Senegal may quit AU Darfur force if no UN backing
(Adds foreign minister, background)
By Diadie Ba
DAKAR, April 12 (Reuters) - Senegal honoured on Thursday five of its soldiers killed in Sudan's Darfur region and said it could withdraw from an overstretched African peacekeeping force there within weeks unless it was given firm U.N. backing.
The West African country, whose peacekeeping troops are widely respected, made the warning as U.N. negotiators drew close to persuading Sudan to allow 3,000 U.N. personnel to bolster the African Union (AU) mission in Darfur.
Senegal has 538 soldiers in the 7,000-strong AU contingent in Darfur, a western Sudanese region the size of France where more than 200,000 people have been killed in political and ethnic conflict since 2003.
"Senegal believes that enough is enough," Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio told a news conference. "If in the coming weeks we do not move toward a solution, which for Senegal means transforming the AU force into a U.N. mission, then we are going to withdraw our troops from Darfur."
The Senegalese warning followed a similar statement last month by another contributor to the Darfur force, Rwanda, whose President Paul Kagame demanded more resources for it.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's government has refused to accept non-African peacekeepers on the ground in Darfur, although he has agreed to others manning command centres and coordinating logistics.
Khartoum has not agreed to a proposed AU-U.N. operation of more than 20,000 troops and police.
As Senegal received with military honours the bodies of the peacekeepers killed by an April 1 rebel ambush, the government had demanded in a written statement that the AU and Sudan "put our soldiers in the best conditions to be able to carry out their mission and defend themselves".
AU officials have said the Darfur mission needs increased U.N. logistical assistance and more sophisticated defensive weapons. Sudan, however, has objected to U.N. proposals to equip the force with helicopter gunships.
The April 1 ambush on the Senegalese was the deadliest single assault on the African force since it was deployed in 2004. A Rwandan soldier was also killed in an April 10 attack.
"NATION IN MOURNING"
At a military camp in downtown Dakar, relatives of the slain soldiers wept before their coffins, which were laid in a row draped with the green, yellow and red national flag. The dead soldiers were awarded posthumous decorations.
"The entire Senegalese nation is in mourning," Gadio said at the ceremony.
He reiterated Senegal's willingness to participate in peacekeeping operations on the African continent. The world's biggest U.N. peacekeeping force, 17,000-strong and deployed in Democratic Republic of Congo, includes Senegalese troops.
Senegal's warning over the Darfur force appeared aimed as much at the AU and the international community as at the government of Sudan.
"(Senegal) regrets the delay in the deployment of the hybrid operation which the Sudanese government had in fact approved before subsequently questioning it," the Senegalese government statement said.
