US president Bush meets with special envoy to Sudan behind closed doors
By Wasil Ali
April 10, 2008 (WASHINGTON) — The US special envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson met with President George Bush today for the first time since he returned from a trip to Sudan last month.
The one hour meeting was closed to the press and no statements were made afterwards.
The White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told AFP that the two men discussed “efforts to speed the deployment of peacekeepers in Darfur”.
Washington has grown increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of deploying peacekeepers to Darfur and recently appeared to throw the blame on the UN for the delay.
The US envoy sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made public earlier this month urging him to speed up deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur and ensure that at least 3,600 new soldiers and police are there by June.
“The United States supports the U.N.’s objective to deploy the best-equipped troops possible, but it seems that some U.N. practices may hinder deployment” Williamson said in the letter.
But Ban Ki-Moon made an indirect response in his monthly report saying that “A peacekeeping operation can be only effective when there is a peace to keep”.
According to the White House Bush today directed Williamson to press for rapid deployment of the UN force and humanitarian access on the ground.
However it remains to be seen what the US administration can do towards that goal with presidential elections just around the corner. Many observers also say that the Chinese backing of Khartoum appears to have emboldened the latter to place obstacles in front of the force without the fear of sanctions.
One Western diplomat told Reuters last week that neither Washington nor Russia was using its full diplomatic clout with China to put pressure on Khartoum to remove roadblocks to the full deployment of UNAMID.
But Perino said that China’s support for the government in Khartoum was not on the agenda of today’s meeting. US lawmakers, including all presidential contenders, and Darfur advocacy groups have called on Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics to place more pressure on China.
It is also likely that Williamson presented to Bush an incentive plan aimed at encouraging Khartoum to meet Washington’s threshold for normalizing good relations.
The US offered to normalize ties with Sudan if it fulfils certain conditions and Williamson conveyed it to President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir in his last visit but gave no details.
“Right now this is a discussion between the government of Sudan and the government of the United States and it helps no one if we start to negotiate in public,” Williamson told the Los Angeles Times.
“The bottom-line goal is you have got to alleviate suffering and provide enough security on the ground so that people can return home in Darfur. Short of that, nothing else matters” he added.
International experts estimate 200,000 people have died in the Darfur conflict, which Washington calls genocide a term European governments are reluctant to use
(ST)