UN should be hesitant on Darfur mission: Peacekeeping chief

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

LONDON (AFP) — The UN Security Council has "good reasons" to be unsure about sending large numbers of peacekeepers to Sudan's Darfur region, its outgoing head of peacekeeping said in an interview published Thursday.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Jean-Marie Guehenno said the United Nations had reached the "outer limit" of its peacekeeping capacity, and noted that a single failure in a peacekeeping mission could damage all such initiatives.

"I would say very bluntly that there are good reasons to be hesitant," Guehenno told the business daily.

He said that, at present, "there is not enough of a political process (in Darfur) for a peacekeeping operation to be really successful."

"The danger is that you go do something and then, if you go into a...