US pressures Africa on peace troops in Sudan’s Darfur
Feb 7, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — The Bush administration is pressuring African countries to provide peacekeeping forces for Darfur while holding in reserve possible punitive options against Sudan if its president reneges on a promise to permit the forces to deploy.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has agreed to a hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping plan that could involve upward of 20,000 troops to protect some 2.5 million Darfurians displaced from their homes and who, in many cases, face grave risks. The four-year-old sectarian conflict has claimed an estimated 400,000 lives.
In the event Bashir reneges on his commitments, the Treasury Department could authorize tough economic sanctions.
“In support of the administration’s efforts to restore peace and stability to Darfur, the Treasury is examining steps it can take under existing Sudan sanction programs,” said department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise.
Over the past several months, the Treasury Department has been working with other government agencies to identify targets – people or entities trying to thwart the peace process in Darfur – that would be subject to U.S. financial sanctions, a government official said. The official wouldn’t comment on specific targets being eyed.
Those financial sanctions would allow the government to freeze bank accounts or other financial assets found in the U.S. and would forbid Americans from doing business with those put on the U.S.’s asset-blocking list.
A 7,000-member African Union force is stationed in Darfur but lacks the proper equipment, training and numbers to prevent abuses against Darfurians victimized by sectarian conflict.
U.S. officials have been concerned that African countries will be unwilling or unable to provide the manpower necessary to meet the target set by the U.N. Security Council in a resolution approved last August. The concept of a hybrid African Union-U.N. force was approved last November at a meeting in Ethiopia.
At the White House, press secretary Tony Snow said, “What we’re continuing to do is to work with the AU and regional powers to try to get commitments so that we can put an end to the genocide in Darfur.”
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said U.S. diplomats have made appeals to a number of governments.
“It’s time for the international system to step up,” he said.
As U.S. officials see it, the more countries that make pledges to send troops, the more difficult it will be for Bashir to reject them.
Even as the administration presses for troop commitments, officials say they have picked up information that Bashir has been lobbying African governments not to send troops to Darfur.
Implementation of the Darfur peace plan has been slow. Although official figures vary, it is clear that less than half of the more than 100 initial U.N. civilian and military personnel have actually been deployed Darfur.
The second phase of the plan calls for the deployment of more than 1,500 troops who would prepare for the arrival of the remaining forces.
Under the 2006 U.N. resolution, African countries would provide combat troops while communications and other experts can come from other countries.
Cameron Hume, who heads the U.S. mission in Sudan, said this week he believes that only 10,000 African troops may be available for peacekeeping.
(AP)