En lang række lande lovede tirsdag Sudan støtte for 24 milliarder kroner på en tilsagnskonference i Oslo, men FNs generalsekretær, Kofi Annan, opfordrede donorerne til at holde, hvad de lover, skriver Ekstra Bladet Online tirsdag eftermiddag.
De mange penge skal gå til at genopbygge Sudan – ikke mindst den sydlige del af landet – efter 21 års nu afsluttet borgerkrig mellem oprørere i Sydsudan og centralregeringen i Khartoum, oplyste Norges udviklingsminister ved afslutningen på den internationale donorkonference i den norske hovedstad.
USA var det sidste af de 60 lande, der lovede hjælp til det krigshærgede Sudan. Amerikanerne gjorde genopbygningsstøtten betinget af, at konflikten i Sudans vestlige Darfur-region, som har kostet omkring 300.000 livet, bliver løst.
Generalsekretær Kofi Annan opfordrede donorerne til at virkeliggøre deres pengeløfter: – Løfter er gode, men kontanter er bedre, sagde han og advarede mod, at de velgørende lande alligevel skulle svigte Sudan.
Danmark bidrager til genopbygningen med ca. 520 millioner kr.
FNs nyhedstjenestes version fra Oslo:
A two-day donors conference to support the peace accord between the Government and rebels in southern Sudan has pledged 4,5 billion US dollar for 2005-2007, nearly 2 billion dollar MORE than the amount UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan identified as needed to resurrect the ravaged region over the next two and a half years.
Addressing the opening session Monday in Oslo, Mr. Annan had appealed to participants to “pledge – and pledge generously,” quipping when asked about the tendency of governments not to honour their pledges that “pledges are good, but cash is better.”
He had also stressed that although 2,6 billion dollar had been identified as vital to meet the requirements of the next two and a half years, there were already massive shortfalls, with nearly one billion dollar still to be raised out of the 1,5 billion dollar requested nearly five months ago for this year.
The conference was convened to propel repatriation, reintegration and reconstruction in southern Sudan, where a peace agreement in January formally ended two decades of civil war that killed 2 million people, drove more than 4,6 million others from their homes and left the region in ruins.
But it is hoped that peace will spread, too, to Sudans western Darfur region, where a separate conflict between Government, militia and rebel forces has killed tens of thousands people in the past two years, uprooted more than 2 million others and shows scant signs of abating.
UN officials have already warned that funding shortfalls there are threatening emergency feeding programmes for more than 1 million hungry people, mostly driven from their homes.
In the now peaceful south the UN and its international partners face a gargantuan (gigantisk) task. Just in the sector of returning uprooted people to their homes, acting UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Wendy Chamberlin told the conference there were 550.000 refugees in neighbouring countries and an estimated 4,1 million internally displaced persons.
– What is needed? In a word, everything, she said, noting that in one area there are only two doctors for 180.000 inhabitants, that everywhere people have limited access to safe water, that large tracts of farmland are polluted with land mines, and that jobs must be created to ensure viable communities.
Mr. Annan Monday mentioned another urgent need, that of reintegrating ex-combatants into society since the greatest threat of renewed conflict is posed by soldiers who are not disarmed and given alternative economic livelihoods.
He urged Member States to invest generously in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration.
