US’s Zoellick: Violence in Darfur, Sudan, could intensify

By ANTHONY MITCHELL

EL-FASHER, Sudan, June 3, 2005 (AP) — The violence in Darfur could intensify as the pro-government militia and rebels try to improve their positions ahead of peace talks, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said Friday while visiting the troubled region in western Sudan.

Robert Zoellick, U.S Assistant Secretary of State, is welcomed by an African Union soldier as he arrives in Northern Darfur region’s administrative capital El Fasher, Sudan, Friday, June 3, 2005. (AP).

“There’s some risk that, as you move toward the peace process, that you are going to get these players trying to position themselves over the coming weeks,” Zoellick said of the militia and rebels. “In a sense, they are trying to position themselves in territory and assets.”

Zoellick spoke to reporters a day after he met Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir in Rwanda and pressed him to accept NATO support for peacekeepers to stabilize the area. The U.S. envoy flew to Darfur to visit some of the 2,200 African Union peacekeepers who are trying to calm the desert region, the scene of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

“The African Union team is playing a critical leadership role in what we all know is a terrible problem,” Zoellick said.

Zoellick said the Khartoum government had to stop its allied militia from attacking civilians.

“They have the responsibility in the Sudanese territory to disarm the militia,” he said.

He said it was hard to say whether the pro-government militia were still receiving instructions from Khartoum.

“I do believe that the government now believes that it is in Sudan’s interests to try to reach an accommodation (with the rebels). I’m saying the eyes of the world are on you,” Zoellick said.

In his meeting with President el-Bashir at a regional summit in Rwanda, Zoellick said he had encouraged Sudan “to welcome the support of NATO so that it helps bring in more A.U. troops more quickly and support the logistic side, am happy they have done that.”

Asked whether the rebels, who are belong to at least three groups, were sufficiently united in their goals to reach a peace settlement, Zoellick said: “It’s hard to say. I don’t think they’re very unified now. I think the process of the talks increased the likelihood that they will be pressed to unify.”

The crisis in Darfur erupted when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in which the ethnic Arab militia known as Janjaweed committed wide-scale abuses against ethnic Africans.

At least 180,000 people have died, many from hunger and disease, and about 2 million others have fled their homes to escape the conflict between rebels on one side and government troops and Arab militias on the other.

Major combat has ended but violence and rape targeting civilians continues to be reported.