...boodling on the grand scale...
to withdraw its peacekeepers from the African country after the formal secession of South Sudan on July 9.
UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said a letter from Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Karti was given to the UN Secretary General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday in which the Sudanese official said Khartoum did not want to continue with the United Nations Missions in Sudan (UNMIS) after July 9, AFP reported. Karti said the January referendum in which southerners voted for separation from the North, marked the end of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended more than two decades of civil war between the North and the South.
UNMIS was established in 2005 to guarantee that the two sides comply with the peace deal. The force includes 10,000 servicemen, most of whom are troops.
On July 9, the peace agreement will end and there will be no justification for the presence of UN peacekeeping forces, Karti said.
Le Roy said it would be up to the UN Security Council to decide how to react to the request.
The South has asked the UN to continue the missions even after the formal declaration of secession.
Khartoum's request comes as tensions are running high between the two sides over the disputed oil-rich town of Abyei on the border between the North and the South.
The North's army took control of the region on May 21.
African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
adviser Alex de Waal said on Tuesday that both sides have agreed to establish a common demilitarized zone on the border. However,
The well-oiled
However...
they have not reached an agreement over the demarcation of the border.
Col. Philip Aguer, front man for the South's army, has said that the South will support the recent agreement on the condition that both sides agree on an actual border.