Mastrabate For Longer

between helping the development or peace

The troubled joint force of United Nations peacekeeping and the African Union to the western Sudanese region of Darfur (UNAMID ), with few troops and helicopters, was much criticized for its cost, which is unusually high.
is "scandalous" to spend 2,000 million dollars a year to maintain the UNAMID when the urgent needs of the continent are on the other hand, said the president of the Commission ng (executive branch) the African bloc, Alpha Oumar Konare.
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Konare, former president of Mali (1992-2002), said in a debate at the UN that "really regrets" the "spending enormous amounts of money on preventing conflicts that could be used to meet development goals" unreached in Africa.
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Unamid The huge budget, one of the largest in the history of peacekeeping missions the UN is "scandalous," he said. Anyway, the key to solving the problem of Darfur is "in us," he said.
. Konaré
admitted, in that sense, the problems of peace and security on the continent were "African ownership".
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"We create institutions and we must give them the power and means to take appropriate and timely," he told reporters on October 10.
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Ambassador to China, a key ally of Sudan, Wang Guangya, said last month the Security Council of the UN that "poverty and underdevelopment are the root causes of the problems of Darfur."
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By its very nature, he said, "This is a development issue."
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also Guangya quoted UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who said "disputes over water are the main cause of the conflict in Darfur ".
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" Just improving the lives of the people of the region will eliminate the cause of the clashes and improve safety, "the Chinese envoy.
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But the United States "genocide" the massacres occurring in Darfur.
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The UN estimates that the conflict in that region, which has lasted four years, killed over 200,000 civilians and left more than 2.2 million refugees and displaced persons.
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The new UNAMID hybrid force, which began operations on December 31, 2007 and is perhaps the biggest peacekeeping mission in the world, will have an initial mandate of 12 months and incorporates the former African Union Mission in Sudan, stationed there since 2004.
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The budget of 2,000 million dollars exceeds the UNAMID peacekeeping mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo, from 1,100 million dollars a year.
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Of the 20 peacekeeping missions undertaken by the UN today, eight are in Africa: Burundi, Ivory Coast, Chad and Central African Republic, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Western Sahara and Sudan.
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For now, UNAMID has only 9,000 troops and has few helicopters and lacks sufficient ground support equipment.
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The African Union of 53 members, claims to be primarily responsible for the resolution of conflicts on the continent. The Sudanese government insists that UNAMID troops should be virtually all African.
. Khartoum has already rejected
troops from Norway and Sweden and expressed reservations to the participation of battalions from Nepal and Thailand.
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When the Security Council approved the establishment of UNAMID, to 26,000, in late July 2007, predicted that the force should have "a predominantly African character," recalled the UN undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations, Jean Marie Guehenno.
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"Having a force that is of a Africa is another matter entirely, "said Guehenno." There are many reasons which make necessary a greater combination of soldiers "in different regions, said
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The UN Secretariat expressed its willingness to" prioritize the deployment " strength of two African nations, Egypt and Ethiopia, "with the understanding that the Asian units deployed in a timely manner."
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The lack of key support to UNAMID, including ground and air transport, diplomatic and political participation with stakeholders and cooperation of the recipient country, "exacerbated" the operational and logistical difficulties with which they must already handle the mission because it is a remote and inhospitable territory, Guehenno said the Special Committee on peacekeeping missions of the UN.
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There is more support for peacekeeping missions, he added, but "the pendulum interest and lack of support from the international community made it difficult to keep the objectives in key areas of conflict."
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The total budget for peacekeeping missions, down from 2,000 million dollars in 2003, can exceed U.S. $ 7,000 million in 2007-2008, three times the global forum for a year, told the same committee Deputy General Secretary of support in the field, Jane Holl Lute.
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Most of 7,000 million dollars are earmarked for UNAMID.

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Thalif Deen
IPS

Birthday Party Ideas Fo A 14 Yr.

column of 1,000 .-

More than 2,000 people formed a human chain Saturday multicolor against Moroccan military wall that divides the Western Sahara to order its demolition, the holding of a referendum on self-determination of the Saharawi people the end of the occupation of the territory. The participants, mostly English and Saharawi, with Italian and Algerian-joined hands in a long chain length and parallel to the wall about three feet of sand, stones and barbed wire.

action lasted about 45 minutes and took place 500 meters from the point of the wall known as the "pocket" near the corner border of Algeria and Mauritania.

The human chain was subsequently split into different groups, and singing and the distinctive hoot of Sahrawi women, shouted slogans like "guilty Morocco, Spain responsible" and "Freedom for Sahara."

The white robes contrasted with the English Melfa (traditional colorful costumes Saharawi women), the dark clothes of men in the area and dozens of flags of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).


Beiruk
Mohamed Ali, Saharawi photographer of 24 years who participated in the formation of the chain, noted that "the only solution is war, because after 32 years of talking has not done anything"

Fadel, another Saharawi refugee, who at 54 years are encouraged to join the protest against the Moroccan construction, said the conflict "will have a negotiated end" because otherwise "the war will" because the Polisario Front "can not have young arms crossed."

The action, which also involved some children and Sahrawi veterans passed without incident in a flat, rocky desert, supervised by members of the UN mission for Western Sahara (MINURSO) on board five military jeeps with Uruguay, Italy, Brazil and Malaysia.

A UN helicopter also flew over the area throughout the course of the protest.

At the same time, about ten Moroccan soldiers observed the participants perched on the wall and even saw one of them walking nearby.

Organizers of the march participants consistently warned of the risk of mines in the area where you can still see remnants of munitions of war between Morocco and the Polisario, such as a grenade.

Participants they left at dawn from the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria, moved to the wall in a dozen trucks and dozens of SUVs prepared by the Polisario, which is also responsible for the provisioning, security and health care.

The tour lasted about three hours in a cold and somewhat windy morning over a dusty plain dotted with acacia trees just desert.

During this week, about 2,500 English have moved to the Saharawi refugee camps to see the situation in which they live, collaborate on projects of cooperation and participate in human chain around the wall, according to organizers trip.

The protest action called "Pillar of 1,000" is an initiative of the group will and determination, made by students of Journalism at the Complutense University of Madrid, which envisioned a nonviolent movement against the "injustice and neglect" endured by the Sahrawi people.

The idea came a year ago, after they first college visit Sahrawi camps in Algeria to see first hand how refugees live and had the support of the State Coordinator of Friends of the Saharawi people of Spain and the Association of Saharawi Prisoners and Disappeared.

The wall of sand, stone and barbed wire -The longest in the world with 2,720 kilometers built in Morocco between 1980 and 1987.

Plagued by hundreds of thousands of antipersonnel and antitank mines, the wall crosses the former English colony almost from north to south, so that its inhabitants have become separated.

Moroccans controlled the western two-thirds of the territory and along the upper north and the Polisario dominates the eastern side, bordering Algeria and Mauritania.

In 1991 it was agreed a ceasefire after 16 years of war overseen by the UN, he supported a referendum on self-determination and a mission to the Sahara to its conclusion, but Morocco has rejected until the completion of the consultation citing disagreements with the composition of the voters.