Eight stories (some a bit newer than others); updated to reflect a newer version of the Reuters story on the source page:
(Newer stories will appear in a subsequent post.)
Sudan agreed yesterday [Monday] to allow UN helicopter gunships to patrol Darfur in support of overstretched African Union (AU) peacekeepers, but continued to reject a much larger UN presence.
The Sudanese Government approved the deployment of the six helicopters as part of a 3,000-peacekeeper UN “heavy support package” for the 7,000-strong AU mission in its war-torn western province.
Lam Akol, the Sudanese Foreign Minister, described the decision as a breakthrough. But Khartoum still refuses to endorse plans for an eventual “hybrid” UN-AU force totalling 20,000 troops to stop four years of fighting between government-backed Janjawid Arab militias and rebel groups that has killed more than 200,000 people and forced more than two million from their homes.
Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, was to chair a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council last night to push for a Darfur peace agreement.
Western officials gave warning that Sudan faces increasing sanctions if it fails to allow in the “hybrid” UN-AU force.
“We must move quickly to a larger, hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force with a single, unified chain of command that conforms to UN standards and practices,” John Negroponte, the US Deputy Secretary of State, told reporters as he wrapped up a visit to Sudan.
“The alternative for Sudan is continued and possibly even intensified international isolation.”
Hilary Benn, the International Development Minister, said yesterday that the situation in Darfur was “completely unacceptable.”
“Progress has been far too slow,” he said in a speech in New York. “We must push for tougher measures . . . including an extended arms embargo including further sanctions on individuals responsible for this nightmare.”
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, and Alpha Oumar Konare, the chairman of the AU commission, met in New York yesterday to work on the three-phase plan outlined last year by the former UN chief Kofi Annan.
The UN plan calls for the provision of a “light support package” and “heavy support package” for AU peacekeepers to be followed by the UN-AU “hybrid force”. Sudan’s decision to allow UN helicopters into Darfur clears the last obstacle to the second stage of the plan. The helicopters will be used to protect peacekeepers, not in an offensive role.
“Sudan has accepted the second phase of the agreement of UN support for the African force,” Mr Akol told a news conference in Khartoum.
Sally Chin, Sudan analyst with the International Crisis Group in Nairobi, said [that] agreement on the heavy support package would be “a move forward”.
But she added: “Past experience has shown than Khartoum is good at agreeing to things in public only to find excuses to back out later.”
As part of Oxfam's appeal the war photographer Don McCullin visited the region to document the suffering. You can see his photographs here.
Human toll [sidebar]
500,000 upper estimate of people killed in Darfur
2 [million] have fled their homes
120,000 Chadians also displaced as conflict has spread
230,000 live in overcrowded refugee camps on Chad border
4 [million] dependent on aid to survive
Source: Oxfam; Human Rights Watch; Times archives
From DPA...
After months of international pressure, Sudan has agreed to allow the UN to deploy expanded technical support for African Union troops now in its embattled Darfur region, foreign minister Lam Akol said [on] Monday.
The UN has been pushing Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to accept a three-phase plan for Darfur. Khartoum has now okayed the first two, which mostly involve logistical help and allow 3,000 UN troops along with helicopter gunships to be deployed,
In New York, Sudan's Ambassador Abdalmamud Abdalhaleem gave written confirmation of the agreement to the UN Security Council, and underlined the urgency of the mission.
'It is the sincere hope of the Sudan that implementation of the heavy support package would proceed expeditiously,' he wrote.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and African Union chairman Alpha Oumar Konare met in New York with special envoys of the UN and AU, Jan Eliasson and Salim Salim, to discuss further possibilities to resolve the Darfur conflict.
The 15 council members are to discuss the issue Monday evening, behind closed doors, and continue the discussions on Tuesday.
An estimated 300,000 people have been killed during the four-year conflict, and more than 2.2 million people have been displaced.
'Sudan has accepted the second phase of the agreement of UN support for the African force,' Akol told a news conference, saying [that] it had settled reservations [that] it had with the use of helicopter gunships.
