Darfur options must be eyed – Britain
Sept 18, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — The international community should consider all options — including military intervention — as it mulls how to deal with Sudan’s rejection of a U.N. peacekeeping force for war-ravaged Darfur, a top British official said Monday.
Last month, the Security Council passed a resolution that would give the United Nations control over a peacekeeping operation in Darfur now run by the African Union. The AU force has been largely ineffective and understaffed because of a lack of funding, and its mandate expires at the end of this month.
Sudan has so far refused to give its consent for the U.N. takeover, stalling the transfer of power.
“The international community is going to have to keep its options open,” David Triesman, the British Foreign Office’s minister for Africa, told reporters in New York ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting on Sudan later Monday. He added that nothing was being ruled out, and that the situation was nearing a “tipping point.”
Asked about the possibility of an international force intervening even if the Sudanese government continues to resist a U.N. peacekeeping force, he said: “There is bound to be a consideration of a range of options if there is no movement.”
The Darfur conflict began in early 2003, when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Arab-led government, which was accused of unleashing militiamen blamed for rapes and killings. At least 200,000 people have died and more than 2 million people have been displaced.
The Sudanese government has said a U.N. force would infringe on the country’s sovereignty and has offered to send government troops to Darfur instead. Critics say such troops would escalate violence in the region
Sudanese presidential adviser Ghazi Salhuddin Atabani was quoted by Britain’s Guardian newspaper Monday as saying that Sudan may agree at an African foreign ministers meeting in New York this week to allow AU troops to remain in Darfur past the deadline at the end of this month.
The African Union’s Peace and Security Council had been scheduled to meet Monday in New York to discuss breaking the deadlock, but Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said the meeting was postponed. He did not say why it was postponed or when it might take place.
Atabani said Sudan wanted to consider a plan under which AU peacekeepers remain in Darfur but get help such as helicopters and surveillance technology from Western nations.
Hundreds of thousands of people rallied in cities across the world Sunday to protest the violence and urge world leaders to intervene to resolve it. U.N. Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari called Darfur the most urgent issue at this week’s U.N. General Assembly.
“No issue needs more urgent attention than Darfur. There is no longer any time to waste. When we say ‘never again’ to genocide and serious human rights abuses, we must mean it,” Gambari said.
Triesman warned, however, that anyone considering intervening against the Sudanese government “has got to make the calculation whether more people will be killed and more will be displaced if we do,” he said.
With the end of the AU force’s mandate less than two weeks away, Triesman said diplomats were focusing on pressing the Sudanese government to accept a U.N. force and a continued African force for the next two or three months, until a U.N. force could be ready.
He suggested that the international community could put together an incentives package to encourage Sudan’s cooperation — but not until after it commits to ensuring the full implementation of the May peace agreement with a key rebel group.
That peace pact has sparked months of fighting among rival rebel factions.
In Khartoum on Monday, the Darfur rebel faction that signed on to the May peace deal again urged Sudan’s ruling party to allow U.N. peacekeepers in.
French President Jacques Chirac said Monday that he would make a “solemn appeal” to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during the General Assembly meeting. A new catastrophe in Darfur “could destabilize all the countries in the region,” Chirac said.
In Geneva on Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the United Nations’ human rights watchdog to focus its attention on Darfur. Annan has warned that if the 7,000 African Union troops leave and a U.N. force cannot replace them “we are heading for a disaster.”
(AP/ST)