Global Policy Forum

By Tina Susman

In a rare show of unanimity, the U.N. Security Council Tuesday passed a resolution intended to speed the deployment of U.N. troops into Sudan's war-torn Darfur region to enforce a new peace accord.

The resolution, which passed 15-0, demanded that Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a longtime opponent of U.N. intervention in Darfur, permit a U.N. team into the region within a week to assess needs for the peacekeeping mission. The U.N. troops, which Bush administration officials have said should number at least 14,000, would replace an all-African force that was deployed in Darfur in 2004. The new team is not expected to include Americans.

Within a week of the assessment team's return, the Security Council is to be advised of the U.N. mission's ideal size and other requirements, the resolution said. China, Russia and Qatar, which have opposed tough resolutions in the past because of economic and political ties with Sudan, voted for the measure after the African Union expressed support for it.

The U.S. government, which has deemed Darfur's three-year-old war a genocide, sponsored the measure and its U.N. representative, John Bolton, said the unanimous approval "sends a strong message" to Sudan that it must drop its resistance to a U.N. force. The resolution, however, does not state what action Sudan might face if it does not let the team in.

Bolton said he expected Sudan to cooperate. "I think that's inherent in their decision to sign the peace agreement," he said, referring to an accord signed May 5 by Sudanese officials and one of Darfur's three main rebel groups.

Darfur's war began in February 2003 when non-Arab rebels took up arms against al-Bashir's Arab regime, accusing it of neglecting the remote region. Since then, as many as 400,000 people, mostly civilians, have died and at least 2 million people have been left homeless. The peace accord called for the government to disarm pro-government militiamen known as Janjaweed and to grant more political autonomy to Darfur. It also called for an immediate cease-fire.

But critics of the plan say it doesn't have a chance of success without the support of two holdout rebel groups, and without deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to enforce the cease-fire.

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