EU studies aid, security package for Darfur
June 7, 2007 (BRUSSELS) — The European Union is studying how to provide greater humanitarian, security and other help to Sudan’s Darfur region, but officials played down on Thursday prospects of a major EU troop presence there any time soon.
France this month said it would ask the EU to send up to 12,000 troops to neighbouring Chad to set up a humanitarian corridor to people fleeing the four-year-old Darfur conflict.
Chad rebuffed the idea and European capitals have now charged EU experts with drawing up ideas for a broader range of help in time for a June 18 meeting of EU foreign ministers.
“We are working on ideas that would help Darfur in three areas — in getting a political process, helping out in the humanitarian field, and addressing security,” said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
“At this point it is too early to say what will come out. We are all gravely concerned by the situation.”
Gallach stressed the European Union saw the fielding of a 23,000-strong force of United Nations and African Union troops as the priority answer to easing the violence. Full deployment of that force is not seen until next year at the earliest.
The United States is leading calls for tougher sanctions against Sudan should it block the U.N.-AU force, and President George W. Bush has raised the idea of enforcing a no-fly zone.
EU and NATO nations have for some time provided support for the AU mission in Darfur ranging from funding to transport and logistics. But any major Western troop presence in the area has long been held taboo given Sudan’s opposition.
“Besides, what mission would they have? What mandate? And where would they come from?” asked one EU diplomat of the potential difficulty in raising EU troops for such a role.
Non-Arab rebels took up arms in Darfur in early 2003, accusing the government of not heeding their plight. Khartoum armed some Arab militia, who raped, killed and pillaged. International experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur, though Sudan puts the toll much lower at about 9,000.
Henri Bentegeat, the French general who heads the EU Military Committee on which the bloc’s 27 states coordinate military policy, said it was too early to say how the EU would act to boost security for the victims of the conflict.
“We are at the stage of general considerations rather than any specific planning at the moment,” an aide said.
Solana is looking to convene a meeting in Brussels later this month of international envoys to Sudan, with delegates from the AU, the United Nations and key countries such as U.N. Security Council veto-holder China.
(Reuters)