Bush says considered sending US troops to Darfur
July 19, 2007 (NASHVILLE, Tennessee) — US President George W. Bush said Thursday that he had considered, and discarded, the idea of sending US troops unilaterally to Sudan’s Darfur province to halt what he calls “genocide” there.
The embattled president’s comments came during a brief trip to Nashville to tout his economic policies and defend his handling of the unpopular war in Iraq.
Bush, who has increasingly expressed impatience with efforts to deploy a UN force to work with African Union peacekeepers already there, discussed the sluggish pace of progress on Tuesday with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
“I’ve talked to Ban Ki-Moon about this, and this is a slow, tedious process to hold a regime accountable for what only one nation in the world has called a genocide, and that is us,” said the president.
“Therefore, what do you do? And if one is unwilling to take on action individually, then it requires international collaboration, and so we’re now in the United Nations,” he said.
According to UN estimates, at least 200,000 people have died from the combined effect of war and famine since the conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur erupted in February 2003.
The civil war broke out when rebel groups complaining of marginalization by Khartoum launched a rebellion, which was brutally repressed by the Sudanese government and its proxy militia, the Janjaweed.
A May 2006 peace deal failed to halt the fighting. Only one rebel group signed on and then promptly split into competing factions.
“We are now working to make sure that holds by insisting that the revenue sharing agreement of the oil on Sudan is effective,” said Bush.
“We have taken unilateral moves other than military moves,” he noted, pointing to economic sanctions on individuals blamed for the violence.
On Tuesday, Ban told Bush during talks at the White House that he would “step up” UN efforts on Darfur after “positive” talks in Tripoli on holding new negotiations between Khartoum and fragmented rebel groups.
Ban said Darfur negotiations were set for Arusha, Tanzania, in early August, and vowed to accelerate moves toward the deployment of a joint UN-African Union force.
“We are also going to facilitate humanitarian assistance,” the UN chief added. “I am going to step up efforts to deploy hybrid operations as soon as possible in Darfur, to resolve this issue as soon as possible.”
On Monday, Ban urged the UN Security Council to vote this week on a draft resolution authorizing the deployment of a joint UN-AU force, saying it would allow more than 20,000 military personnel and civilian police into the strife-torn province.
(AFP)