Annan appoints Dutch environment and development expert as U.N. envoy in Sudan

Friday June 18th, 2004.

UNITED NATIONS, June 18, 2004 (AP) -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Friday appointed Dutch environment and development expert Jan Pronk to be the top U.N. envoy in Sudan , where the world body is engaged in a major humanitarian operation and is planning a peacekeeping mission.

Pronk, 64, will serve as Annan's special representative in Sudan and will head the U.N. mission if it is authorized by the Security Council, U.N. associate spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.

Last week, the council adopted a resolution giving the U.N. a green light to start planning to send peacekeepers to monitor an agreement ending a 21-year civil war between government forces and rebels in southern Sudan . The agreement is expected to be finalized shortly.

U.N. agencies are also trying to provide desperately needed food and shelter in the Darfur region of western Sudan to 2 million people who have been caught up in fighting between Arab militias, believed to be backed by the government, and the black African population there.

The Darfur conflict has killed thousands and forced more than one million people to flee their homes. The Sudanese government has denied backing the militias and has blamed the trouble on rebels and criminal gangs.

Pronk's appointment is expected to be approved by the Security Council. He served three times as the Netherlands' minister for development and more recently as minister of the environment, where he was a strong supporter of the Kyoto protocol on climate change. He is currently professor of international development at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.

Pronk also has served in a number of U.N. posts. He was Annan's special envoy to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, deputy secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) from 1980 to 1985 and an assistant secretary- general of the U.N. from 1985 to 1986.