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Europe

Dutch PM faces defeat over EU treaty vote

2007-09-22

The Dutch government rejected mounting calls for a referendum on Europe's new reform treaty last night, two years after Dutch voters killed off the European constitution in a referendum that stunned the EU. After a cabinet meeting yesterday of the coalition of Christian and Social Democrats, the Christian Democrat prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, announced that a second referendum was not needed on the grounds that the new treaty was not a constitution and that Dutch concerns had been assuaged in the treaty negotiations this year. But Mr Balkenende's determination to avoid another referendum after the fiasco he faced two years ago could still fall foul of the parliament in The Hague, where three small parties are demanding a popular vote on the treaty that is supposed to be agreed by the 27 EU governments next month. A decision to stage a referendum in the Netherlands would complicate Gordon Brown's attempts to avoid a national vote on the treaty. Downing Street has been put on the defensive by demands for a referendum from the trade unions, a Tory campaign, calls from the rightwing press and the danger of a Labour backbench revolt. Despite yesterday's decision in The Hague, the Dutch coalition is split. Whereas the prime minister is fiercely opposed, his centre-left partner fought an election last year pledging a referendum. Senior Dutch Labour figures support a vote. Jan Pronk, expected to be made Labour chairman next week, is backing a plebiscite, as is the party's caucus leader in parliament, Jacques Tichelaar. Of the three parties demanding the referendum in parliament, two are solidly pro-EU and one is strongly Eurosceptic. If Labour voted with them as well as the pro-referendum conservative PVV, they would muster a majority and rout Mr Balkenende. Last week a government advisory body, the council of state, told the cabinet that a referendum was not needed since the new treaty, unlike its ill-fated predecessor, was not a constitution. Mr Balkenende said he would be steered by the council's advice. But the scenario of 2005 could still be repeated. The Dutch voted by almost two to one to kill off the constitution and spared prime minister Tony Blair the need to hold a referendum in Britain. Mr Balkenende opposed a referendum on that occasion too, but lost in parliament. The reform treaty was drafted this year under German leadership in response to the crisis triggered by the Dutch and French no votes two years ago. An EU summit next month in Portugal is meant to endorse the treaty, which then has to be ratified. Like Mr Brown, Mr Balkenende hopes to restrict the ratification process to parliament. If the Dutch leader is forced to call a referendum, the pressure will mount on Mr Brown to follow suit and there will probably be demands for a public vote elsewhere in the EU - in Denmark, for example. That could spell a death sentence for the treaty, even if the Dutch government is confident it could win a referendum if necessary.

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Africa Horn

Pronk steps down as UN envoy for Sudan

2006-10-28

After Sudan ordered UN Special envoy for Sudan Jan Pronk earlier this week to leave the country after he was considered a "threat" to its national security, Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Khartoum worked out a compromise by which Pronk will remain in his post until December but will travel back to Khartoum in November to organize an "orderly" handover to his deputy, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told the daily press briefing on Friday. "The Secretary-General has now confirmed that Jan Pronk will continue to serve as his Special Representative in the Sudan until the end of the year, when his contract is set to expire. Following ongoing consultations with the Sudanese authorities, it is expected that Mr. Pronk will return to Khartoum during November to organize an orderly handover to the officer-in-charge of the UN mission, before returning to New York for debriefings and the completion of his mission," Dujarric said. He added that Annan has made it clear that he alone can decide on Pronk's tenure. However, "he also realized that at a critical time in the Darfur negotiations, it is important that we preserve a good working relationship" with the Sudanese government, and he is "certain the officer in charge Taye Zerihoun will be able to provide this." Mighty adroit cave, Mr. Annan.

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Africa Horn

Sudan: Expelled UN envoy not welcome back-Govt.

2006-10-27

(SomaliNet) Despite UN’s confidence in Mr Jan Pronk, a special UN envoy to Sudan who was recently expelled from Khartoum, Sudan has said it will not have any further dealings with envoy, a senior official said Thursday. “The decision to expel Jan Pronk is irrevocable because of positions he has taken that are incompatible with his mission in Sudan,” foreign ministry spokesman Ali Al Sadek told journalists. “It is a decision of state and of the government that is not concerned with what the United Nations decides.”

