By Joe Lauria
Monday, March 05, 2007
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New York - Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will preside over a special session of the Security Council later this month aimed at getting the United Nations to better support African Union peacekeeping missions on the continent. As president of the council for March, South African ambassador Dumisani Kumalo called for the meeting to take place on March 28.
"South Africa will launch a thematic debate, with the African Union, to further explore the role between the Security Council and regional organisations, particularly the African Union," Kumalo told a UN press conference on Friday.
"The African Union is beginning to play a major role in the maintenance of international peace and security. We need to talk about this relationship, which is at the heart of what is happening in the UN," he said.
"The AU is being called upon to assume a lot of the work that really belongs to the UN. The AU is in Somalia, for instance, because that is what this body is supposed to be doing, maintaining peace in Somalia," Kumalo said.
The AU also has peacekeeping missions in Darfur and in Burundi, but they are both chronically under-funded and merely endorsed by Security Council statements. Proposals have been made to have the UN help pay for missions if UN troops are neither available nor wanted by the host government.
In Darfur, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has sent a letter to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon containing his decision on whether to accept a hybrid UN-AU force in Darfur, Kumalo said.
"We are told that the letter has been signed by President Bashir and is on its way," he said.
Until now, Bashir has refused a UN presence, accepting only about 7 000 AU soldiers.
Funding for the AU contingent will run out in June and the European Union is again considering bailing them out as it has when money has run out before.
Kumalo said the foreign ministers of Ghana and the Democratic Republic Congo, as well as South Africa, have said they would attend the special session. Other foreign ministers from the 15-member council should also be present, he added.
"We are the neighbours, we want to arrive first, but we want to make sure that the Security Council is not absolved of its mandate," he said.
Source: The Star, Mar 05, 2007