Dutch minister says too early for Sudan sanctions

AMSTERDAM, July 25 (Reuters) – It’s too early for sanctions against Sudan for human rights abuses in Darfur but the international community will take them unless the situation in the region improves, Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot has told his Sudanese counterpart.

Bot, speaking in a meeting late on Saturday with Sudan’s Mustafa Osman Ismail, said Khartoum must do more to disarm Arab militias who have carried out what the U.S. congress has branded “genocide”, but sanctions now might do more harm than good.

The United States has drafted a U.N. resolution threatening sanctions unless Khartoum disarms the militias, but Russia, China, Pakistan and Algeria on Friday all opposed the word “sanctions”, preferring only a threat of “further action”, diplomats said.

“They (sanctions) will get you nowhere at this point in time,” Dutch news agency ANP quoted Bot, whose country holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, as saying.

“It’s true that there is an improvement (in Darfur), but it isn’t enough … If the situation does not visibly improve, then sanctions will almost surely be brought by the international community,” he said.

Bot met with Ismail a day after European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana told the Sudanese minister his country must act immediately against the Janjaweed militias, which have driven black Africans into the barren desert.

After a long conflict between Arab nomads and black African farmers, rebel groups launched a revolt in February 2003 in the west of the oil-producing country.

The United Nations estimates at least 30,000 people have been killed and more than a million displaced, many of them driven from their homes by the Janjaweed. It has declared the situation in Darfur the world’s worst humanitarian crisis but not called it a genocide, which would force it to take action.

Australia on Sunday indicated it was considering making troops available for a peacekeeping force in Sudan, as Britain has already done. So far Khartoum has agreed only to deployment of nearly 300 African Union troops to proterct ceasefire monitors in Darfur.

Earlier this month, EU foreign ministers threatened unspecified “measures” against Khartoum if it failed to act on the Darfur crisis. The issue is set to be debated on Monday when the ministers meet again in Brussels.

Bot said at that meeting he would push for reconstruction aid, “in order to create a situation where refugees can earn a living and feel safe when they return.”