The second phase would see the deployment of armed troops to back up the AU force and would allow for the helicopters as well.
Akol said [that] this acceptance could pave the way for the third phase of the plan, which would see some 20,000 UN peacekeepers sent to the region, now manned by an underfunded and under-equipped AU force of 7,000.
Al-Bashir had earlier [on] Monday told Saudi King Abdullah [that] he would accept the hybrid force.
King Abdullah said that he believed that this agreement would improve the security and stability of the region, the report said.
After meeting in New York Monday morning with Ban, German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier made clear that if Khartoum refused to allow the expanded force, the European Union would consider its own set of sanctions separate from the United Nations.
The US has also threatened unilateral sanctions over what it has called genocide in Darfur.
China has been working behind the scenes to get Sudan, which supplies it with oil, to cooperate, but has drug its feet on UN sanctions.
In what was billed as a last diplomatic push before harsher economic sanctions are imposed by Washington, Negroponte was expected to press Sudanese leaders to allow a robust force of UN peacekeepers into Darfur to bolster the struggling AU mission currently on the ground.
'We must move quickly to a larger, hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping force with a single unified chain of command that conforms to UN standards and practices,' said Negroponte, who visited the western Darfur region on Saturday.
Last November, Sudan agreed in principle to the three-phase UN support package that will culminate in the deployment of more than 20,000 UN peacekeepers, in an area about the size of France which is currently patrolled by the sparse AU force.
Sudanese officials had opposed UN participation in a peacekeeping force, comparing UN entry to colonial occupation. Sudan had insisted [that] the world body must only provide technical and logistical support to the cash-strapped AU.
'There have been disappointments in the past, where agreements have been made, but then not necessarily carried out,' Negroponte told reporters in the capital Khartoum.
'What I would stress at this particular point is that it is the actions that are required and that words are not sufficient.'
AU officials have long said [that] the under-manned force cannot stem violence in the region.
Late Saturday, unknown gunmen shot and killed an AU officer in the north Darfur capital city of El Fasher, barely two weeks after an unprovoked attack left five Senegalese troops killed, sparking warnings from the West African nation that it might withdraw its 500- strong contribution.
Sudan is charged with arming Arab militias known as Janjaweed to crush a 2003 rebellion by members of African tribes who complained that remote Darfur remained undeveloped owing to neglect from Sudan's powerful central government.
The resulting scorched-earth campaign of rape and murder has led to the displacement of 2.5 million people, and [has] spilled over Sudan's borders into Chad and the Central African Republic.
From the AP...
Sudan on Monday accepted the deployment of U.N. attack helicopters and 3,000 peacekeepers in Darfur, the first time [that] it has allowed a significant injection of U.N. forces to help beleaguered African troops in the war-torn region.
The deal appeared to be a major step forward in painstaking negotiations to bring an effective peacekeeping force to Darfur, where a 7,000 member African Union peacekeeping force has been unable to halt the violence.
The United Nations and Washington have been pushing Khartoum to accept thousands more U.N. troops to build up a combined AU-U.N. force of 20,000. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has repeatedly rejected a U.N. force, but his agreement to the 3,000 troops could be a sign that the pressure was beginning to have an effect.
The United States' top ranking diplomat, John Negroponte, ending a three-day visit to Sudan on Monday, warned that Khartoum faced "intensified international isolation" if it did not move quickly to allow the larger U.N. force.
China, a top ally of Khartoum, has also increasingly leaned on al-Bashir. Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Khartoum in February, and urged it to give the U.N. a bigger role in Darfur — then China's assistant foreign minister last week directly called on Sudan to accept U.N. peacekeepers.
China, which buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil exports and has veto powers at the U.N., has come under criticism for sheltering Khartoum from strong U.N. action in the past. Western activists for Darfur have used China's hosting of the 2008 Olympics to embarrass Beijing into taking action with Khartoum by branding the games the "Genocide Olympics."
