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U.N.: More peacekeepers couldn’t halt new Sudan war

26 October 2010 03:31 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. U.N. peacekeepers monitoring a fragile 2005 peace deal between north and south Sudan could not stop new hostilities between the northern and southern armies, the U.N. peacekeeping chief said on Monday, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
Alain Le Roy, under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, was discussing some of the possibilities for boosting security ahead of a planned referendum on southern independence early next year.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has said there is a possibility of temporarily increasing the 10,000-strong blue-helmet force in Sudan, known as UNMIS, so it could better monitor hot spots on the north-south border.
Le Roy suggested that an increase would not help.
"An increase in the number of troops would not enable UNMIS to prevent, or even to contain, a clash between the two armies," Le Roy told the 15-nation Security Council.
"Our best available tool against a return to war remains our commitment in favor of a political agreement ... of the parties on the key pending issues," he said.
He said preparations for the referendum on independence of the oil-producing south, and a separate plebiscite on whether the oil-rich central region of Abyei should join the south or remain with the north, were severely behind schedule.
U.S.-supervised talks in Addis Ababa to work out disagreements on talks that would enable the Abyei referendum to go ahead broke off in deadlock earlier this month. New talks are slated to begin later this week in the Ethiopian capital.
"It is absolutely essential that the parties should reach an agreement during these negotiations," Le Roy said. "As long as there is no agreement, tensions continue to increase on a daily basis in Abyei."
’TIME BOMB’
Sudanese Ambassador Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman told the council that boosting the number of UNMIS troops would be ill-advised. Afterward, he told reporters it was crucial to reach agreements on unresolved political issues, such as border demarcation, which represent a "time bomb" for Sudan.
"If pending issues are not resolved ... it gives a chance for war to erupt," he said.
Both the north and the south have said they do not want a return to war. Analysts warn that a delay of the southern independence vote could spark renewed fighting.
The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended more than two decades of civil war between the north and south. Some 2 million people died in that war, which was fueled by religion, ethnicity, ideology and resources, including oil.
Tensions have been increasing this month, Le Roy said, with the north and the south accusing each other of building up military forces along the north-south border. Le Roy said UNMIS has not been able to fully verify the security situation.
"However, it seems that there has been no major military mobilization, even if the Sudanese Armed Forces and the SPLA (southern army) seem to have heightened their level of preparations and strengthened their defensive positions along the borders," the U.N. peacekeeping chief said.
Le Roy added that UNMIS was increasing the number of patrols along the north-south border and had boosted its forces in Abyei, which has been a flashpoint in recent years.
The chief administrator of Abyei on Monday rejected U.S. calls for compromise over the area’s future that would split it without a referendum. Khartoum says the Abyei dispute must be resolved if the southern vote is to go ahead.