The UN Security Council on Thursday renewed the mandate of UN-African Union (AU) troops in Darfur, although the US abstained over a call to defer indictment of Sudan’s president on genocide charges.
Fourteen of the council’s 15 members voted in favor of Resolution 1828 that extends the mandate of the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) for one year from Thursday, when it was set to expire.
Britain’s UN Ambassador John Sawers, whose delegation drafted the text, made it clear that there was “unanimous support” among council members for UNAMID and the extension of its mandate.
Diplomats said the US delegation earlier raised 11th-hour objections to compromise language agreed on Wednesday that finessed sharp differences over a call to delay a decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on whether to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on genocide charges.
An amendment sought by South Africa and Libya on behalf of the African Union was not included in the final draft, which instead includes compromise language taking note of a July 21 AU communique that raised concern that any indictment of Beshir might jeopardize the Darfur peace process.
That statement asked the Security Council to defer for a year, renewable, any prosecution of Beshir as requested by ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
“No position has been taken by the Security Council on the question of whether to take any action in the light of the [Moreno-Ocampo] proposal to indict President Beshir,” Sawers said. “That issue is to be addressed on another day.”
“The United States abstained in the vote because language added to the resolution would send the wrong signal to Sudanese President Beshir and undermine efforts to bring him and others to justice,” said Alejandro Wolff, the deputy US ambassador to the UN.
“There is no compromise on the issue of justice,” he added, after dismissing suggestions that the US delegation had given its consent to the compromise language referring to the July 21 AU communique.
Wolff, however, stressed that Washington “strongly supports the extension of UNAMID’s mandate.”
Sudan’s UN Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad expressed gratitude to those who backed the text.
“I want to give high marks to the British delegation,” he told reporters. “They discussed in good faith with everybody. They were very cooperative.”
The Sudanese envoy also warned that Moreno-Ocampo’s call for the arrest of Beshir “would be a recipe for destruction and waste,” but reiterated Khartoum’s pledge “to honor its obligations toward UNAMID.”
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