|
Home>News Center>World | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Sudan warns UK, US not to interfere in Darfur Sudan warned Britain and the United States not to interfere in its internal affairs on Thursday after British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he had not ruled out military aid to help combat the crisis in Darfur.
The United States circulated a U.N. resolution threatening sanctions against Sudan's government if Khartoum did not prosecute Arab militia leaders in the western region.
"(This) pressure closely resembles the increased pressure that was put on Iraq (before the war)," he said.
Washington accuses Khartoum of backing Janjaweed Arab militia in a campaign some U.S. officials have described as ethnic cleansing against black African villagers in Darfur.
Facing what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis, Blair said the world could not simply stand by and watch.
"We have a moral responsibility to deal with this and to deal with it by any means that we can," Blair said, adding that he had not ruled out the possibility of military assistance.
After long conflict between Arab nomads and black African farmers, rebel groups launched a revolt in February 2003 in the east of the oil-producing country. Janjaweed militias went on the rampage, driving black Africans into barren camps.
ARMS EMBARGO
In the draft Security Council resolution, which does not define the sanctions, Washington also advocated an immediate embargo on weapons given to Arab militias as well as any other armed group terrorizing Darfur civilians.
The United Nations estimates that the 15-month conflict has killed at least 30,000 people and displaced more than a million.
The revised draft was submitted on the day U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell planned a visit to New York to work on a joint strategy on Darfur with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In agreement with Annan, Sudan has pledged to protect displaced civilians, disarm militias, lift travel restrictions on aid workers and punish those responsible for atrocities.
Seven men convicted of belonging to the Janjaweed were sentenced in a Darfur court to punishments ranging from execution and crucifixion to amputation and imprisonment, a statement from the presiding judge said on Thursday.
Police arrested 100 Janjaweed in recent clashes, official sources said, but a source at an international organization in Sudan said they may have been petty looters made scapegoats.
TROOPS TO SUDAN?
Britain's Guardian newspaper reported that Blair was considering sending troops to Sudan to help distribute aid, lend logistical support to an African Union (AU) protection force or protect refugee camps from marauding militias. "We rule nothing out, but we are not at that stage yet," Blair told reporters in London. His foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said he would visit Sudan, possibly Darfur, next month. Straw said he was pushing EU members to take action, funding the AU mission, or sending a "joint civilian military team" as backup. He said it would not be a British military operation. "What we need to do in the short term is to get the government of Sudan to take the measures necessary to control the militias and to make sure the aid and assistance gets through," he said. Khartoum has agreed to the deployment of 270 AU troops to protect 60 AU observers who will check violations of a shaky cease-fire signed between the government and rebels in April. Rebel leaders met AU officials in Geneva on Thursday to discuss restarting stalled peace talks with Khartoum. AU envoy Hamid Algabid said rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) had shown willingness to resume negotiations but it was too soon to discuss dates. |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
