Political Will Needed in Darfur

Juliana Taiwo (This Day)—The immediate past Chief of Defence Staff, and Commander of the new combined United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur Gen. Martin Luther Agwai has said political will both in and outside Sudan will end the crisis engulfing that country right now.

Speaking to Defence Correspondents at the Thanksgiving Service for Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Luka Yusuf at ECWA Church, Bara Kagoma, in Kaduna State, Agwai blamed the continuous crisis on numerous groups that have emerged since the Abuja Peace talks which has made it almost impossible to bring warring factions on the table for talks.

He said the mission in Sudan has been tough because he was still operating with less than 6,000 troops in a place where he requires 20,000 troops to keep the peace.

“The mission in Sudan has been a tough one. Right now I need 20,000 troops but at the moment I have under 6,000 troops that shows you what it is but I hope by the grace of God we will see something positive out of it”, he said.

On if that explains why the crisis has persisted, Agwai replied: “Well, if you have followed the history of Sudan and particularly in Darfur you will remember that there was a peace agreement that was brokered in Abuja called the Darfur Peace Agreement. The groups that came for that meeting were three but today you have more than 25 groups on ground so is difficult to even hold discussions because you don’t know which one to even engage. But is nice that both Mr. Alison, the envoy of the Secretary General and Salim Ahmed Salim the envoy of the African Union are working very hard, I hope and we pray that the peace that they are going to discuss in Libya this coming month will be successful so that there will be peace for me to keep”, he said.

On how he was handling the challenges he met on ground and how he is solving them, the Commander of the Combined Forces stressed that he was happy the world realized he added an additional troops of 14,000 to check the crisis.

“I am happy that the world has realize that with 6,000 troops you can do nothing in Darfur, if we can get 20,000 troops and the 6,000 policemen on the ground, and if we can get the goodwill by the world that the people are willing to sign the peace keeping, if there is a cessation of hostility then we can think of disarmament and without disarming the people in Sudan we cannot have peace”.

He said the workings of the UN and international community not give room for speculation hence he does not know when and where the 14,000 troops are going to come from.

“Unfortunately, the way the UN and international community work is not as easy as that. As the Force Commander I use what I have, the AU headquarters in Addis and the UN headquarters in New York generate the troops and as at today I honestly don’t know where all my 14,000 troops I am waiting for will come from. But I hope they will come soon so that we can have peace in Sudan”, he said.

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