UN Radio

UN and Africa
Programme Number: 148
Week of: Sunday, 15th April, 2007
Recording Date: Thursday, 19th April, 2007
Topical Issue(s):
" The UN Secretary-General this week received a letter from the government of Sudan informing him that it has agreed to the deployment of the joint African Union/United Nations hybrid force in Darfur. The news came as the Chairman of the African Union, Alpha Oumar Konare was at the UN to discuss Darfur with the Secretary-General.

" A new NGO report on children in Sudan says that the well being of children in the country is at a critical stage. Dr. Francis Deng, who participated in the launch of the report, tells UN Radio that children are always more vulnerable in conflict situations.

" The commemoration of the 13th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide has underscored the importance of the principle of the responsibility to protect vulnerable people. Participants at a panel discussion held to commemorate the genocide, say the Security Council failed in 1994 to protect the Tutsis and moderate Hutus from mass murder by Hutu extremists.

RESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.

Hello and welcome to UN and Africa. I'm Derrick Mbatha.

PRESENTER:

In today's programme, the government of Sudan agrees to the second phase of the deployment of a joint African Union/United Nations in Darfur.
CLIP 1: JEAN-MARIE GUEHENNO
"The heavy support package is not the robust force that Darfur needs. It's a support package to lay the ground for a future robust force."

PRESENTER:

That was Jean Marie-Guehenno the head of peacekeeping operations at the United Nations.
Also in this edition of UN and Africa, a non-governmental organization says that children continue to suffer in Darfur.
And later in this programme, the anniversary of the Rwanda genocide reminds the international community of the responsibility to protect vulnerable people.
CLIP 2: IMMACULE ILIBAGIZA

"I remember hearing a lot Romeo Dallaire was calling the UN to help, was calling powerful countries but somehow we didn't seem to have any response coming."

PRESENTER:

That was Immacule Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.
So stay tuned to UN and Africa.
*** SIG TUNE *** (Bring up briefly, dip and hold under until first sentence)

Sudan Agrees to UN Heavy Support Package for Darfur

PRESENTER:

There was good news at United Nations headquarters in New York this week as the Chairman of the African Union, Alpha Oumar Konare was in New York to discuss the Darfur situation with United Nation Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The Sudanese government finally announced that it has agreed to the second phase of the deployment of a joint African Union/United Nations force in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan. The deployment of this force is to happen in three stages, with the first light phase already happening. The second phase of what is called the heavy support package, involves the addition of personnel to the African Union Mission in Darfur, AMIS, and helicopter gunships to improve the defensive capabilities of AMIS. UN Radio's Bissera Kostova reports.
NARRATOR:
After months of negotiations, the Secretary-General on Monday received a letter from the Sudanese government informing him that the government has agreed to the deployment of the joint African Union/United Nations force to protect the displaced people of Darfur. The Chairman of the African Union, Alpha Oumar Konare points out that the African Union has been in discussion with the Sudanese authorities for months now and has reached a compromise on the deployment. He stresses that the African troops already deployed in Darfur have been doing their best but faced serious problems.
CUT 1: ALPHA OUMAR KONARE
(French with English interpretation)
It's a lack of sufficient troops on the ground, that the troops are not well armed, and obviously the lack of resources. And the compromise enabled us to now have solutions to those problems. The Sudan government is agreeable to the number of soldiers we require that will be determined by the African Union and the United Nations.

NARRATOR:

The man in charge of peacekeeping operations at the United Nations, Jean Marie Guehenno, points out that there is urgent need for the deployment of a robust force in Darfur. And he welcomes the announcement by the Sudanese government that they accept the heavy support package in its entirety is very much welcome.
CUT 2: JEAN MARIE GUEHENNO
The heavy support package as the name indicates is not the robust force that Darfur needs. It's a support package to lay the ground for a future robust force. It's in transition to a hybrid mission.