U.S. actress Mia Farrow, a U.N. goodwill ambassador who urged Olympics sponsors to pressure China over Darfur, said [that] the link to the games had an effect.
"We are amazed by Beijing's reaction," Farrow told the Associated Press by phone from the U.S. "It shows that one thing is more important to the Chinese than their access to Sudan's oil, and that's the success of their Olympic Games."
Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol on Monday announced Sudan's acceptance of the so-called "heavy assistance package," which outlines the deployment of the 3,000 U.N. troops — including six attack helicopters, which the Sudanese government had initially rejected.
"The government has agreed upon the entire heavy assistance package by the United Nations to the African force in Darfur," Akol told journalists in Khartoum.
Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem informed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of Khartoum's acceptance, and said [that] Sudan hoped its implementation "would proceed expeditiously."
Sudanese Foreign Minister spokesman Ali al-Sadiq said [that] Khartoum has also agreed to the larger deployment, but said [that] the U.N. had to send a team to Khartoum to work out the details. A "tripartite committee" of U.N., AU and Sudanese experts will decide on the timing of the entire force, he said.
"This is a very significant step to solving the problems in Darfur," al-Sadiq said. "We hope [that] it will ease the pressure."
Acceptance of the full force of 20,000 U.N.-AU troops would be a major breakthrough, but experts warned that Khartoum has reversed itself in the past after announcing vague agreements.
"This sounds like a very decisive step forward," Tom Cargill, a Sudan specialist at the British think-tank Chatham House, said. "But I've become so, so skeptical of any announcement made by the Sudanese government ... They've agreed so many times to things, and then backtracked again and again and again."
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been displaced in the four-year conflict in Darfur, which began when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the central government. The government is accused of responding by unleashing the janjaweed militias of Arab nomads — blamed for widespread killings and rapes against ethnic African civilians.
The understaffed and underequipped African peacekeepers have been unable to stop the violence in the region, which is nearly the size of Texas or France. Negotiators have struggled for months to get a solid commitment from Khartoum for a larger U.N. force.
The United Nations and Sudan agreed in November on a three-stage plan to strengthen the AU force. It was to culminate in the deployment of a joint AU-U.N. force with 17,000 troops and 3,000 police officers.
The first phase, a light support package including U.N. police advisers, civilian staff and additional resources and technical support, has already been sent to Darfur.
Sudan's acceptance [on] Monday allows the second phase to move ahead.
But al-Bashir backed off the final stage, which would involve thousands more U.N. troops. He has said [that] he would only allow the expansion of the AU force, with only technical and logistical support from the United Nations. He maintains that deployment of U.N. troops would violate Sudan's sovereignty.
On Monday, the president was still voicing opposition to U.N. troops. After meeting with Malaysia's visiting prime minister, he called for Islamic nations' help in "working with Sudan to face the Western pressures on it to accept international forces."
Last week, the special U.S. envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, said [that] Washington was contemplating sanctions against 29 Sudanese companies, but that it was holding off on imposing them for two to four weeks, [in order] to give negotiations with Khartoum a chance, at the request of U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.
But Negroponte suggested [that] Washington would not hold off indefinitely.
In Khartoum, he warned that the government faced "continued and possibly even intensified international isolation" if it did not move quickly to implement the peacekeeping deal with the U.N. and improve access for aid agencies in Darfur.
From Reuters...
Sudan cleared the way for the United Nations to bolster an African Union force struggling to maintain peace in Darfur when it agreed on Monday to accept U.N. attack helicopters as part of the plan.
The new interim support package will mean deployment of 3,000 U.N. police and military personnel to aid the AU force of 7,000 that has been unable to stop the 4-year-old war. But Sudan has not agreed to a proposed larger force of more than 20,000 troops and police.
The move could delay sanctions planned by Washington and London, diplomats said, depending on Khartoum's cooperation with the United Nations and developments in Darfur.
But U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said [that] no decision had been made and [that] the Bush administration was awaiting the return from Sudan of John Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state.
"We have been down this path before," Wolff said about the new deal. "So we will see if it happens, when it happens."
