China says willing to be more constructive on Darfur
May 24, 2007 (BEIJING) — China is willing to play a more constructive role in Sudan’s Darfur region, an envoy said, offering to provide more aid to victims of a conflict critics say Beijing has ignored.
China, a major customer for Sudan’s oil, has blocked the deployment of international peacekeepers without Khartoum’s consent, bringing accusations from human rights groups and Western politicians that it is indirectly abetting genocide.
The official Xinhua news agency reported that envoy Liu Guijin, who left Sudan on Wednesday after a five-day visit, said he hoped the Khartoum government would be more flexible in implementing a U.N. peacekeeping plan.
“The Chinese envoy expressed his government’s willingness to play a more constructive role in Darfur and to provide more humanitarian and development help for the Darfurian people,” the report said.
“The Chinese official hoped that the Sudanese side would show more flexibility on the implementation of a joint peacekeeping plan between the United Nations and African Union in Darfur.”
“He also stressed the importance of accelerating the Darfur political process and making further improvement of the security and humanitarian situation in the region,” Xinhua said.
The United Nations estimates that about 200,000 people have died and more than 2 million have been made homeless since the conflict erupted in Darfur in 2003 when rebel groups took up arms against Khartoum, accusing it of neglect. Sudan says only 9,000 have died.
China has used its veto power as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to resist calls to deploy international peacekeepers there without Sudan’s nod.
Beijing said earlier this month it would commit 275 military engineers to a U.N. force to implement initial stages of the “Annan” peace plan, which involves bolstering African Union peacekeepers already in Darfur.
Sudan has so far agreed to accept just 3,500 U.N. personnel on top of the overstretched African Union force, but the full peace plan calls for a “hybrid force” of more than 20,000.
(Reuters)