NARRATOR:

Mr. Guehenno points out that before the heavy support package can be deployed, there is need to make progress on the work of the African Union Mission. He says the African Union needs to deploy two additional battalions to improve security, which will then allow more troops to be deployed.
CUT 3: JEAN MARIE GUEHENNO
We count on the government of Sudan to facilitate the acquisition of land, the survey of water, also the transport of all the equipment that will be needed so that the deployment of the heavy support package goes smoothly and that the African Union gets all the help it needs before a hybrid mission can eventually be deployed.

NARRATOR:

The representative of Sudan to the United Nations, Ambassador Abdalmahmood Mohamad says his government has not been reluctant to allow the deployment of the joint United Nations/African Union force in Darfur. According to Ambassador Mohamad, the problem is that the agreement that the government signed with a rebel group in Darfur did not provide for a United Nations role in Darfur.
CUT 4: ABDLMAHMOOD MOHAMAD
It is only for the African Union to implement with the Sudanese authorities and the rebel groups the DPA. So, if we involve the UN, then we have to violate the agreement itself. But we recognize that there is a need for augmenting the African Union force and this is why we are accepting the three-phased approach, light package, heavy package and the so-called hybrid operation.

NARRATOR:
Now there is optimism at the UN that this latest development will lead to progress in the deployment of a joint African Union/United Nations force in Darfur. This is how the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sees it.
CUT 5: BAN KI-MOON
It is a very positive sign, and I and the African Union intend to move quickly to prepare for the deployment of the heavy package and the hybrid forces in Darfur. The people of Darfur have suffered too much too long.

NARRATOR:

The Secretary-General thanked all the world leaders who have helped to facilitate progress on this issue.
PRESENTER:
That report by UN Radio's Bissera Kostova.
STING UN AFRICA THEME MUSIC

Children in Conflict Situations Face Many Challenges
PRESENTER:

And still on Sudan, Watchilist on Children and Armed Conflict, a non-governmental organization based in the United States, on Wednesday launched its latest report on children in Sudan. The report is entitled "Sudan's Children at a Crossroads: an Urgent Need for Protection. One of the participants in the launch of the report was Dr. Francis Deng, who has served as Director of the Center for Displacement Studies at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. When I spoke with him after the launch of the report, he told me that children in general in conflict situations suffer from a whole lot of things.
DENG: They range from the issues of insecurity, issues of basic needs, issues of education, and, of course, while children are viewed as really providing a common ground of care for everybody, and to that extent should not be source of controversy, but because they are part of the community, they are part of their families, they are with their brothers and sisters, and their fathers, so to some extent they are part of their community.

MBATHA: And, of course, now the focus is on Darfur. But is this problem widespread on the African continent, if I may ask?

DENG: Well, in every conflict situations where you have displacement, where the people become refugees or are internally displaced, overwhelmingly over 80 per cent become children and women. Men have gone either to war or have gone to seek opportunities elsewhere. The responsibility for preserving the family goes to children and women, some children at a very early age. Obviously in most cases they have got no education. They can't even go to schools, let alone getting the right health care or the nutrition or the basic protection from family.

MBATHA: It's one thing to outline the problem. Now what is being done to try to solve this problem?

DENG: Well this is a lot of organizations within the UN system, non-governmental organizations. In Darfur alone you have huge numbers of all these bodies, UN bodies, NGOs, national and international. So work is going on. But, you see, in my view, the root cause is conflict. What should be done is, in addition to dealing with the humanitarian side, people should intensify their efforts to find political solutions. And in the case of Darfur, a foundation has been laid, first by the CPA and then by the controversial DPA.

MBATHA: And the CPA of course you are referring to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the DPA the Darfur Peace Agreement.

DENG: That's right.

MBATHA: Now looking at Sudan are you optimistic that children there have a better future?

DENG: Well we are going through a very difficult phase, yet. I mean, first of all, once you stop killing, that itself is a benefit for the children. But then the future of children, most of Africans who come to positions of responsibilities come from backgrounds where there was no education. It is education that has made a difference for them. It is education that will produce the leaders tomorrow who can first sustain themselves through gainful employment and provide leadership for the country.

