Sudan slams Britain for sanctions pressure over Darfur

March 24, 2007 (NAIROBI) — Sudan lambasted Britain on Saturday for seeking sanctions over violence in Darfur, saying if diplomacy broke down the country could end up like Somalia.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has urged fellow European leaders meeting in Berlin on Saturday to back targeted U.N. sanctions against the Sudanese government over a conflict which has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Experts say about 200,000 people have died, and another 2.5 million been driven from their homes, since rebels took up arms in 2003 against a government they accuse of neglect.

Sudan says the West has exaggerated the crisis.

After four years of violence in Darfur, there was now only scattered violence, Al-Samani Al-Wasiyla, Sudanese minister of state for foreign relations, told reporters at an informal briefing in a Nairobi hotel.

“No one is denying the crisis, but if you try to solve it with arms do you really expect to save lives? We don’t want another Somalia in Darfur,” he added, referring to 16 years of almost constant anarchy in the Horn of Africa nation.

“Darfur is not worse than Somalia,” he added, prompting expressions of incredulity from the assembled reporters. “We have a prospect for peace.”

The United Nations and Western powers are pressing for the deployment of U.N. troops in Darfur to replace a struggling African Union (AU) mission and the United States and Britain are leading calls for fresh sanctions to increase the pressure.

“If they really want to help in this region they should provide more aid to Africa,” Al-Wasiyla said.

“Britain is talking about the international pressure on Sudan, but it’s not coming from Russia, not China, not the Arab world, not any Asian countries, it is just Britain and America.”

Al-Wasiyla denied reports Khartoum was using bureaucratic obstacles against aid organisations in Darfur — the world’s largest humanitarian operation — or that agencies were working in an ever-shrinking area.

“No, the area is not diminishing, not at all. We help NGOs reach the destination of their operations and offer them full protection,” he said.

A few hours after he spoke the U.N.’s humanitarian chief John Holmes told Reuters he had been barred from visiting a camp for people displaced by the violence in western Sudan.

(Reuters)