Khartoum last month submitted 14 pages of conditions to the U.N. plan, the second phase of a three-stage operation.
But the remaining issue was the inclusion of six helicopters, which Khartoum feared could be used for offensive purposes, despite U.N. assurances they would be there to protect the peacekeepers.
However, on Monday, Sudan officially told the United Nations [that] it would accept the helicopters.
"ROBUST FORCE"
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon greeted Khartoum's announcement as "a very positive sign", after he and African Union Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare briefed the 15-member Security Council on Darfur.
Jean-Marie Guehenno, the head of U.N. peacekeeping, said [that] the new package of 3,000 U.N. military personnel for command headquarters, air support and logistics, was only a prelude to a larger force.
"This is not the robust force that Darfur needs," Guehenno told reporters. "It's a support package to lay the groundwork for a future robust force."
Sudan has made clear [that] it expects the third phase, a so-called "hybrid" force to include only African Union infantry troops. But the United Nations and [the] African Union have made clear [that] other nations would be called on, if enough Africans were not available.
Konare said [that] the African Union had two battalions ready to go to Darfur, in preparation for U.N. personnel, which will take months to deploy. But he said [that] they needed financing for their upkeep and for weapons.
Monies will have to come from donations until the U.N. force arrives, at which time all U.N. members will be assessed for the financing. But first camps need to be built and water needs to be available.
Sudan had already allowed phase one of the plan, a light support package of equipment, police, civilian staff and advisers, which is still not complete.
The AU force, under increasing attack themselves, has been unable to stop violence in Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million [have been] forced to flee their homes, many to arid camps.
Fighting began four years ago among the Arab-dominated government and militia who support them and African rebels.
While Sudan's agreement was welcomed, skepticism also was evident in a Security Council statement after the meeting that called on "all parties to facilitate ... without delay" the larger "hybrid force["].
In Khartoum, Negroponte also said, "We must move quickly to a larger hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force with a single unified chain of command that conforms to U.N. standards and practices."
Negroponte urged Khartoum to disarm militias accused of some of the worst assaults against civilians in Darfur. The militias, he said, "could not exist without the Sudanese government's active support."
From AFP...
Sudan on Monday accepted the second phase of a UN plan to bring stability to Darfur that will add 3,000 UN troops to an under-manned African Union force in the war-torn western region.
The long-awaited acceptance came as US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte warned Khartoum that it faced isolation, if it didn't accept all phases of the plan.
"Sudan has accepted the second phase of the agreement of UN support for the African force," Foreign Minister Lam Akol told a news conference, adding that this included the sticking point of deploying helicopter gunships.
A three-phase plan floated last year by former UN chief Kofi Annan is supposed to culminate with the deployment of UN peacekeepers to bolster the embattled African force in Darfur, a region the size of France.
"The meeting in Addis Ababa was decisive, and its results constitute a breakthrough," said Akol of talks between the United Nations, the African Union (AU) and Khartoum in the Ethiopian capital on April 9.
The first two phases of the UN plan mainly involve logistical and technical support from the United Nations, but Sudan has yet to give its green light to the most contentious final phase of deploying UN troops in Darfur.
With phase two, the troop deployment should top 10,000.
Negroponte, who spent the last five days in Sudan, emphasised on his departure that all phases of the plan must be accepted.
"We must move quickly to a larger, hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force with a single, unified chain of command that conforms to UN standards and practices," Negroponte told reporters.
"The alternative for Sudan is continued and possibly even intensified international isolation," Negroponte warned.
The US official's visit comes after the United States held off on a decision to impose unilateral sanctions against Sudan, [in order] to give UN chief Ban Ki-moon a last chance to convince Khartoum to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur.
Ban was expected to hold talks in New York later on Monday with Alpha Oumar Konare, the chairman of the AU Commission, to discuss the details of the UN plan.
Sudan has come under renewed international pressure to accept the joint force, with the under-funded and ill-equipped African force failing to quell the violence.