STING UN AFRICA THEME MUSIC
Rwanda Genocide is Reminder of Responsibility to Protect

PRESENTER:

A new expression has emerged in discussions at the Untied Nations. It's "the responsibility to protect". This issue is gaining more prominence now as the world attention continues to focus on the need to protect the displaced people in Darfur as you heard in our earlier segment. And there's no doubt that the 7th of April each year, the genocide in Rwanda will always remind people about the responsibility to protect. UN Radio's Ransford Cline-Thomas prepared this report.
CUT 1: COLIN KEATING
I had the tragic experience of being the president of the Security Council that day thirteen years ago when the genocide commenced in Rwanda.

NARRATOR:
That's how Ambassador Colin Keating, the former representative of New Zealand to the United Nations began his intervention in a panel discussion on the very idea of the responsibility to protect which was part of this year's commemoration of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Ambassador Keating served on the Security Council from 1993 to 1994.
CUT 2: COLIN KEATING
This day, this month, brings back a sense of responsibility, a sense of frustration and anger, and ultimately a sense of failure at my and a few others' inability to persuade the Council to do what it should have done.

What Ambassador Colin Keating was referring to was the failure of the Security Council to protect the mainly Tutsis and moderate Hutus who were slaughtered by Hutu extremists in Rwanda thirteen years ago. In fact, when the Hutus started their murderous rampage, the United Nations had a modest peacekeeping mission in Rwanda whose forces were under the command of Major-General Romeo Dallaire of Canada. The purpose of the mission was to help implement an agreement between the then Hutu-dominated Rwandan government and Tutsi rebels. There was tension between the Hutu and Tutsi communities in Rwanda and anything could have happened. And, indeed it did happen after the shooting down of a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6. Belgium, whose ten peacekeepers were killed when the genocide started, called for the withdrawal of its contingent in the UN mission. Other nations followed and Major-General Dallaire was left with less than three hundred soldiers. Imaculee Ilibagiza, a Tutsi woman, was in hiding in the house of a sympathetic Hutu friend when she heard on the radio what was happening in her country.
CUT 3: IMACULEE ILIBAGIZA
I remember hearing a lot that Romeo Dallaire was calling the UN to help, was calling the powerful countries, but somehow we didn't seem to have any response coming.

So why didn't the Security Council do something to protect the people of Rwanda? Ambassador Colin Keating says several factors contributed to that, including the constant focus of the media on events in the former Yugoslavia. The other, he adds, is that the Security Councils was not getting enough information from the United Nations secretariat about what was actually happening in Rwanda. And that's not all.
CUT 4: COLIN KEATING
But also the context included the recent events in Somalia where the United States forces had been attacked in Mogadishu. The context also included the reality that at that point in time, due to way the United Nations system operates, Rwanda itself, the representative of the genocidaire was sitting in there, in the Security Council as one if its privileged insiders.

NARRATOR:

So how is this new expression of responsibility to protect likely to translate into concrete action on the part of the Security Council members? One important principle to bear in mind when considering the issue of protecting vulnerable people is that of the sovereignty of member states, which member states can invoke to say no other states has the right to interfere in what it may consider to be its internal affairs. Well, that notwithstanding, the former Foreign Minister of Australia Gerath Evans says the responsibility to protect principle, which he refers to as the R to P, remains the best starting point for preventing and responding to genocide and mass atrocities.
CUT 5: GERATH EVANS
For R to P as a starting point really it has taken the world an insanely long time to come to terms conceptually with the idea that states sovereignty is not a license to kill, there is something fundamentally and intolerably wrong about states murdering or forcibly displacing large numbers of their own citizens or just as bad, standing by while others are allowed to do so.

NARRATOR:

Well then it appears member states have a lot of political work to do to bridge these two concepts in order to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity. For UN and Africa, I am Ransford Cline-Thomas.

SIG TUNE ((Bring up briefly, dip and hold under)
PRESENTER:
And that's all for this edition of UN and Africa. Our Production Assistant was Nyi Nyi Teza and our sound engineer was Zach Prewitt. I am Derrick Mbatha saying bye bye.
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