http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/politics/04africa.html?ex=1139720400&en=c1fdd012e86e1faa&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Security Council Agrees to Send Troops to Darfur

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — The United Nations Security Council, acknowledging the failure of the current strategy for ending the carnage in Darfur, Sudan, agreed Friday to deploy thousands of peacekeepers to the troubled province.

The United States, which holds the Council presidency this month, offered the motion, and it was approved unanimously. Officials acknowledge that winning council approval was probably the least difficult step.

The Sudanese government opposes United Nations troops in Darfur, and United Nations officials say it will not be easy to persuade member nations to contribute troops for the new Darfur force. The United States has no intention of sending American combat troops, officials said.

Assuming those and other challenges are overcome, the first United Nations troops are not likely to arrive in Darfur for almost a year.

"It's a complicated and operationally, logistically difficult mission," said John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador to the United Nations.

Still, said Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, "we need to arrest the deteriorating security situation there." At least 30,000 residents of Darfur have been driven from their homes in the last month alone, United Nations officials said.

The violent and chaotic situation in Darfur poses significant risks that troops would be drawn into firefights with Sudanese government troops and Darfur rebels.

But under the plan, said Kristen Silverberg, another assistant secretary of state, United Nations troops would be better armed than the African Union troops patrolling Darfur now. They would also be given new rules of engagement that would allow them to "protect civilians and enforce the cease-fire."

The troops would be given "a robust mandate," Ms. Silverberg said.

American and United Nations officials said they expected the United Nations force to absorb the 7,000 African Union troops already there, rearm them and then increase the total troop presence to a level between 12,000 and 20,000. More than 200,000 residents of Darfur have been killed since the violence began three years ago, and as many as three million rely on international aid for basic sustenance.

In 2004, the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and the African Union agreed to send African Union troops to enforce a cease-fire in Darfur, even though that cease-fire broke down almost as soon as it was agreed upon.

Over the next two years, troops from several African nations took up posts in Sudan. But they carried only AK-47 assault rifles and operated under rules of engagement that did not allow them to enter the conflict.

It did not take long for the government troops and Darfur rebel forces to realize that the African Union peacekeepers were a scant deterrent. Starting last summer, the violence began to pick up again. By fall, the peacekeepers became targets; four were killed in October, another last month.

One African Union officer, interviewed in a Darfur military camp in November, complained that "we are sacrificial lambs in a buffer zone." His commander, Gen. J. B. Kazura of Rwanda, said, "given the challenges on the ground, something has to happen soon." In January, the African Union asked the United Nations to take over the mission.

The Security Council agreement reached Friday calls for Secretary General Kofi Annan to begin planning for the transition "without delay." Ms. Silverberg said it was the American intention that the plan be completed "in just a few weeks."

In recent weeks, Mr. Annan has been urging the Security Council to act, noting that the "vast majority of armed militia have not been disarmed" and "large-scale attacks on civilians continue."

U.N. Seeks Plan for Peace Force In Sudan

U.S. Pushes Contingency To Stop Violence in Darfur

By Colum Lynch

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 4, 2006; Page A14

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 3 -- The U.N. Security Council asked Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday to prepare contingency plans to authorize a peacekeeping force to halt the violence against civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The move was part of a push by the Bush administration to use its month-long presidency of the 15-nation council to reinvigorate peace efforts in Darfur by authorizing a U.N. peacekeeping mission that would be able to stop the killings. Annan has appealed to governments with advanced militaries, primarily the United States and the European powers, to participate in a new peacekeeping mission in Darfur. A senior U.S. official said that the United States is not considering sending U.S. troops but would focus on supporting African troops.

Demonstrators protest in front of the White House about conditions in Sudan. (By Ron Edmonds -- Associated Press)

The council's action represented a recognition that the African Union peacekeeping force of 7,000 troops lacks the capacity to stop Sudanese-backed militia that are believed responsible for killing as many as 200,000 civilians and driving millions of people from their homes in the past three years. Those African forces are expected to be placed under the command of a new U.N. peacekeeping mission.

The U.N. special envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk, declared last month that diplomatic and peacekeeping efforts had failed to halt the violence and that a U.N. force of about 20,000 peacekeepers would be needed.

John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said it is premature to say what role the United States will play in Darfur. But he said U.S. military planners will work closely with the United Nations to prepare the mission. He said that Friday's request would allow the United Nations to begin approaching other governments to consider participating in the mission, which would ultimately require the approval of the African Union and Sudan. "I think we've made it clear we are going to support this transition," he said.

The latest surge of violence in Darfur began in February 2003, when the rebel Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement took up arms against Khartoum, citing discrimination against the region's black tribes. Sudan responded by organizing local militia leaders and launching a scorched-earth campaign against potential civilian supporters of the rebels.

In September 2004, Colin L. Powell, then the U.S. secretary of state, declared that the attacks in Darfur constituted genocide. But senior State Department officials briefing reporters in Washington on Friday declined to say whether they believe genocide is still underway.

"The United States has said that a genocide has occurred in Sudan, and we continue to be concerned about the security environment in Darfur," Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told reporters in Washington.

Frazer said the nature of violence in Darfur has changed since Sudan first began recruiting, equipping and training the region's Arab militia in early 2003, and that rebel groups have contributed to the chaos by repeatedly defying an April 2004 cease-fire and launching attacks against the government and civilians. She also expressed concern about mounting tensions between Sudan and Chad, where hundreds of thousands of refugees from Darfur are living.

"There isn't large-scale, organized violence taking place today," she said. "What we have are incidents, small attacks, a fraying of the cease-fire."