Bolton chides Annan on UN planning for Darfur force

By Evelyn Leopold
February 20, 2006 
The Washington Post
Original Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/20/AR2006022000995.html
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said on Monday that Secretary-General Kofi Annan should be pushing U.N. officials harder in planning a force in Sudan's Darfur region rather than just lobbying the United States for contributions.
It would be helpful, I think, if the secretary-general, in addition to prodding the U.S., could also be out there talking to the African Union and the Arab League, and in fact, even talking to his own peacekeepers about the importance of moving ahead here, Bolton told reporters.
When told of Bolton's remarks, Annan said, I'm not going to answer that. But his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the U.N. planning process was moving full speed ahead.
Annan, before his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush last week, said a future U.N. peacekeeping force should include nations, like the United States, which had the air power and logistics for a new robust, mobile operation to stop the killings, rape, pillaging and homelessness in Darfur.
The United States has sent four military planners to help the United Nations map out a Darfur mission to take over the underfinanced African Union, which has 7,000 troops and monitors in the vast western region of Sudan.
Bolton said that while the United Nations had begun contingency planning a lot more could be done.
And that is why we have been pressing the secretariat hard, Bolton said. We want to make sure there is not a disjunction between what the secretary-general says publicly and what the secretariat itself is doing.
In response, Dujarric, the chief U.N. spokesman said, Once we know what this force will look like, we will be presenting options to the Security Council.
We will then go back to those countries that have the capacity and the resources to help put that force together, Dujarric said.
After maintaining a silence on what the United States might do, Bush on Friday signaled a new commitment. He said he supported an expanded NATO role to help the African Union and favored doubling the number of peacekeepers in Darfur.
NEW RESOLUTION ON DARFUR
Bolton has distributed what he called elements of a resolution to the other 14 Security Council members outlining the duties of future peacekeepers in Darfur, rather than awaiting the result of U.N. planning.
As this month's council president, Bolton said the purpose of the resolution he wants adopted by the end of the February is to provide additional political impetus to the operation.
One provision of the text, obtained by Reuters, calls for stopping any act of violence or other abuse on civilian populations. Another calls for halting the acquisition and supply of arms and ammunition.
But Bolton acknowledged the council, particularly African and Arab members, had objected to a U.S. push to adopt the resolution by February 28 -- when the U.S. presidency of the council expires -- because the African Union would not formally agree to hand over the mission before March 3.
But I said we thought it was important to proceed in any event, he said.
An estimated 180,000 people have died since early 2003 when clashes over scarce resources erupted into large-scale violence. The Khartoum government is accused of arming Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, who killed, raped, burned down villages and forced more than 2 million people out of their homes. Khartoum has denied supporting the militias.