UNITED NATIONS: U.N. says it will work at maintaining a diplomatic process with Sudan, while also vowing to bring internal sex abusers to justice

Record ID: 336210

  • Title: UNITED NATIONS: U.N. says it will work at maintaining a diplomatic process with Sudan, while also vowing to bring internal sex abusers to justice
  • Date: 6th January 2007
  • Summary: (W4) UNITED NATIONS (FILE) (REUTERS) UNITED NATIONS
  • Embargoed: 21st January 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAAMQFKRHDGE5PSNZPU2ZQKWFK7
  • Story Text: Officials from the United Nations and the African Union met on Friday (January 05) to discuss the deployment of troops in the turbulent Darfur.
    Coming off of accusations that U.N. personnel may have sexually abused children in Sudan, officials said the accusations will be investigated but that this should not delay diplomatic work.
    The U.N. Special Envoy for Darfur, Jan Eliasson told reporters that he will continue working with the A.U. to solve the issue of ground troop deployment in Sudan.
    "We should try to now to instil a sense of importance of reducing the level of violence so by that we can create conditions for a political process which is so necessary. This conflict has gone on far too long; the Sudanese people have suffered very much. We want to maintain the momentum of the political process," said Eliasson.
    Khartoum rejected a U.N. resolution authorising 22,500 U.N. troops and police to deploy to Darfur to take over from the struggling African Union force, likening it to a Western invasion and an attempt at colonisation.
    The U.N. has a proposed a three-step proposal to gradually strengthen the understaffed African Union force of 7,000. The third proposed step is a hybrid African Union-United Nations force.
    The A.U. Mediator on Darfur, Salim Ahmed Salim said that officials will work on getting Sudan to accept the three-step plan.
    "Now, I would like to give a more optimistic view of the response on the government of Sudan other than a negative view. I think what is important, we should keep on building, we have the phase one, build on phase one, build on phase two, and proceed on phase three. As to the numbers, because on the issues is the question of numbers, how many troops, and since there is a understanding that the number of troops will be dictated by the situation on the ground, I think that matter will comes when comes. But I really believe that the situation in Darfur requires that all of us to do our utmost to see a deescalation of violence and a beginning of the political process," he said.
    British broadsheet newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday (January 02) that U.N. peacekeepers and civilian staff were allegedly raping and abusing children as young as 12 in southern Sudan. On Friday, the Assistant Secretary General For Peacekeeping, Jane Holl Lute said that the allegations were being investigated.
    "We recognize that this is a structural problem and that we need to deal with it structurally and systemically and that the behaviour of a relative few have tarnished the entire reputation of peacekeeping. And we will not allow that to continue to occur. Now bad behaviour will occur, it's going to occur, crime occurs in New York City despite the best efforts of one of the world's finest police departments. But we are determined to set very clear standards to ensure that people know what their roles and responsibilities are with respect to those standards; to have training undertaken before units come to peacekeeping; once they arrive in peacekeeping with again special emphasis on leaders to restore that reputation," said Lute.
    The U.N. internal watchdog office has a team permanently based in Sudan to investigate all allegations of abuse and has sent four peacekeepers back to their home countries in the past year as a result of the team's findings, U.N. chief spokeswoman Michele Montas said on Thursday (January 04).
    There are more than 11,000 U.N. peacekeepers and police from some 70 countries in southern Sudan, where a separate four-year-old conflict has killed an estimated 200,000 and driven 2.5 million from their homes.
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