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Africa Horn

US call for action as Darfur monitor expelled

2006-10-24

THE United States has condemned the Sudanese Government’s decision to expel the head of the United Nations mission to the country and said that international action was needed to contain the worsening conflict. Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, described as “unfortunate in the extreme” the move to order Jan Pronk, the Dutch head, to leave. The Sudanese Government said that it had expelled him for saying that its army had recently suffered defeats against rebels in Darfur. Khartoum, which was already at loggerheads with the international community over moves to send a 22,000-strong UN force to Darfur, was infuriated by comments made by Mr Pronk on his blog, janpronk.nl. A “somewhat bemused” Mr Pronk has been recalled to New York for talks with Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, and will not return to Sudan. The decision to order Mr Pronk out of the country raises the stakes sharply in the long-running dispute with the world body over the crisis in the vast western province, where an estimated 200,000 have died and more than two million have been driven from their homes in 3œ years of government-supported mayhem.

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Africa Horn

Sudan orders top UN envoy out

2006-10-22

SUDAN ordered the top UN envoy, Jan Pronk, to leave the country within three days following comments he made that the army's morale was low after suffering two major defeats in the violent Darfur region. "The reason is the latest statements issued by Mr. Pronk on his website regarding severe criticism of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the fact that he said the government of Sudan is not implementing the Darfur peace agreement," Mr al-Sadig said. He said the Foreign Ministry met with Mr Pronk and had informed him of its decision. More on this at the Washington Post. Here is his blog. Hat tip Instapundit.

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Africa Horn

Pronk is still Annan's special envoy for Sudan - UN official insists

2006-10-21

A UN official late Friday insisted that Jan Pronk, the UN Special Representative for Sudan, has still not been officially declared persona non grata by the Sudanese Government and despite the Foreign Ministry's complaint earlier today. The media reported yesterday that the Sudanese military had declared Pronk to be persona non grata after posting in his blog last week that the Sudanese Army had suffered two major military defeats in its campaign against the rebels in Darfur. "Ow! You've dented our Dignity(tm), infidel!". "As far as the United Nations is aware, he has not been officially made persona non grata," UN spokesman Dujarric told the daily press briefing. He noted that the views of the Sudanese Government are usually expressed through "normal, official channels" and that "there had been nothing on Pronk being declared persona non grata in those channels". He speculated that Pronk was in Khartoum and continues to express the official views of the UN and the UN Mission in Sudan in his official communications. "We haven't actually *seen* him in a few days, but you know how diplomats get." Asked whether Pronk was told to stop writing his blog, the Spokesman said that there have been discussions with him concerning it. Asked if Annan shares Pronk's comments, Dujarric emphasized that the views expressed by Pronk in his blog are his "personal views". Dujarric said there are no rules or specific regulations for UN staff members to write blogs, but the UN expects staff members to "exercise proper judgment in what they include".

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Africa Horn

Sudanese authorities, former Darfur rebels clash

2006-09-29

Years of violence over Sudan's war-torn Darfur region further escalated Thursday when government forces and the only rebel group to have signed a peace agreement aimed at ending the violence in the western region clashed in the capital's affluent twin city, the head of the UN in Sudan said. Tensions between Sudanese authorities and the rebel faction, whose leader joined the government after signing the Darfur Peace Agreement in May, degenerated into an open shootout in Omdurman, located across the Nile River from the capital of Khartoum, said Jan Pronk, who leads the UN's Sudanese mission. "The situation in Darfur is becoming worse and worse, that it has now reached Khartoum is just another proof of how bad things are," Pronk said.

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Africa Horn

Sudan: UN observers to withdraw from eastern Sudan

2006-07-08

(SomaliNet) The United nations (UN) are set to pull out of eastern Sudan since forces of the former rebel, Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) had withdrawn from the region according to a peace agreement it signed with the government in January 2005,a senior UN official said Thursday, Xinhua reported. United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General in Sudan, Jan Pronk, told reporters that since the tasks of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) were completed in the Kassala state under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the mission's offices and operations will be closed and phased out. According to Pronk, the mission of UNMIS in the region was accomplished after the completion of redeployment of thousands SPLM troops from eastern Sudan last month.