On Sunday, an officer with the AU peacekeeping force was shot dead in Al-Fasher, the capital of north Darfur, almost a week after a Rwandan peacekeeper was killed.
The bloodiest attack on the 7,000-strong force came on April 1 when five Senegalese soldiers guarding a Darfur watering station were shot dead, prompting the Senegalese government to warn [that] it might pull out its 500-man contingent.
A peace accord was signed by Khartoum in May 2006, but only one of the three negotiating rebel factions endorsed the deal, which has remained a dead letter and failed to quell the violence which erupted in February 2003.
Negroponte, who was to travel on to Chad, urged non-signatory rebels to join the negotiations, and Khartoum to comply with the deal by disarming its proxy Janjaweed militia, accused of atrocities in Darfur.
"The government of Sudan must disarm the Janjaweed, the Arab militias that we all know could not exist without the Sudanese government's active support," he said.
At least 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur, and more than two million [have been] driven from their homes, according to the United Nations. Khartoum disputes those figures, but some sources say [that] the death toll is much higher.
Sudan has agreed to allow U.N. helicopter gunships into Darfur as part of a support package for African Union peacekeeping operations in the troubled region. VOA's correspondent at the U.N., Peter Heinlein, reports [that] the agreement clears the way for the initial deployment of 3,000 U.N. soldiers and police.
Sudan officially notified the United Nations [on] Monday that it accepts phase two of a three-phase plan that would eventually lead to the establishment of a 20,000-strong U.N.-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur.
The notification came in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem.
Sudanese officials had earlier objected to including six attack helicopters to back up an initial force of 3,000 U.N. troops and police who will be sent to reinforce a badly understaffed 7,000-strong African Union force. But the Sudanese ambassador's letter specified acceptance of the helicopter component.
U.N. Spokeswoman Michele Montas said [that] Secretary-General Ban was satisfied with Sudan's response.
"The Security Council today received a letter from the Sudanese government about the heavy support package for Darfur, indicating Sudan's approval of the helicopters component of that plan," said Michele Montas. "Earlier the secretary general had said of the reported acceptance of the heavy support package by the Sudanese government, 'it's a good sign'."
Montas said [that] the secretary-general had met [on] Monday with his special envoys to the region, as well as with the secretary-General of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare.
Agreement on the three-phase peacekeeping plan was reached last November in Ethiopia. But Sudan later appeared to go back on the deal.
A torrent of diplomatic activity resulted in Khartoum's agreement last week to accept the broad outlines of the plan, but Sudanese officials continued to object to the helicopters. It was not immediately known what prompted the change, but it coincided with a visit to Khartoum by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who later traveled to Chad.
Asked about Sudan's acceptance of the helicopters, a U.S. State Department spokesman in Washington called it a partial step forward. However, the spokesman said [that] there are still other elements and caveats that remain, in particular dealing with the command and control of the combined force.
Before leaving Khartoum Monday, Negroponte accused Sudan's government of actively supporting Arab militias known as Janjaweed that are blamed for carrying out a deliberate campaign of intimidation in Darfur.
From the BBC...
More than 3,000 United Nations troops will be allowed into Darfur, according to Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol.
The apparent change of heart comes after months of international pressure, but there is no UN confirmation so far.
Mr Akol told a news conference that Sudan has now fully accepted the second phase of a UN plan to support 7,000 struggling African Union troops there.
Under the plan, UN attack helicopters and armoured personnel carriers will also be deployed to help AU forces.
The four-year Darfur conflict between rebels and pro-government Arab militia has seen more than 200,000 deaths and at least 2.4 million displaced.
A spokesman for the foreign ministry told the BBC that Sudan's acceptance had been passed on to African Union Chairman Alpha Omar Konare.
Mr Konare is currently in New York to brief UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council.
UN officials said [that] they were aware of the Sudanese announcement, but had not yet been told anything officially.
Outrage
Earlier, British aid agency Oxfam launched an appeal for humanitarian aid for the Darfur region of Sudan and east Chad.
Oxfam says it needs £5 [million] ($10 [million]) to help displaced people in the region who continue to flee from violence.
