Darfur crisis:Hopes were raised yesterday of real progress on the Darfur crisis after UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon announced a conference between the UN, the African Union (AU) and the Sudanese government next Tuesday.
Mr Moon said that months of wrangling over the leadership of a joint UN-AU force has been resolved and that the two sides had agreed on an African general to head the so-called "hybrid force".
They have sent their proposal to Khartoum and will meet Sudanese officials in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.
"We hope that the Sudanese government will favourably agree to this joint proposal as soon as possible so that we can deploy the hybrid operation," said Mr Moon. "This will facilitate human assistance to many people." The secretary general declined to name the appointed general, but a top UN official called the future force commander "an African general highly regarded in military circles" and that he "reflects the nature of the hybrid force very clearly".
The four-year Darfur conflict between local rebels and a pro- government militia has left more than 200,000 people dead and two million refugees in camps in neighbouring African states.
Next week's meeting could be overshadowed by a call from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the arrest of two Sudanese officials suspected of war crimes in the region.
The court called on the UN Security Council to help with the arrest of Ahmed Haroun, Sudan's minister of state for humanitarian affairs, and Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, leader of the Janjaweed armed militia held responsible for many of the conflict's atrocities.
"It is of particular concern to my office that an individual sought by the court . . . is still today the minister of state for humanitarian affairs of the Sudan with the power to monitor and affect these vulnerable people and the international personnel helping them," said ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to the United Nations Security Council.
He said he had clear evidence that, as minister responsible for the Darfur crisis from 2003-2004, Mr Haroun had funded and armed Janjaweed, which went on to commit "murder, rape and other massive crimes against the civilian population".
"I have eyewitnesses who saw Ahmad Haroun delivering weapons in his own helicopter to the militia in three different states in Darfur," said Mr Moreno-Ocampo. Sudan admits mobilising "self-defence militias" but denies supporting Janjaweed and does not recognise the ICC.