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Africa Horn

Beshir says Sudan can handle Darfur peacekeeping

2006-06-27

KHARTOUM - Sudanese President Omar Al Beshir said his country could assume peacekeeping operations in war-torn Darfur, state media reported on Monday in a fresh rebuff of the UN’s deployment plan. Sudan “is prepared to undertake the peacekeeping process in Darfur if the AU abandons or relinquishes the mandate it was granted by the government,” Omdurman Radio quoted Beshir as telling a cabinet meeting on Sunday. 'cause it's worked so well so far ... Beshir’s renewed opposition to a proposed UN takeover of peacekeeping responsibilities from the cash-strapped and ill-equipped African Union came amid heightened tensions between Khartoum and the world body. The foreign ministry on Monday summoned the UN’s top envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk, or his deputy, to explain under what circumstances a Darfur rebel leader was allegedly transported on a UN flight over the weekend. Suleiman Jammus, a member of a dissident faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), was taken Saturday from the main Darfur town of El-Fasher to South Kordofan state on a UN helicopter flight, the foreign ministry said. “It was clear that the act was planned to take place behind the back of the Sudanese authorities,” a statement issued late Saturday said. Jammus belongs to the wing of the SLM that opposes the fragile peace agreement signed between Minni Minawi’s SLM faction and Khartoum in Nigeria last month. The foreign ministry said it had suspended all UN operations in Darfur until further notice, except those of the two largest agencies in the region -- the World Food Programme and the UN children’s fund UNICEF. UN offices in Khartoum did not confirm the incident and refused to comment on the government’s reaction. On Sunday, up to 5,000 demonstrators -- mainly from the ruling National Congress Party’s student and youth organisations -- seethed protested in Khartoum against the UN peacekeeping plan, rolling their eyes chanting anti-US and making faces anti-UN slogans. After completing a mission aimed at mustering support from the authorities for a UN deployment, the UN’s undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations Jean-Marie Guehenno reported no breakthrough. “The response we had was not the one that we would have liked to hear,” he said last week in a briefing during which he enumerated the ideas he submitted to the government during his consultations. Beshir has repeatedly warned he will turn Darfur into “a graveyard” for Western troops, accusing the West of seeking to ”recolonise Sudan”. And the feckless Y'urp-peons in charge at the U.N. believe him, of course.

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Africa Horn

UN: Militia Kill at Least 11 in Darfur

2006-05-19

Ignoring a peace pact, armed militiamen attacked several villages this week in Sudan's Darfur region, killing at least 11 people and wounding many others, the United Nations said Wednesday. Did anyone expect them to adhere to a peace pact? The raids occurred in seven villages around the town of Kutum in north Darfur on Monday, the U.N. said. The U.N. did not blame any specific group for the attacks, but the African Union has said the raids were carried out by Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. Who'd you expect? Lapplanders? The attacks came as the U.N. and African Union pushed splinter rebel groups to endorse the May 5 agreement between Khartoum and the main rebel leader. I'm sure this episode will point out to them the desirability of doing so... Some of the rebels who rejected the peace accord enjoy strong support in the refugee camps of Darfur, a vast, arid region in western Sudan. Jan Pronk, the UN chief's special envoy to Sudan, said he was heading to Darfur this week to try to persuade the hold-out rebels to sign the peace agreement. That's assuming Bashir lets him in the country and nobody bumps him off. Take the train, Jan, not a helicopter. The two international organizations also pressed the Sudan government to fulfill its commitment of disarming the Janjaweed, who have been accused of some of the worst atrocities in the three-year conflict that has left more than 180,000 people dead and displaced another 2.5 million. Khartoum denies backing the Janjaweed but has said it will try to rein them in. I expect approximately zippo from that promise. The U.N. said the Sudanese government had arrested 23 people since clashes erupted Monday between refugees and Sudanese police in a Darfur refugee camp. At least three people were killed in the camp, including a protester shot by police and a Sudanese military intelligence officer lynched by the crowd.

