US Rice: Pressure must be maintained on Sudan
June 25, 2007 (PARIS) — U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that Sudan’s “history” of backsliding on commitments means that sanction pressure must be maintained, despite its acceptance of a planned larger peacekeeping force for Darfur.
Rice made the comments at a conference hosted by France to push forward peace efforts in the ravaged Sudanese region. The U.N. chief, Ban Ki-moon, insisted at the meeting that “slow but credible and considerable progress” has recently been made to resolve the crisis.
But Rice said pressure needs to be maintained on the government of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
“Sudan has a history of agreeing to things and then trying to condition or change them or to backtrack and say ‘Well no, we didn’t really agree to that,'” Rice said. “We have lost a lot of time while agreements have been made that have not been kept. We can no longer afford a situation in Darfur where agreements are made and not kept.”
She added: “Until Sudan has actually carried out the commitments it’s taken, I think we have to keep the possibility of consequences on the table.”
More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur and 2.5 million have become refugees since 2003, when local rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan’s government is accused of unleashing in response a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed _ a charge Sudan denies.
The United Nations and Western governments pressed Sudan for months to accept a plan for a large joint force of U.N. and African Union peacekeepers to replace the overwhelmed 7,000-strong African force now in Darfur.
Sudan initially accepted the plan in November but then backtracked, before finally agreeing earlier this month. But many questions remain on how and when the troops will be deployed and how they will be funded.
“There are already (AU) soldiers in Darfur. But these soldiers are badly equipped, they are not paid. We are not going to make progress by increasing the number of soldiers who are unpaid,” said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged an additional A10 million (US$13.4 million) to the existing cash-strapped African Union force. In Ghana, the current chair of the African Union, Deputy Foreign Minister Akwasi Osei-Adjei called the pledge “encouraging news” which “gives us hope that we are on course and our international partners are with us.”
Conference attendee China, viewed as a power broker in Sudan, again came out against sanctions and argued against appeals by some critics for a boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to force China to get tough with Khartoum.
“Now is not the time to talk about further sanctions,” said China’s special envoy for Sudan, Liu Giujin. He said any attempted link to the Beijing Olympics was “really unfounded. The basic character of the Olympics is nonpolitical.”
Asked by reporters whether the Chinese oil industry’s involvement in Sudan kept Beijing from coming down hard, Liu said: “That’s baseless, that’s unfounded.”
Sudan was not invited to the one-day conference, attended by 18 countries, U.N. Secretary-General Ban, the European Union and others. Officials from the Sudanese government in Khartoum had said the meeting could backfire and cause more harm than good.
Notable absentees, other than Sudan, included the African Union and neighboring Chad, which has seen an influx of tens of thousands of people fleeing Darfur and is a key conduit for aid.
Ghana’s deputy foreign minister, Osei-Adjei, said the African Union welcomed the Paris talks, and said its lack of representation was due to bad timing. An African Union summit is planned in Ghana’s capital July 1-3 and officials were preparing for that meeting this week.
“For us at the AU under the current chairmanship of (Ghanaian) President John Kufuor, our commitmet is to do whatever we could to bring peace and restore human dignity to the people of Darfur,” Osei-Adjei said. “It is in this light that we welcome the Paris initiative, and all others that are genuinely aimed at finding a lasting solution to the violence there.”
(AP)