Threat of sanctions on Sudan can help – UN
April 23, 2007 (LUXEMBOURG) — A senior United Nations official said on Monday the threat of sanctions against Sudan could help secure a political breakthrough in the Darfur crisis.
Britain has also stepped up the threat of sanctions.
“I would hope that the awareness of the sanctions would play a role,” the U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Sudan Jan Eliasson told Reuters in an interview.
“I hope we’ll not have to reach that stage, but it’s a reminder of realities, of which I hope the parties to the conflict are aware,” said Eliasson, trying to work towards a peace accord with the African Union’s Salim Ahmed Salim.
The United Nations says about 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur since 2003 when rebels in the vast western region took up arms against the Khartoum government, charging it with neglect. Sudan says only 9,000 people have perished.
EU foreign ministers, briefed by Eliasson on Monday, said in a statement they would be ready to consider “further measures” — which officials say stand for sanctions — against any party that blocks U.N. support to the African Union force in Darfur. They did not spell out what these sanctions could be.
Eliasson said world powers should focus on getting a political deal among the government and rebel groups in Darfur on power sharing, wealth distribution and security.
“If we don’t deal with the basic problem, this would be an unending exercise, both in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations.”
Eliasson said that the Sudanese government and the rebel groups he had met had all said there would not be a military solution to the conflict.
“I take that as a sign that there is a growing frustration and fatigue about the continued war,” he said.
Sudan accepted a U.N. support package of 3,000 extra peacekeepers to help the underfunded and overstretched 5,000-strong African Union force in Darfur.
The U.N. and the African Union want to complete that with a larger “hybrid” U.N. force, of some 10,000 more troops.
Several international aid agencies said on Monday they were temporarily suspending their work in the town of Um Dukhun in Darfur because of increased violence.
(Reuters)