UN renews Darfur peacekeeping mandate

The UN Security Council renews the mandate for peacekeepers in Darfur but Washington raises concerns.

Jerry Fowler (left), president of the Save Darfur Coalition, speaks with Mahmoud Braima, the Darfur-born board member of the coalition, in front of a Robinson R-44 helicopter in New York that the coalShow more

UNITED NATIONS // The UN Security Council has renewed the mandate for peacekeepers in Darfur in a resolution that Washington criticised for raising concerns about moves to indict Sudan's president for genocide. Most western powers yesterday accepted wording that makes it clear the council would be willing to discuss freezing any International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment of President Omar Hassan al Bashir for genocide in the interest of peace in Darfur.

Of the 15 council members, 14 voted for the resolution. Washington rejected the section on the ICC and abstained. Five years of war have brought humanitarian disaster to the western Sudanese region, and Darfur campaigners accuse the world of failing to provide helicopters and other badly needed support for the struggling peacekeeping mission there. Washington backed the basic point of the resolution to extend the mission through July 2009, but criticised a key paragraph in the British-drafted text added to accommodate African concerns about the ICC.

"The United States abstained from the vote because language added to the resolution would send the wrong signal to Sudanese President Bashir and undermine efforts to bring him and others to justice," said the US deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff, who repeatedly referred to the "genocide" in Darfur. The US delegation did not veto the resolution, which would have left the peacekeeping mission in a legal vacuum.

But council members had wanted a unanimous vote to show undivided support for peacekeepers in the line of fire in Darfur. Human Rights Watch welcomed the US abstention, saying it was a vote against "get out of jail free card" for Mr Bashir. Britain's ambassador to the UN, John Sawers, who led negotiations on the resolution, said he regretted the lack of unanimity. He also criticised linking the ICC to the troops' mandate.