World powers seen toughening Darfur stance
Jun 4, 2007 (LONDON) — Sudan’s president must accept plans for a United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force immediately or world powers will unite to impose “much tougher sanctions”, a Foreign Office minister said on Monday.
Foreign Office minister David Triesman also said he thought China, a major investor in Sudan which has been reluctant to back sanctions in the past, would be unlikely to block any new measures.
Fighting by government-linked militias and rebel groups in the western region of Darfur is estimated to have killed 200,000 people and forced 2 million more to flee their homes.
A dispute over who is to command a proposed 23,000-strong UN-AU force is holding up deployment, according to U.N. officials, but the plans should be before Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir soon.
“When he gets hold of the UN/AU package document, which I’m told will be just in a few days’ time, he has the opportunity to accept it and act on it immediately,” Triesman told reporters.
“If President Bashir’s faction of government is unable to accept the UN/AU package … then I think it’s inevitable that the international community will consider a new resolution with very, very much tougher sanctions,” he said. “I don’t think we can rule anything out.
Bashir has agreed in principle to a three-phase U.N. plan to strengthen an existing African peacekeeping force in Sudan but has delayed acceptance of the plans for five months.
Wrangling between the United Nations and the African Union over details has given him further space to sit back.
The United States imposed unilateral sanctions on Sudan last week and sought support for an international arms embargo. But China said new sanctions would hurt efforts to implement a U.N. peace plan for the western Sudanese region.
However Triesman said he did not think Beijing, which has veto power on the U.N. Security Council, would kill any new sanctions resolution.
“Although you never see Chinese diplomacy in a public sense … I think that they are working quite hard at it and I do not think we should assume that they will try to block (any resolution),” Triesman said, adding that “at worst” he thought China might abstain from voting.
A new U.N. resolution would extend current EU sanctions “across the international field”, Triesman said, and would include an “out and out arms ban anywhere in Sudan”.
He declined to say how a mooted no-fly zone might work but said: “Sometimes it’s easier to stop things taking off than track them as they fly … it is deeply disturbing that offensive flying continues.”
(Reuters)