Aegis criticizes inertia of UK Foreign Minister over Darfur crisis

Feb 13, 2007 — Margaret Beckett has today been strongly criticised for failing to show leadership to address the Darfur crisis by campaigners, Genocide survivors and former Ministers…

The criticism led by Genocide prevention charity the Aegis trust follows yesterday’s EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels where no action was taken against the Government of Sudan, despite its blatant breaches of numerous international agreements and the continuing attacks on its civilians.

According to the charity, Sudan’s leaders are presiding over an ongoing, four-year-old campaign of ethnic cleansing that has destroyed the country’s western Darfur region, leaving 2.5 million displaced, 400,000 dead.

Beckett soft-peddling at odds with Blair

“Margaret Beckett’s complete lack of leadership over Darfur is particularly disappointing,” says Dr James Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust. “On 13 December, Blair’s Official Spokesman quoted him, ‘if in the next couple of months, the Sudanese Government is not prepared to agree to the UN plan, we’ve got to move to sanctions and should consider the option of a no-fly zone’. A couple of months to the day, his Foreign Minister can’t even bring herself to persuade European colleagues to back sanctions – never mind a no-fly zone.

“Banning figures like Salah Gosh, Sudan’s Head of Military Intelligence, from travel to Europe would be a start. However, only last year, he was allowed to visit the UK for medical treatment.”

EU: double standards

After leading the implementation of sanctions against individuals in Belarus, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, North Korea, Moldova, Myanmar and Zimbabwe, in a shocking display of double standards, the best Europe’s foreign ministers could muster yesterday for Sudan was a reiteration of ‘readiness to consider further measures, notably in the UN framework, against any party which obstructs … implementation [of the hybrid force]’.

International community: played for fools

Following negotiations last year, diplomats claimed that Sudan had accepted implementation of a hybrid AU / UN force to replace the under-resourced and over-stretched African Union mission in Darfur. But Sudan has played the international community for fools, frustrating all efforts to move forward with implementation – for which there is still no timetable – and evading agreement to accept any armed UN peacekeepers on the ground in Darfur.

Only last week, Sudan’s President, Omar Bashir, was quoted: “We will not allow U.N. forces into Sudan … Only an African Union force, led by an African commander and raised completely by the African Union is acceptable in Darfur.” Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the delays as unacceptable, and said they were preventing help from reaching millions of victims.

Darfur: let down

Last week, the USA approved a block on transfers, by US commercial banks, of oil payments to the Government of Sudan. (Being in dollars, these currently have to go through US banks.) The proposal is one of a package of coercive measures designed to pressure Sudan into cooperating with deployment of the hybrid UN-AU force into Darfur. US officials stressed effectiveness of the plan would depend on participation of other countries.

“Members of my own family are among those murdered in Darfur by this regime, simply because they were African,” says Ishag Mekki, Vice Chairman of the Darfur Union. “Having finally taken a lead on sanctions, the US has been let down by the EU this week. More to the point, the suffering people of Darfur have been badly let down. Beckett and her colleagues should be ashamed of their failure.”

What the EU should do now

“The EU could and should have applied sanctions against all 17 individuals identified by the UN’s Sudan Sanctions Committee as obstructing the Darfur peace process, even though the UN has only applied sanctions against four of them,” says Stephen Twigg, the Aegis Trust’s Campaigns Director and former Government Minister . “However, as identified by the International Crisis Group, the priority target of sanctions should be the commercial interests of Sudan’s ruling elite, including companies run by senior figures in the ruling National Congress Party. The EU should be committing resources to identifying these commercial entities, freezing their assets and – like the US – blocking transfers of money to them through European banks.”

ENDS

For more information, or to arrange interviews, contact Aegis Media Officer David Brown, tel: 01623 836627, mobile: 07812 640873