EU delegation due in Khartoum amid renewed sanctions threat

KHARTOUM, Oct 13 (AFP) — Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, is due in Sudan Wednesday after issuing a renewed sanctions threat against Khartoum over the Darfur crisis.

State-run radio said Bot and other EU officials would discuss the situation in Darfur and the state of the peace process in southern Sudan.

On Tuesday, the Sudanese foreign ministry summoned the European Union’s delegation chief in Khartoum to protest at a renewed threat of EU sanctions over Darfur.

“The Sudanese government should continue to feel the pressure from as many sides as possible,” Bot told reporters this week. It is very important that the threat of sanctions be maintained.”

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said Khartoum would welcome any international fact-finding effort on Darfur “but at the same time, we reject a visit by any official with the aim of threatening and pressuring the Sudan.”

At least 50,000 people have been killed in Darfur and 1.4 million people have fled their homes since two rebel movements rose up against the Khartoum government in February, 2003.

Khartoum’s response was to arm and support the Janjaweed, an Arab militia which has been accused of committing massive human rights abuses against Darfur’s black African people.

The Security Council passed a resolution in September threatening sanctions against Sudan’s vital oil industry, saying the government had failed to rein in the Janjaweed militias.

Earlier this month the EU said it would wait for a green light from the United Nations before deciding whether to impose sanctions.

On south Sudan, Khartoum and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), led by John Garang, are in the final stage of a peace process, whose aim is to put an end to a civil war that started in 1983 and has killed nearly one and a half million people.