NATO extends training for African peacekeepers in Sudan

April 24, 2006 (CASTEAU, Belgium) — NATO allies have extended a training program for African peacekeepers in Darfur until September but aren’t planning for any major deployment of their own troops to the violence-wracked Sudanese region, the alliance’s operational commander said Monday.

Members of the U.S. Air Force board a C-130 aircraft at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, early Friday, Oct. 22, 2004. Three Ramstein C-130 aircraft and approximately 90 airmen departed Ramstein Friday morning for Kigali, Rwanda, to begin an airlift mission to the Darfur region of Sudan. The airmen and two of the C-130s from the 38th Airlift Squadron will transport Rwandan peacekeepers to the Darfur region over a two-week period. (AP).

The NATO training mission for officers of the African Union peacekeeping force had been due to end this month, but the 25 allies agreed late last week to extend the program, said U.S. Gen. James L. Jones, NATO’s supreme commander for operations.

Jones told reporters that alliance military experts are working on plans to increase training and “capacity building” to back up the 7,000-strong African peacekeeping force. NATO is also providing planes to fly in African peacekeepers.

The U.S. has been pushing for a wider NATO role in the region, where the ill-equipped AU force has failed to end violence that has left more than 180,000 people dead over the past three years and driven millions more from their homes.

NATO officials have said additional aid could include increased help with logistics, communications, command and intelligence, but they have shied away from any large-scale deployment of European and North American troops. They fear it could inflame regional sensitivities – particularly if the mainly Muslim Sudanese government opposes a NATO deployment.

“For the moment, the mission reflects that limitation,” Jones said over breakfast at NATO’s military headquarters in southern Belgium. The Darfur issue is expected to feature when NATO foreign ministers meet Thursday and Friday in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.

In a tape broadcast Sunday, Osama bin Laden accused the U.S. of igniting strife in Darfur “to pave the way for sending Crusader forces to occupy the region and steal its oil under the pretext of peacekeeping. It is a continuing Crusader-Zionist war against Muslims.”

He said, “Muslims and their followers in Sudan and in the Arab peninsula should get ready to conduct a long war against these Crusader thugs.” Jones brushed aside the comments, saying “misgivings about NATO’s purpose have been overcome” with the African Union and U.N.

The Arab-dominated Sudanese government has been accused of supporting Arab militias that have launched scorched-earth attacks on ethnic African villagers, which the U.S. has characterized as genocide.

The U.N. is seeking to replace the AU force will a stronger U.N. peacekeeping mission and has asked NATO to help prepare the changeover.

(ST/AP)