EU summit sees drive for Sudan sanctions

March 25, 2007 (BERLIN) — EU leaders and Irish rocker Bob Geldof Sunday urged harsher sanctions against Sudan in a bid to halt the bloodshed in Darfur.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, speaking on the sidelines of the EU’s 50th anniversary party here, called for a new United Nations Security Council resolution against members of the Khartoum regime after meeting with a refugee from the Darfur civil war.

“The issue is, we need to get a new resolution to extend the sanctions regime against key individuals,” Blair said.

“The brutal action of the Sudanese government is completely unacceptable.”

He called for a no-fly zone over Darfur to prevent the Sudanese government from attacking fleeing refugees from the air.

Blair termed the situation in the western Sudanese region where the UN estimates 200,000 lives have been lost in four years as “intolerable” and said it had been a major talking point between EU leaders over the weekend.

By his side was a representative of London-based group the Darfur Union, Ishag Mekki, whose elder sister, a mother of eight, was killed in her home in Darfur.

Mekki issued an emotional plea to world leaders to help stop the conflict at a press conference organised by Live Aid founder Geldof.

“Every time genocide happens the leaders of the EU say ‘never again’. These are empty words because it is happening now,” Mekki said.

He said he believed there was no reason for the EU to hail its achievements over the past half century until it helped to end the conflict in Darfur.

“You cannot celebrate when hundreds of thousands of people are being put to death.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also called on her fellow European leaders to back tougher sanctions against Sudan.

“I want to state frankly that we have to consider stronger sanctions,” she said.

Geldof urged the EU to impose a travel ban and an asset-freeze on Sudanese officials by the end of the day, and to ratchet up the sanctions as soon as possible.

“You should refuse to let them travel to Europe for their dental and hair appointments, you should stop them buying our luxury goods and freeze all assets of the Sudanese government.

“This can be done by 7:00 pm tonight,” Geldof told a press conference.

He said the steps should be “followed within weeks by tougher sanctions, a no-fly zone over Darfur and the deployment of a UN force to impose peace.”

On Saturday, 10 leading European thinkers and writers, including Nobel literature laureates Harold Pinter and Guenter Grass, urged EU leaders in an open letter to interrupt the anniversary celebrations and act to stop the bloodshed in Darfur.

Geldof said he penned the text, but it was reworked by Irish poet Seamus Heaney and British playwright Tom Stoppard.

“I wrote it three days ago but I was severely edited. There was Stoppard saying you cannot use the word ‘thug’,” he said.

Geldof called the conflict a genocide and said it was shameful that the European Union was not doing more to stop it as the bloc was born in response to World War II and the Holocaust.

“It is a spurious idea that we have lots to celebrate, the sense of betrayal is much greater. The EU arose out of genocide and we have failed to honour that shared value.”

The EU imposed an arms embargo on Khartoum in January 2004.

The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 when an ethnic minority rose up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, which then enlisted militia to help crush the rebellion.

On Sunday, the only rebel group to have signed a peace deal with Khartoum accused the state of violating a ceasefire and said it was ready to resume fighting and expand it to the Sudanese capital.

The United States has said it will seek a UN resolution to force Khartoum to let a UN-led peacekeeping force into Darfur.

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir earlier this month reneged on an agreement to let 20,000 UN-led peacekeepers into the region. He says the West wants to invade his country and plunder its resources.

(AFP)