US wants new UN resolution over Darfur crisis
March 14, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — The United States said Wednesday it would seek UN action against Sudan to force the Arab-led government to allow a UN-led peacekeeping force into its war-torn Darfur region.
State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said Washington was in consultations with Britain and would contact other allies about a new UN Security Council resolution against Sudan after Khartoum backed down on a deal to end atrocities in Darfur.
Casey would not elaborate, but other officials have said Washington has drawn up a “Plan B” that would impose broad financial, trade and other sanctions on Sudan if it persists in barring the deployment of thousands of UN peacekeepers to Darfur.
“We are consulting with the British now about what we might be able to do in terms of an additional Security Council resolution on Sudan,” Casey said.
“We need to look at what kinds of measures we can take to try and encourage a change of heart by the Sudanese government,” he said.
Britain’s UN Ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, already spoke out in favor of a sanction resolution on Tuesday, though such a measure could be expected to run into opposition from other Security Council members, notably China which is a major consumer of Sudanese oil.
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir sparked Western anger when he sent a letter to the United Nations last week backtracking on an agreement to permit up to 20,000 peacekeepers, armed and led by the UN, into Darfur.
“We think its important in light of the disappointing response that was received by the UN and the (African Union) from President Beshir that the international community consider what other steps might be necessary,” Casey said.
“This frankly is an issue that needs to come before the council, so we’ll be talking in the coming days with the British government as well as others about how the council should respond to that,” he said.
The Security Council already adopted a resolution last year demanding that Sudan allow the UN to bolster an under-funded, 7,000-member African Union monitoring force in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died and at least two million been left homeless by a four-year-old civil war.
Beshir rejected the resolution but in November agreed to a compromise plan for a hybrid AU-UN peacekeeping operation — an agreement he has now backed away from.
The UN Human Rights Council this week accused Beshir’s government of crimes against humanity for its actions in Darfur, where an Arab militia armed and funded by Khartoum has been accused of widespread atrocities against the region’s ethnic African population.
“The international community has shown great patience with Sudan,” Casey said.
“Our patience has largely run out, particularly in light of these new delaying tactics,” he said.
Beshir has already rejected numerous US entreaties, including personal appeals from President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to allow an international intervention to halt what Washington has described as “genocide” in Darfur.
In Decmeber, Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, said the US would launch a “Plan B” of unspecified coercive against Khartoum if Beshir did not allow action by January 1.
But the deadline passed with no action by Washington.
A national human rights coalition called Save Darfur launched a new campaign of television and newspaper advertisements this week calling on Bush to implement the long-threatened Plan B.
“Secretary Rice, President Bush, diplomacy alone has failed. You said it was time to act. So act. Now!,” the ad said.
Senior US officials said last month that Bush had approved a three-tiered package of financial and other sanctions, including moves to block US bank transactions connected to the Sudan government and its oil sector.
Washington is also considering imposing a “no-fly zone” over Darfur to prevent attacks by the Sudanese air force, officials said.
(AFP)