US N. Mexico governor lobbies for UN troops into Darfur
Feb 8, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador, called on Wednesday for increased pressure on Sudan to get U.N. troops into turbulent Darfur after he held talks with the new secretary-general.
Richardson, now a Democratic Party presidential candidate, visited Sudan in January where he spoke to President Omar Hassan Bashir and obtained the freedom of an American journalist. He also got a 30-day ceasefire among three rebel groups, although one reneged the following day.
“I believe that President Bashir has in last three months responded somewhat but needs to do considerably more,” Richardson told reporters after briefing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “There’s got to be somebody constantly on the ground, pushing to get both sides to together, to talk to the rebels.”
Sudan has agreed on a three-phased approach, which the United Nations wants to include some 17,000 peacekeepers to supplement the 7,000 African Union troops on the ground.
But al-Bashir has not agreed to the troop number, saying that the AU force was strong enough and the United Nations could give money and logistical support to a “hybrid” operation.
Arab nations, which have not put pressure on Sudan, as well as China, which buys most of Sudan’s oil, “must play an important role,” Richardson said.
“I think continuous dialogue and negotiation and pressure will move in the right direction,” he said.
Ban has sent Swedish diplomat Jan Eliasson to Khartoum to help negotiate a ceasefire and peace agreement between the government and rebel groups. But there is no senior U.N. envoy in Khartoum now to negotiate further on troop deployment.
“I think within a year or two President Bashir will realize a U.N. force is needed in Darfur because there’re not enough AU troops and the U.N. has the best trained peacekeeping troops,” Richardson said.
‘RIGHT DIRECTION’
At least 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million uprooted from their homes in Sudan’s western region since 2003, when rebels from non-Arab tribes took up arms against Khartoum, accusing it of marginalizing the area.
Militia mobilized by the government to quell the revolt are accused of pillage, rape and murder. Some rebel groups have now committed similar atrocities.
Richardson, who visited North Korea in the 1990s to negotiate the release of missing Americans and returned again in 2005, described himself as a “governor with a foreign policy,” adding, “That’s a joke.”
He said the Bush administration was “moving in the right direction,” especially with the appointment of special envoy Andrew Natsios.
At a lunch for journalists, U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, currently in charge of the U.S. mission, said, “We haven’t found yet the levers with Bashir that will allow this hybrid force in.”
(Reuters)