(WASHINGTON) – During meetings at UN headquarters in New York today, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged speedier progress to solve the humanitarian and security crisis in Darfur.

During the day-long visit, Ros-Lehtinen also met with ambassadors from Poland and the Czech Republic about the problem-plagued UN Human Rights Council and prospects for democracy in Cuba.

Ros-Lehtinen was part of a congressional delegation led by Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD). In April, Ros-Lehtinen and Hoyer led a similar delegation to Darfur. 

Ros-Lehtinen said the UN should move to rapidly deploy the previously authorized heavy support package - including additional troops and essential equipment - to the African Union peacekeeping mission already deployed in Darfur while the United Nations prepares to deploy the much-anticipated hybrid UN/African Union peacekeeping mission.  

“The Security Council resolution governing the hybrid peacekeeping force must include a single, unified chain of command, adequate protection for civilians and humanitarian operations and a rapid deployment schedule,” Ros-Lehtinen said. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has indicated his support for such measures.

“In addition to deploying a peacekeeping mission to address the security and humanitarian crisis, the UN must get more involved in trying to find a long-term political solution,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

“The humanitarian crisis in Darfur has been made immeasurably worse by thuggish rebel groups seeking to gain some political advantage on the backs of vulnerable people, and by the complete lack of resolve by key members of the Security Council to act in the name of humanity,” said Ros-Lehtinen.

The United States has been steadfast in urging the deployment to Darfur of a hybrid peacekeeping force to end years of bloodshed that has killed hundreds of thousands. 

During a meeting with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Ros-Lehtinen also raised the issue of the Human Rights Council, UN budget and mandate reform, Security Council progress on the Iran nuclear issue, the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Iran and prospects for a greater role for the UN in Iraq. Ros-Lehtinen also asked Ambassador Khalilzad about published reports that the UN has failed to include the identities of dozens of al-Qaida and Taliban operatives on terror watch lists subject to a U.N. travel ban, arms embargo and assets freeze put in place after the 9/11 attacks.  

Prompted by recent press reports, Ros-Lehtinen asked Khalilzad about the $22,000-a-month apartment in New York for the Iraqi UN envoy. In response, Ambassador Khalilzad assured Ros-Lehtinen that no U.S. funds have been used to pay for the rent of Iraqi officials living in New York and that the U.S. had no role in approving the expenditure of such funds.

During her meetings on the Human Rights Council issue, Ros-Lehtinen raised concerns about the Council’s decision in June to end inquiries into human rights abuses in Cuba and Belarus, to make permanent its inquiry of the democratic state of Israel, and its failure to condemn genocide in Darfur, the sprawling gulag of North Korea, and bloody repression in Burma and Zimbabwe.

######