UN council set to renew Darfur peacekeeping mandate

Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:01am EDT

* Council set to renew peacekeepers mandate

* Resolution to make clear African concerns at ICC moves

* Campaigners say world fails to support peacekeepers

* Sudan court condemns 22 more Darfur rebels to death



By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS, July 31 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council is set to renew a mandate for peacekeepers in Darfur on Thursday in a resolution that will echo African concerns at efforts to indict Sudan's president for war crimes there.

Western powers agreed to wording making clear the council is ready to discuss suspending any future International Criminal Court indictment of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide in the interest of peace in Darfur.

Five years of war have brought humanitarian disaster to the western Sudanese region and Darfur campaigners accused the world on Thursday of failing to provide helicopters and other badly needed support for the struggling peacekeeping mission there.

Western diplomats said the resolution extending the mission would likely be adopted unanimously when the council meets at 1900 GMT. Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem told Reuters it was an "acceptable" text for Khartoum.

Nearly half the 15-member council had made a reference to the international court in the text a condition of renewing the peacekeeping mandate.

Despite the accommodation to South Africa, Libya, Russia, China and four other council members on the court, one Western diplomat described the resolution as a "wake-up call" to the world to finally end the Darfur crisis.

International experts and U.N. officials estimate at last 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million been driven from their homes in Darfur since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglect.

Khartoum blames the Western media for exaggerating the conflict and says 10,000 people have been killed.



KILLINGS

Security in Darfur, an area roughly the size of France where oil was discovered in 2005, has been deteriorating, making work ever harder for the world's biggest aid operation. Tension has grown since the moves to indict Bashir.

The resolution expresses the council's deep concern at the insecurity and the killing of aid workers. It also demanded an end to all attacks on civilians "including by aerial bombing."

The rebels accuse the government of backing militia who have devastated Darfur villages and of carrying out bombing raids, charges Khartoum has denied. But the council also has the rebels in mind with its call for an end to all violence.

On Thursday, two courts condemned 22 Darfur rebels to death for their involvement in an unprecedented raid on the capital in May which killed more than 200 people.

The judgments brought the total so far sentenced to be hanged to 30. The Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement has threatened to reply militarily to any executions of their members.

The U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force, known as UNAMID, has been struggling to stabilise the situation, but has only deployed some 9,500 troops and police out of a planned force of 26,000, due to both Khartoum's demands and U.N. bureaucracy.

Adding to the force's difficulties, troop contributing countries have failed to provide badly-needed helicopters and other equipment for the mission.

A report by aviation expert Thomas Withington, issued on Thursday and endorsed by 30 rights groups and thinktanks, named countries which could easily provide the helicopters needed and said NATO members alone could supply 104 helicopters -- six times the number needed.

The U.N. security council resolution calls on member states to provide the helicopters and everything else UNAMID needs.

The United Nations hopes to have 80 percent of the full mission deployed by the end of the year. The resolution urges the United Nations and Sudan to do everything possible to make UNAMID fully functional.

The Non-Aligned Movement on Thursday joined the African Union and Arab League in expressing concern about the international court's efforts to try Bashir.

Meeting in Tehran, ministers from the group of almost 120 developing nations said such action "could be conducive to greater destabilisation with far-reaching consequences for the country and the region." (Additional reporting by Opheera McDoom and Ibrahim Hamdi in Khartoum, Fredrik Dahl in Tehran; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)



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