NATO rules out troop presence in Darfur

Mar 6, 2006 (INNSBRUCK, Austria) — NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer ruled out on Monday sending troops from the western military alliance to Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur province.

De Hoop Scheffer said he believed that NATO could help in the region during the transition phase from an African Union operation to one led by the United Nations but only with a clear UN mandate.

“Then we can discuss a NATO role, which I do see in the enabling sphere and not the boots of troops on the ground,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of EU defence ministers in Innsbruck, Austria.

The war in Darfur broke out in February 2003, when black ethnic groups launched a rebellion against Khartoum that was brutally repressed by the Arab Islamist regime of Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir.

The conflict and the humanitarian crisis it sparked have left up to 300,000 people dead and some 2.4 million homeless.

The 7,000-strong African Union (AU), which was deployed in 2004, has suffered from poor funding and inadequate resources to contain the escalating bloodshed there.

The United States has been lobbying for a new UN-led force, backed by NATO and probably double the AU deployment, to take over peacekeeping.

Last week, the US Senate called on President George W. Bush to ask for NATO troops to be sent to Darfur.

Beshir warned on February 26 that Darfur would become a “graveyard” for any foreign military force that entered the province against his will.

(ST/AFP)