US sanctions spark new Darfur controversy
May 29, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — The United States plans to slap fresh sanctions on Sudan over the Darfur conflict on Tuesday and seek a tough new UN Security Council resolution punishing Khartoum, top US officials said.
But China, one of Sudan’s main allies, rejected the US move even before it had been officially announced by President George W. Bush.
Bush was to single out Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir when he outlines the sanctions at 1200 GMT, the officials said in a briefing arranged by the White House on condition they not be named.
The toughened sanctions will bar another 31 companies, including oil exporters, from US trade and financial dealings, and take aim at two top Sudan government officials, they said.
“President Beshir’s actions over the past few weeks follow a long pattern of promising cooperation while finding new methods of obstruction,” Bush said in remarks prepared for delivery at the White House.
However, China shot back at the plan, saying that new sanctions will only complicate the crisis in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died and more than two million have fled their homes in the past four years, according to UN figures.
“These wilful sanctions and simply applying pressure is not conducive to solving the problem,” said Liu Guijin, China’s special representative on Darfur. “It will only make achieving a solution more complicated.”
But China was also faced pressure from European nations over Darfur.
France proposed opening a humanitarian corridor through Chad to bring relief to victims of the Darfur conflict.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he had discussed the proposal with China’s Forign Minister Yang Jiechi at a meeting of Asian and European foreign ministers in Hamburg, Germany.
“We are mulling several options, including securing a humanitarian corridor from Chad,” Kouchner told reporters after the talks.
Kouchner said he had also discussed the French proposal with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday.
The two US officials expressed guarded optimism that the new US measures would compel Sudan to accept the deployment of a hybrid UN-African Union force, end support for the Janjaweed militias in Darfur, and let humanitarian aid reach Darfur.
Washington is also launching an all-out effort to win support for a new UN resolution, including efforts to overcome possible Chinese resistance, one top US official said.
It wants a new UN resolution to apply new multilateral financial sanctions against Sudan and three newly targeted individuals and expand an existing arms embargo from individuals operating in Darfur to any sales to Sudan’s government, a US official told reporters.
It would also impose UN measures to prevent the Khartoum government “from conducting any military flights over Darfur,” the official said.
“I don’t want to say that we have a specific resolution right this minute,” the official said. “We have some draft pieces. We’ll see how those pieces will fit together.”
The violence erupted in the western Sudanese region in 2003 when Khartoum enlisted the Janjaweed Arab militia to help put down an ethnic minority rebellion.
The Sudanese government, which says only 9,000 people have died in Darfur, has repeatedly rejected plans to deploy UN troops alongside the African peacekeepers in a joint force numbering some 23,00O soldiers.
Khartoum’s hand has been strengthened by China, which has opposed US-led plans within the UN Security Council to use sanctions to force Beshir to accept a UN deployment.
China supplies arms to Sudan and buys more than half of the African state’s oil output.
French diplomats said that if a humanitarian corridor was agreed it would be carried out by an international force with a UN mandate, could include French troops stationed in Chad, Sudan’s western neighbor, and would operate with the help of some 7,000 African Union troops in Darfur.
The two US officials expressed guarded optimism that the new punitive measures would force Sudan’s hand, five weeks after Bush warned Beshir that he had one “last chance” to comply with international demands.
“The overarching message from the president is, the president believes we cannot wait any longer for the violence to stop and for the people of Sudan to get what they need,” said one of the officials.
AFP