US and UK must end “megaphone” diplomacy on Darfur
Sept 29, 2006 (LONDON) — Britain and the United States must stop making threats over the crisis in Sudan’s vast Darfur region because the government in Khartoum knows they can’t back them up with action, a leading British diplomat said on Friday.
Mark Malloch Brown, Britain’s outgoing United Nations’ deputy secretary general, told the Independent newspaper London and Washington were isolated in their stance and they needed to tone down the rhetoric and build an international consensus.
“The megaphone diplomacy coming out of Washington and London: ‘you damn well are going to let the U.N. deploy and if you don’t beware the consequences’ isn’t plausible,” he said in an interview published on Friday.
“So Tony Blair and George Bush need to get beyond this posturing and grandstanding.
“The Sudanese know we don’t have troops to go in against a hostile Khartoum government; if Sudan opposes us there’s no peace to keep anyway; you’re in there to fight a war,” he added. “It’s just not a credible threat.”
Fighting between militias, government forces and rebel groups has ravaged the vast region for three years, resulting in the killing of an estimated 200,000 people and the displacement of 2.5 million others.
However, the Sudanese government, accused of supporting the militias, has refused to allow the United Nations to send in a 22,000-strong force to replace the AU, accusing it of attempting to recolonise the country.
The African Union mandate in Darfur had been set to expire on Sept. 30 but the AU mission has now been extended by three months with additional logistical and material support from the United Nations and a funding commitment from the Arab League.
Britain, which has repeatedly called for action to resolve the Darfur crisis, has also called for a concerted political effort to turn a shaky peace agreement signed by one rebel faction and the government in May into practice.
Malloch Brown said the veiled threats left the Sudanese government free to portray themselves as the “victims of the next crusade after Iraq and Afghanistan”.
What was instead needed was a carrot and stick package, backed by an international consensus, of incentives and sanctions that could be clearly understood by Khartoum.
He said Khartoum wanted normalised relations with Britain and the United States, the ability to use their new oil wealth, a supportive U.N. deployment and protection from the International Criminal Court.
“But in the other pocket there need to be sanctions. And those pluses and minuses need to be echoed not just by a group of Western leaders but by a much broader cross-section of countries that Sudan respects and trusts,” he said.
He particularly noted efforts to bring China, a major oil client of Sudan, into the international coalition to bring pressure to bear on Khartoum.
In the meantime, the West should put its hands into its pockets and fill the $300 million shortfall in aid to the starving millions in Darfur, Malloch Brown urged.
(Reuters)