German President Steinmeier’s visit boosts Sudan bid against isolation
Report from monitor.co.ug
Dated Saturday, 29 February 2020
Photo: German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s visit to Khartoum this week has become the latest marketing tool for the transitional government to help Sudan out of international isolation.
Mr Steinmeier became the first German President to visit Khartoum since 1985, and is the highest ranked global leader to visit Sudan since the ouster of Omar al-Bashir last April.
His two-day trip from Thursday has left authorities excited and hoping it could further improve the country's image.
Sudan is still struggling to get off the US sanctions list.
In Khartoum, the German leader met Abdul Fattah Al-Burhan, the leader of the Transitional Sovereign Council, as well as Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.
“I am here to say that we are happy with the changes in Sudan and public opinion is interested in that as well,” Steinmeier said.
He urged the international community to help the country to rebuild.
“We know the difficult economic situation and Sudan needs access to international financial institutions,” Steinmeier told a joint press conference with Premier Hamdok on Thursday.
“I assured Hamdok that Germany can be relied on and pointed out the economic potentials…Germany is ready to support the peace process.”
The German leader had visited Burkina Faso and Kenya this week, promising support for development and trade.
Germany, for example, has announced that it will increase its contribution towards fighting locust invasion in East Africa, providing an additional $18.7 million to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, increasing its total commitment to $21.99 million.
But in Sudan, where food shortage and hard economic times have been felt just as much, the problem is the restriction to international assistance.
Officially, the US lists Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism and a USA Court has issued a verdict demanding that Khartoum pays families of victims of a US warship bombed in Yemen in 2001. The terror merchants of that incident were reportedly trained in Sudan, where then al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden was living in the 1980s.
President Steinmeier’s visit indicated thawing relations between Germany and Sudan, which had been in a lull for the three decades of Omar al-Bashir’s rule.
Prime Minister Hamdok said Berlin’s decision to lift the development ban on Sudan establishes strong ties.
View Original: https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/africa/German-President-Steinmeier-s-visit-boosts-Sudan-bid-against-isolation-881575
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Germany Extends Involvement in UN Missions in Sudan, S. Sudan Until 2018
Report from Sputnik News
Dated 02 November 2015, 14:46
Bundeswehr's involvement in the United Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), and the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) will be extended until the end of 2017, maintaining a regular level of staff, up to 50 soldiers at each point, according to government spokesman Steffen Seibert.
BERLIN (Sputnik) — The German Cabinet has decided to extend the Bundeswehr's involvement in the United Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), and the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) until the end of 2017, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, an independent inquiry revealed that the UN peacekeeping mission had certain shortcomings in South Sudan, and failed to properly protect hundreds of civilians. Following the inquiry's publication, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki moon pledged to introduce additional measures to improve the mission and bolster its protection capabilities.
"In both cases, the German part amounted largely to guiding and advising tasks, in both cases it will be extended until the end of 2017, maintaining a regular level of staff, up to 50 soldiers at each point," Seibert said.
According to him, the Bundeswehr mission in Sudan would remain part of long-term efforts for "a lasting settlement of the conflict and stabilization of peace consolidation in the region."
UNAMID was deployed to Sudan's western region of Darfur in 2007, which has been engaged in an armed conflict between rebel groups and the government of Sudan since 2003. The rebels accused authorities of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population, to which the government initially responded by ethnic cleansing.
South Sudan, which separated from Sudan in 2011, has been engaged in an armed ethnic conflict since 2013, when President Salva Kiir said that a military coup had been planned in the country, pointing the blame squarely at rebel leader Rijek Mashar. Apart from killing scores of people, the conflict has put the country on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.
UNMISS was deployed to South Sudan in July 2011, initially for a year, but its deployment was later extended.
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PHOTOS: German Air Force Returns From AMIS Mission In Sudan (March 2006)
LANDSBERG, GERMANY - MARCH 24: A German Transall C-160 Military plane parks on an airfield after the return from a mission in Sudan, Africa, on March 24, 2006 at the airbase in Penzing near Landsberg, Germany. The mission in Sudan called "African Union Mission in Sudan" (AMIS), and is the support to move 500 soldiers from Tschad to Sudan. (Photos by Jan Pitman/Getty Images)
LANDSBERG, GERMANY - MARCH 24: German soldiers stand in front of a Transall C-160 military plane after their return from a mission in Sudan, Africa, on March 24, 2006 at the airbase in Penzing near Landsberg, Germany. The mission in Sudan called "African Union Mission in Sudan" (AMIS), and is the support to move 500 soldiers from Tschad to Sudan. (Photo by Jan Pitman/Getty Images)
Photo: LANDSBERG, GERMANY - MARCH 24, 2006: German soldiers stand in front of a Transall C-160 military plane after their return from a mission in Sudan, Africa, on March 24, 2006 at the airbase in Penzing near Landsberg, Germany. The mission in Sudan called "African Union Mission in Sudan" (AMIS), and is the support to move 500 soldiers from Tschad to Sudan. (Photo by Jan Pitman/Getty Images) © AP Photo / Jan Pitman
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FURTHER READING
Sudan Watch - March 23 2006
Germany approves peacekeeping troops to Sudan
Sudan Watch - December 15, 2006
German parliament gives green light to extending Sudan mission
Sudan Watch - May 16, 2005
German military observers fail to get visas for Sudan
Deployment of German military observers to southern Sudan may be delayed. So far, the Sudanese government has issued entry visas to hardly any of the soldiers who are supposed to help with monitoring the peace agreement in the African country as of mid-May.
According to the German news magazine Der Spiegel, the reason for the delay is occasionally seen in the pressure exerted by German diplomacy.
Germany had pilloried the human rights violations in the crisis region of Darfur early and contributed to making the brutal civil war an issue in the UN Security Council, which adopted sanctions.
The UN in New York has now noticed that other Western members of the UN mission have not received the entry visas necessary for southern Sudan, either.
This makes it difficult for the UN to station 10,000 soldiers in Africa's largest country as soon as possible.
One of a total of some 50 German soldiers has meanwhile arrived in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, another four are in Nairobi, Kenya, for preparations. - BBC via Sudan Tribune Berlin, Germany, May 15, 2005.
