US Congress call for sanctions hampers Darfur peace talks – Sudan
April 6, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese government rebuked the U.S. Congress on Thursday for calling for penalties on Sudanese figures implicated in war crimes in Darfur, saying the move would impede peace negotiations.
“The (Congress) resolution was a reflection of an erroneous reading of the situation in Darfur,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Jamal Mohammed Ibrahim told the official Sudan News Agency.
Ibrahim said the congressional bill would encourage the Darfur rebels, who are currently engaged in peace talks with the government in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, and “hamper efforts for reaching a speedy and peaceful solution” to the conflict.
The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that would deny entry to the United States of people implicated in war crimes in Sudan and freeze their assets.
A U.N. panel that investigated the Darfur conflict recommended last year that 51 people be prosecuted for war crimes. They included senior government officials.
The bill, which now goes to the Senate, is the latest of several congressional moves to condemn Sudan for the conflict in Darfur, which the United Nations has described as the site of the world’s gravest humanitarian crisis. In 2004, Congress enacted a measure to stop trade with Sudan and declared that the atrocities in the country’s western region constituted genocide.
Ibrahim said the resolution was ill-timed as it coincided with Sudan’s decision to send Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha to the Abuja talks in a bid to speed up the peace process.
The 3-year-old conflict has pitted the Arab-dominated government and allied militia against Darfur’s ethnic African population. It has killed some 180,000 people — mostly through disease and hunger — and forced another 2 million to flee their homes.
(ST/AP)