Rights Monitor
U.N. Chief tries to bolster peace accord in Sudan
Warren Hoge
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, came to this capital of southern Sudan to shore up support for the tenuous peace accord that ended Africa's longest-running civil war in 2005. That war, a 21-year conflict between the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum and the African and mostly Christian south, was not related to the violence in Darfur, in the western part of the country. But its settlement, one that balanced power between the warring regions, is being held up as a model for resolving the Darfur crisis, and Mr. Ban, on the second day of a weeklong Africa trip devoted to Darfur, made that point in an address at Juba University. “As you know well, this remains an essential and fragile cornerstone of peace across the whole of Sudan,” he said.
Mr. Ban received a raucous welcome at the airport from dancing women and men in warrior headdresses, and traveled in a convoy of vans that bumped and hurtled over rutted roads into town. Juba is enjoying a boom, and a sudden spurt in the number of vehicles occurred before the roads could be paved. It was a day rich in ceremony, with Mr. Ban laying a wreath at the mausoleum of John Garang, a southern rebel leader who played a crucial role in achieving the peace and then died in a helicopter crash three weeks after becoming Sudan's vice president. Mr. Ban spent much of the day with Mr. Garang's successor, Salva Kiir Mayardit, a six-foot-tall former rebel leader who favors a wide-brimmed black hat and brass-handled cane for public appearances.
The United Nations has 10,000 peacekeepers here monitoring the settlement, and, as a mark of its success, more than a million people have returned to homes in the south that they had left during the hostilities. Mr. Ban said 160,000 had returned this year. But several broken deadlines have shaken confidence in the accord, and Mr. Ban repeated here that it must be fully carried out to ensure the future of the south and provide a model for Darfur. Mr. Ban also announced that he was appointing Ashraf Qazi, his current special representative to Iraq, as his new envoy for Sudan. Mr. Qazi, a Pakistani diplomat who has been in the United Nations post in Iraq since July 2004, succeeds Jan Pronk, who left Sudan last October after the government ordered him out.
The secretary general began the day with a news conference at the Khartoum airport in which he reported on a private conversation he had on Monday night with Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the president of Sudan. Mr. Ban said the Sudanese president had pledged his backing for the secretary general's efforts to bring about a cease-fire and start political talks on Darfur. “I appreciate his willingness to cooperate fully,” Mr. Ban said. But, asked if Mr. Bashir had endorsed his call for an immediate cease-fire, Mr. Ban said, “President Bashir explained the difficulties with assaults on his military forces when he needs to take steps to defend himself.” Mr. Ban added a new element to his peace proposals for Darfur on Tuesday, saying he was calling a high-level meeting of regional leaders in New York for Sept. 21, during the opening of the General Assembly. He said Mr. Bashir had said he would send Sudan's foreign minister, Lam Akol.
Mr. Ban said that he had unsuccessfully raised the issue of the government's expulsion last week of Paul Barker, the director in Sudan of the international aid agency CARE, but that Mr. Bashir had “reiterated the position of the Sudanese government.” Mr. Ban also said Mr. Bashir had agreed to the immediate release of Suleiman Jamous, the relief coordinator for the rebel Sudan Liberation Army, who has been in government custody for a year. The United Nations has argued that Mr. Jamous is a potentially valuable contributor to peace negotiations.
Source: New York Times
