16 May 2006 – The Security Council took a major step forward today towards establishing a robust United Nations peacekeeping force in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region by unanimously adopting a resolution calling for the deployment on the ground of a joint UN-Africa Union (AU) team to pave the way for the operation, which would take over from the AU mission (AMIS) now monitoring the vast region.
Immediately welcoming the resolution’s adoption in a statement issued by his spokesman, the Secretary-General said the UN “hopes to dispatch, as quickly as possible, a joint UN/AU Technical Assessment Team to Darfur, and towards that end, is in continuous consultation with the Government of National Unity” of Sudan.
A “technical assistance team” is diplo-speak for a of couple diplomats who stay in the most expensive hotel in the country, and view the situation from air conditioned Land Cruisers from a distance. If they actually deploy UN peacekeepers, stand by for an “unfortunate incident.”
