Germany joins calls for Sudan sanctions

March 25, 2007 (BERLIN) — Germany joined calls on Sunday from Britain and the United States for United Nations sanctions on Sudan over the suffering in Darfur, urging it to allow U.N. peacekeepers into the country.

“On a day such as today, we think of the people in Zimbabwe and Darfur. The suffering there is unbearable,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a keynote speech of an EU summit in Berlin celebrating the bloc’s 50th anniversary.

“We call on Sudan’s President (Omar Hassan al-) Bashir to finally comply with U.N. resolutions.

“I say this quite openly — we must look at stronger sanctions,” Merkel, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, told an audience of EU leaders.

Khartoum has come under fresh pressure from Western powers to ease the suffering in Darfur, where experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes after rebels rose up against the government in 2003 accusing the central government of neglecting the vast, impoverished region.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair wants the EU to back targeted U.N. sanctions against the Sudanese government over a conflict which has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Washington calls the violence genocide and blames Khartoum for backing militias blamed for many of the worst atrocities.

Sudan again denied on Saturday that genocide was taking place and lambasted Britain and the United States for seeking sanctions, saying if diplomacy broke down Sudan could end up like Somalia, in anarchy since a 1991 coup ended central rule.

In an open letter to several European newspapers, 10 leading European intellectuals including Guenter Grass, Umberto Eco and Bernard Henri-Levy, also called on Saturday for tough sanctions, accusing the 27 EU leaders of cowardice and dithering.

(Reuters)