Chad says world has “head in sand” on Darfur
Jan 30, 2007 (AKAR) — Chad President Idriss Deby accused Sudan on Tuesday of waging a genocidal “racial war” in Darfur and complained that African and international leaders were shying away from confronting Khartoum squarely on the issue.
In an interview with RFI French radio, Deby criticised what he called the world’s “head in the sand” attitude over Sudan’s actions in its Darfur region, where tens of thousands of people have been killed in ethnic and political conflict since 2003.
He welcomed the decision by African Union leaders on Monday to withhold the AU chairmanship from Sudan because of the international outcry over the Darfur bloodshed, which Chad says is spilling over the border into its territory.
“I think (the decision) could be seen as a relief for the whole continent,” Deby told Radio France Internationale (RFI).
Ghanaian President John Kufuor was given the AU chairmanship in a consensus move that overruled Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s bid for the post for the second year running.
But while Deby praised the AU decision as wise, he chided his African colleagues at the summit in Addis Ababa for failing to take Bashir to task directly for his stance on Darfur.
“Nobody is capable of telling him, Mr. Bashir, you are wrong,” Deby said in the RFI interview, monitored in Dakar.
“Sudan is continuing to play this macabre game of a racial war, which others refuse to talk about … people simply look to a policy of putting their heads in the sand,” he added.
Chad, which had threatened to withdraw from the AU if Sudan was given the chairmanship, accuses the Sudanese government of using Arab militias known as Janjaweed to fight non-Arab rebels in Darfur.
N’Djamena also blames Khartoum for an upsurge of Janjaweed cross-border raids from Darfur and ethnic clashes pitting Arabs against non-Arabs which have killed hundreds of people in eastern Chad in recent months.
“Bashir is transporting this genocide to Chad, without the international community saying a word,” Deby said.
Sudan denies these accusations.
COMPLAINT TO COURT
In N’Djamena, Chadian human rights groups said they had filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court accusing Bashir of “crimes against humanity”.
The groups filed a similar complaint in December against the Janjaweed militia allied with Sudanese government forces.
“We request the support of the national and international community for this case so that justice can be done,” Chad’s Human Rights Associations Network said in a statement posted on the Chad government’s Web site.
It was not immediately clear whether the ICC had accepted these filings. The court is already investigating alleged war crimes in Darfur.
Deby made public his complaints as the leader of one of Sudan’s major international backers, Chinese President Hu Jintao, embarked on his latest visit to Africa to woo the continent with aid and business.
Hu’s eight-nation trip will include a visit to Sudan, where China has major oil investments.
Despite the Chadian leader’s grievances, international pressure against Bashir over Darfur has increased.
But U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon failed on Monday to secure commitments from Sudan to allow the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur, despite talks at the AU summit in Addis.
(Reuters)