responsibility to protect” civilians under siege by their own governments, a proviso endorsed by world leaders last September at a U.N. summit. But no one is willing to “fight their way in” to Sudan against the government’s wishes, Bolton said.

In Washington, the State Department’s top official for Africa, Jendayi E. Frazer, said she was “absolutely confident” that Sudan’s president eventually would consent to the U.N. force.

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maggie.farley@latimes.com