UN to send 7,000 peacekeepers to S. Sudan

The UN Security Council on Friday approved a mission of 7,000 peacekeepers and 900 civilians to South Sudan in a bid to establish a functioning government in the world's newest nation. One day ahead of South Sudan's planned independence, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution to create the UN Mission in South Sudan, which will succeed a UN force that supervised a peace deal ending the civil war. The new mission will "support national authorities, in close consultation with international partners, to consolidate the peace and prevent a return to violence," the resolution said. The Security Council authorized 7,000 troops and 900 civilian experts to help in tasks from establishing core government functions to establishing the rule of law to managing natural resources. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named Hilde Johnson, a Norwegian politician who was involved in talks to end Sudan's civil war, as the head of the mission. "One of the main worries for the international community is for South Sudan to join it in good shape. The United Nations has a major role to play in that," a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity. The diplomat said that another 2,000 civilians would be involved in logistics. Within three to six months, the resolution said that the United Nations will consider cutting the military force to 6,000 troops. The world's newest country will be born Saturday after a half-century of conflict between the vast nation's Arab-dominated Khartoum government and the ethnically African south. A 20-year civil war, which was halted by a 2005 peace agreement, left two million people dead and displaced another four million. Sudan on Friday recognized the south, in line with the hopes of foreign powers. But violence has flared in border areas. The UN Mission in South Sudan is separate from a 4,200-strong Ethiopian peacekeeping force authorized by the United Nations to douse tensions in the flashpoint territory of Abyei. The Ethiopians were deployed to monitor the withdrawal of troops from the Khartoum government who moved into Abyei in May in the run-up to independence, causing more than 100,000 people to flee, mostly to the south. Leaders of north and south Sudan agreed last month to turn Abyei into a demilitarized frontier region, although Khartoum insists that it remains under its control. In another disputed area, South Kordofan, Sudanese troops last month arrested six UN staff members. Sudan has ordered the UN mission out of the South Kordofan and Blue Nile states as of Friday. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said Thursday that she was "extremely concerned" about the decision. "It's vital that the United Nations be allowed to maintain a full peacekeeping presence in these areas for an additional period of time in order to facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid, support the implementation of any cessation of hostilities agreement and vitally to protect civilians," Rice told reporters in Washington. The new UN force will take over from the UN Mission in Sudan, which was deployed to monitor the implementation of the peace deal. The outgoing force, with more than 10,000 uniformed personnel from around the world, is mostly based in the south. Aid group Oxfam welcomed the decision to set up the new UN mission but voiced concern that the Security Council would consider reducing the force within months, saying that South Sudan was highly fragile. "Violence is rising and this isn't the time to go cheap by cutting on the budget of the future UN mission, on the number of boots on the ground or the number of civilian staff," Oxfam said in a statement ahead of the UN vote.