AU Condemns Kordofan Attack

Daily Monitor—The African Union Mission in the Sudan (AMIS) condemned on Friday a rebel attack on Sudanese army base at Wad Banda, Kordofan, on Wednesday 29 August 2007.

AU said in a statement issued on Friday that responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Unity faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA-Unity).

“AMIS would like to register, in the strongest terms, its condemnation of this deliberate attack, and of all acts of violence in Sudan, especially at this time when the African Union, the United Nations and the entire international community have converged all efforts toward upcoming peace negotiations,"the statment said.

The AU has declared the South Darfur area of conflict a no-go zone.

“The African Union ... calls on both movements to refrain from further escalating and spreading violence, especially on this dawn of a new era in the international quest for peace, security and stability,” it said in a statement.

The United Nations, on its part, said “the attack could undermine the efforts of the UN and AU ... at a time of serious and sensitive consultations to launch the renewed peace talks on Darfur.” Rebels dislike the AU, accusing it of bias towards Khartoum.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday condemned the government bombings in South Darfur.

The AU has yet to issue a public statement on the bombardment.

One AU official told Reuters they could not comment until their forces had verified the reports.

“We don’t have confirmed reports from our people there,” said the official who declined to be named.

On related development, the leaders of France and Britain on Friday revived the spectre of sanctions against Khartoum if progress is not made on a Darfur ceasefire and upcoming political talks.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a joint editorial that they would work to deploy by the end of the year a 26,000-strong U.N.-African Union force to replace a struggling AU mission which has failed to stem violence in western Sudan.

The joint editorial in The Times in London said sanctions could be used to bring peace to Darfur.

“It is the combination of a ceasefire, a peacekeeping force, economic reconstruction and the threat of sanctions that can bring a political solution to the region—and we will spare no efforts in making this happen,” the op-ed said.

“We will support all efforts to expedite preparations of the deployment of the AU-UN force ... so that it will be operational by the end of this year,” they added.

On Thursday a report from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the force was still short of key aviation, transport and logistic personnel and that Friday’s deadline for commitments from member states would have to be extended.

“Offers are still lacking for some critical military capabilities,” the report said.

It also said the United Nations wanted a more “diverse police component,” and that some of the mostly African infantry troops offered lacked “the equipment necessary to implement their required tasks”.

U.N. officials had said they wanted Western nations to provide the logistics specialists which had been the Achilles’ heel of the AU force for so long.

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