Pronk: Sudanese military trampling over DPA and still trying to gain military victory

Speaking from his native Netherlands, Mr Pronk said Sudan had broken its own peace agreement in Darfur. - BBC
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Oct 25 2006 IOL by Alexandra Hudson, Amsterdam - Pronk stands firm on Sudan comments. Excerpt:

Top United Nations envoy Jan Pronk said on Tuesday that he had no regrets about comments he made concerning the situation in Darfur which led to his expulsion from Sudan, and said he hoped he could return to the country.

"I am still the special envoy to Sudan - just now not in Sudan itself," he told Dutch radio station BNR Nieuwsradio in his first interview since leaving Khartoum.

Pronk told BNR the information was widely available and it was not the weblog itself that lay behind his expulsion.

"The main thing is that a peace accord was signed in Darfur but the military are trampling all over it and are still trying to gain a military victory," he said.

"I have been trying constantly over the last months to expose this and this doesn't suit them."

Asked whether he should have been more diplomatic, Pronk replied: "I was extremely careful".

Pronk said he had kept to three rules in his work - never to talk about conversations, to be balanced and fair, and not to criticise individuals.

The last days had been nerve-racking, he said, while the Sudanese government weighed whether to expel him.

Barbarians.



In this file picture, U.N. envoy Jan Pronk answers questions after a meeting of the U.N. Security Council where he described the deteriorating security situation in southern Sudan and in the country's western Darfur region, at the United Nations, in New York, March 21, 2006. Sudan on Sunday ordered Pronk to leave the country within three days following comments he made that the army's morale was low after suffering two major defeats in the violent Darfur region. (Chip East/Reuters)