US says time running out for Sudan over Darfur

April 23, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — The State Department’s no. 2 official accused Sudan’s government on Monday of a campaign of intimidation against aid workers and said time was running out to accept a hybrid force in Darfur or face new sanctions.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who returned from Sudan last week, said President Omar Hassan al-Bashir had “weeks” to agree to a U.N./African Union hybrid force in Darfur or have new U.S. sanctions slapped on them that were announced by President George W. Bush last week.

“Time is running out,” Negroponte told reporters.

Negroponte said his meeting with Bashir was not encouraging and he was pessimistic the Sudanese leader would follow through and implement promises to allow U.N. peacekeepers to supplement struggling AU troops already in Darfur.

“I came away from that meeting with a healthy, strong sense of skepticism as to whether they might fulfill their commitments,” he said.

In addition to rapidly accepting the hybrid force, Sudan’s government must also disarm Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, held responsible for much of the violence in Darfur, said Negroponte.

“The Arab militias that we all know could not exist without the Sudanese government’s active support,” he said.

Moreover, rebel groups that refused to sign a peace deal in May of last year must put down their arms and go to the negotiating table, said Negroponte.

Negroponte said the government of Sudan’s record in allowing aid groups access to displaced people was “not encouraging” and there was no sign an agreement it made with aid workers this month was working.

“The denial of visas, the harassment of aid workers and other measures have created the impression that the government of Sudan is engaged in a deliberate campaign of intimidation,” he said.

“We have heard some examples of them creating additional complications for humanitarian workers since that time (when the agreement was made with aid groups),” Negroponte added.

Several international aid agencies said on Monday they were suspending work in the town of Um Dukhun in Darfur because of attacks on them, disrupting help to some 100,000 people in the area near the border with Chad and Central African Republic.

SANCTIONS THREAT

While in Sudan, Negroponte visited a displaced persons camp in Darfur where the number of people seeking shelter in that one camp had risen from 25,000 to 50,000 in the past year, a pattern repeated elsewhere, he said.

Aid groups estimate that since 2003 more than 2.5 million have been displaced by the conflict in western Sudan.

He said the health and nutrition of people in the camps had stabilized but the situation was precarious because of a lack of political agreement and security problems.

“It would not take much for conditions to deteriorate fairly dramatically unless, as we are advocating, the peacekeeper presence in Darfur is increased,” he said.

Bush said last week if Bashir did not accept the hybrid force, new sanctions would include barring an additional 29 companies owned or controlled by Sudan’s government from the U.S. financial system, making it a crime for American companies to do business with them.

Washington would also target sanctions against individuals responsible for violence. The United States has already imposed a host of unilateral financial sanctions against Sudan.

Bush also raised the possibility of an international no-fly zone aimed at preventing Sudan’s military aircraft from flying over Darfur.

(Reuters)