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Africa Horn

Thousands of Sudanese protest against U.N. force

2006-03-08

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Shouting "Down, Down USA", thousands of Sudanese protested in Khartoum on Wednesday against any deployment of U.N. troops in the western Darfur region. "Get out all foreigners, we don't want you here," shouted 21-year-old student Zeinab Kheir el-Sir. "Darfur will be the grave of the conquerors," said banners carried by the demonstrators. T-shirts available through Cafe Press African Union foreign ministers are due to decide on Friday whether to ask the United Nations to take control of their 7,000-strong mission monitoring a shaky ceasefire in Darfur. U.N. officials have sought NATO and EU support to bolster the AU force, which lacks funds and equipment, triggering alarm in Sudan which opposes intervention by non-African troops. Ahead of the AU meeting, senior western officials held talks in Brussels with Sudanese leaders aiming to persuade them to agree to the deployment of a robust U.N. mission in Darfur. Belgium has always played such a constructive role in Africa. But after a government-led media campaign against U.N. intervention, nationalist sentiment in Sudan is running high. The pro-government al-Intibaha newspaper has announced the formation of two new Islamist movements threatening to target foreign interests in Darfur, called the Darfur Limb Hacking Society Jihad Organization and the Rabid Moonbats Blood Brigades. The protestors handed a statement to U.N. offices demanding the immediate decapitation eviction of the top U.N. envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk. Sudanese women wearing Cindy Sheehan T-shirts bearing kalashnikovs joined the march, declaring their readiness to fight foreign troops. The defense minister also rallied troops against intervention at a military demonstration in Khartoum. "Jihad, victory, martyrdom," the soldiers chanted. "Our martyrs are in the dirt heaven, and we are ready," said Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein. Hussein last week threw out all foreign press from a news conference, accusing them of fabricating the Darfur conflict, which Washington calls genocide. Khartoum denies genocide in the arid west, but tens of thousands have been killed and 2 million herded into camps by three years of rape, looting and killing. The International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes there. Among the crowd of demonstrators, one brave woman quietly said she supported intervention in her place of origin, Darfur ,before being torn to pieces . "I don't think the government can solve the problem, nor can the African Union," student Maha Mekki said. "I want America to come in," she said. CHANGE OF COMMAND? The United Nations is currently deploying about 10,000 troops to Sudan's south to oversee a separate peace deal signed last year to end more than two decades of civil war there. But the government and opposition parties have all said they do not want this U.N. force to be extended to Darfur as well. "In the south they are there to help, but in Darfur this will just be a front for Israel and America to come in to get our kalashnikov toting beauties oil," said demonstrator Amal Jaafar. Sudan produces roughly 330,000 barrels per day of crude, mostly from fields in the south. U.N. sources say any U.N. force in Sudan's west is likely to keep the same AU forces on the ground, but change the command over to a U.N. peacekeeping mission. In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana met Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha to step up pressure on Sudan to accept U.N. peacekeepers. "Taha is a key player in the Sudanese government ... We hope he hears the message," an EU official said U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, due to join the talks during the day, said he would push for a U.N. mission. "We believe that, to the maximum extent possible, the AU forces in Darfur should be incorporated into the U.N. mission in which Africans should play a key leadership role," Zoellick said in a statement before leaving Washington.

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Africa Horn

Sudanese students demonstrate, reject U.N. troops

2006-03-07

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - About 200 Sudanese students demonstrated on Tuesday urging the United Nations to leave their country and calling it a colonial force, days ahead of a decision to deploy U.N. troops to the violent Darfur region. Tuesday's protest outside the U.S. embassy in Khartoum followed unconfirmed reports in a pro-government newspaper of new Islamist groups threatening U.N. and U.S. interests in Sudan, and rejecting the presence of any U.N. soldiers in Darfur. "This is our message to you Jan Pronk: Get out of our country, leave immediately," head of the Sudanese students union, Mohamed Abdallah Sheikh Idriss, told the chanting crowd. Pronk is the top U.N. envoy in Sudan. And Mohamed Idriss would be the Sudanese government's top envoy in the student union One boy held a picture of Pronk with a knife and blood dripping from the blade, warning: "Be prepared." Pronk defended the U.N.'s role in Sudan, saying the body had not asked to deploy troops in Darfur, and that it would only intervene if asked to do so by the African Union. He also said the U.N. should not be confused with the U.S. "Quite a number of people in Sudan are mixing up United Nations with has happened in other countries, like Iraq and Afghanistan," Pronk told Reuters during a visit to Cairo. "There is no intervention. There is no colonial approach. The U.N. is not the U.S., they (the protestors) should understand that ... The United Nations is a safeguard against intervention," he said. "I mean, it's not like the U.N. will really do anything" About 7,000 African Union troops are monitoring a shaky ceasefire in Sudan's west where 2 million people have been driven from their homes by a campaign of rape, killing and looting, called genocide by Washington. Khartoum denies genocide, but the International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes in the remote region bordering Chad. On Friday African foreign ministers are expected to request the United Nations take over their force in Darfur. But Sudan rejects U.N. forces in the region, and has warned Pronk that al Qaeda militants may target troops if they enter the country, especially if they include U.S. soldiers. "Those al Qaeda militants are all over the place, we can't control them, so don't blame us." The newly established al-Intibaha newspaper last week announced a new Islamist movement against foreign intervention in Darfur, called the Darfur Jihad Organization. "The group vows to fight any foreign intervention in Darfur through all legitimate religious means," a statement received by the paper said. Which means killing all infidels On Monday the paper reported the formation of another group, the "Blood Brigades," which it said offered a reward of $40,000 for anyone who killed the U.S. charge d'affaires in Khartoum. Last week a Sudanese Islamist paper quoted anonymous businessmen saying the U.S. charge Cameron Hume had insulted the Prophet Mohammad. The U.S. embassy denied the statement. But Tuesday's demonstration was held outside the U.S. embassy because, demonstrators said, Hume had insulted Islam. "The U.S. embassy is proof of occupation and colonization of our country," said Ahmed Malik of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan. "They (the United States) have declared a war against Muslims".

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