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UN Council wants Sudan peace deal by year-end
The U.N. Security Council, on a high-profile visit to the Kenyan capital, expects Sudan and its southern opposition on Thursday to promise to complete by Dec. 31 a comprehensive peace agreement ending a 21-year civil war.
Although deadlines have come and gone in two years of peace negotiations, U.S. officials said the visit of the 15-member Security Council would put pressure on both sides to wrap up the accord.
Sudan's vice president, Ali Osman Taha, and the head of the Southern People's Liberation Movement, John Garang, are to sign a memorandum of understanding on Thursday pledging an agreement by the end of the year. The memo will be attached to a Security Council resolution to be adopted on Friday, diplomats said.
The council's credibility is very much at stake should a north-south agreement not be reached soon involving power-sharing in the Khartoum government and other major political and military restructuring in the northeast African nation.
At the same time the Security Council is under fire from humanitarian groups for not ending atrocities in Sudan's western Darfur region. But Russia, China, Pakistan and Algeria are hesitant to provoke Khartoum by imposing U.N. sanctions.
More than 1.2 million people, mainly African villagers, have been left homeless by rampaging Janjaweed militia and Sudanese security forces.
Thousands have been killed and rape is rampant.
Amnesty International and other groups have called for an arms embargo against Sudan, which spends most of its budget on military hardware. Sudan has known only 11 years of peace since independence from Britain in 1956.
The council's visit to Nairobi is very much an American affair. U.S. Ambassador John Danforth, once the Bush administration's envoy to the north south talks, initiated the visit as this month's council president and supplied ambassadors and reporters with an aircraft normally reserved for Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites).
President Bush (news - web sites) on Tuesday telephoned Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and rebel leader Garang to give a further push to the peace process.
The resolution to be adopted on Friday in Nairobi, the council's first meeting away from New York in 14 years, encourages the European Union (news - web sites), the World Bank (news - web sites) and the United Nations (news - web sites) to come up with plans for rebuilding the country once a north-south peace deal is signed.
Britain has pledged 100 million pounds ($180 million) next year. But a British official said it would be impossible to provide that level of development assistance "if conflict continues in Darfur, as any money available would be tied up on emergency relief."
The United States has not released any aid numbers yet but Danforth made clear that "the world is not going to be there if they conclude a north-south peace agreement and then the next day start bombing villages in Darfur."
In the past 21 years, 2 million people, mostly civilians, have died in the south from violence, disease or famine in a region rich in oil.
The rebellion in the south was aimed at the Khartoum government dominated by Arab Muslims. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement is composed mainly of African animists and Christians, but throughout the country there are hundreds of ethnic and tribal divisions and language groups. |
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