"This is the greatest concentration of human suffering in the world, and an outrage that affronts the world's moral values," Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's international director said after a tour of Darfur.
The international aid agency is currently providing clean water, health and sanitation services to more than 500,000 people in Darfur and eastern Chad.
"Nearly 1 million people are not getting any aid at all, and in some areas, the aid efforts is under threat due to increasing insecurity," an Oxfam statement said.
Visiting US official John Negroponte had also warned Sudan of isolation, if it fails to stop harassment of humanitarian workers and rejects the deployment of UN peacekeepers in the war-torn region.
"The denial of visas and harassment of aid workers has created the impression that the government of Sudan is engaged in a deliberate campaign of intimidation," he said at the end of his tour of Sudan.
By Warren Hoge of the "New York Times"...
Sudan said today [Monday] that it had dropped its objections to immediate international assistance to the overwhelmed African Union force in Darfur, setting the stage for the possible assignment there of United Nations peacekeepers.
Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has repeatedly defied United Nations requests and pressure from governments elsewhere in Africa and around the world to permit international intervention in Darfur, saying [that] such action would violate his country’s sovereignty.
But today, Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, sent a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 member nations of the Security Council saying [that] Sudan would now accept what is known as the “heavy support package” and hoped [that] it would “proceed expeditiously.”
The package calls for sending 3,000 well-equipped military police officers along with six attack helicopters and other aviation and logistics support to Darfur. The step represents the second stage of a much-delayed three-stage proposal whose ultimate aim is to create a 21,000-troop joint African Union-United Nations force to replace the 7,000-soldier African Union force there now.
Darfur is the conflicted region of western Sudan where more than 200,000 people have died and some 2.5 million have been uprooted from their land and subjected to repeated attacks from Arab Janjaweed militias supported and equipped by the Khartoum government.
President Bashir has for months been resisting any United Nations assistance in Sudan, appearing at some points to accept proposals in talks with the organization’s officials, including Mr. Ban, only then to back away from the apparent agreements and to seek to renegotiate them.
As international pressure mounted in recent weeks and agreement on the second phase appeared close, Mr. Bashir insisted [that] he would not allow the assignment of attack helicopters. Today’s letter from the ambassador, Mr. Abdalhaleem, notified the United Nations of “Sudan’s approval of the helicopter component.”
During a Middle East trip last month, Mr. Ban applied his own pressure on the Sudanese in two meetings with Mr. Bashir that lasted a total of three and a half hours on the margins of the Arab League summit meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
At the conclusion, Mr. Ban said [that] he thought he had ended the impasse over the heavy support stage, but rights groups and others with experience in dealing with Mr. Bashir suggested [that] the Sudanese leader might have instead succeeded in once again delaying the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers to Darfur.
Today’s announcement follows the combined application of pressure from Mr. Ban, the African Union, and members of the Arab League who, according to one of Mr. Ban’s aides, had also lost patience with Mr. Bashir and offered him none of the “solace” in Riyadh that he was accustomed to from that group.
John D. Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, brought American influence to bear in a weekend visit to Sudan.
Whether today’s agreement will lead to the creation of the joint force was far from assured because of Mr. Bashir’s record of resistance.
The Security Council passed a resolution creating the force on Aug. 31, but it specified that it could only be deployed with the consent of the Sudanese government. That has given Mr. Bashir the power to hold off the assignment.
Today, Mr. Negroponte told a news conference in Khartoum, “We must move quickly to a larger hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force with a single unified chain of command that conforms to U.N. standards and practices.”
He said, “The humanitarian situation in Darfur calls urgently for dispatching such a force.”
Mr. Negroponte noted that the agreement called for the preponderance of the forces and the commanders to be from Africa. This is seen at the United Nations as the best way to get around Mr. Bashir’s claim that outsiders would threaten his country’s security.
But it has still not brought the Sudanese leader around to agreeing on deployment of the hybrid force, the only step that most observers of the Darfur crisis believe will curb the continuing violence there.
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