French FM sees triple urgency to solve Darfur crisis

DAKAR, July 27 (AFP) — French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said here there was a triple urgency to resolve the festering crisis in Sudan’s violence-wracked Darfur region.

France is “very motivated” given the emergency situation in the African country, Barnier said in the Senegalese capital at the start of a three-day tour of African countries.

“Above all there are the men, women and children who must be saved; then there is the security issue, and then a political urgency,” he said, adding that all parties to the conflict must return to the negotiating table.

Barnier had also been expected to broach the crisis in Ivory Coast in talks with Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade during a dinner late Monday.

“We want to find out how President Wade analyzes” the political and economic crisis plaguing Ivory Coast.

Ivory Coast, once a model of stability and driver of the west African economic engine, has stumbled economically and politically since rebels failed in their bid to oust President Laurent Gbagbo in a September 2002 coup that plunged the country into civil war.

A peace pact signed in January last year lies in tatters and a unity government, which included ministers from seven opposition parties and the political arms of the rebel movement, remains paralyzed.

Environmental issues, ways to fight deadly swarms of locusts and water management were also on Barnier’s agenda.

Representatives of nine African countries gather in Algiers Tuesday to discuss the locust crisis as Senegal teams were on a war footing to destroy the voracious insects.

Dakar was the first stop of Barnier’s tour which will also take him to Darfur, Chad and South Africa.

Barnier’s visit to Darfur, which has been the scene of bloodshed between rebels and government troops and their brutal affiliated militias for over a year, will take place Tuesday in the middle of his three-day mission.

Talks with the Senegalese, Chadian and South African presidents will focus on that conflict, which the United Nations estimates has killed up to 50,000 people and driven 1.2 million from their homes.

Barnier will arrive in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in west Sudan, to visit a refugee camp and meet officials from the African Union tasked with overseeing an April 8 ceasefire accord that has largely been ignored.

“This trip shows above all France’s support for a solution to the Darfur crisis,” an official from Barnier’s office said.

Britain, France, the United States and other countries have been exerting increasing pressure on the Sudanese government to end the violence and to rein in Arab militias, which have been accused of systematic rape and other atrocities against the indigenous black African minorities living in Darfur.

The prospect of international intervention has grown sharply in recent days.

Britain has said it could send 5,000 troops to the region if required, and Australia said it was considering a UN request for military personnel to join a mission there that was expected to be deployed by the end of the year.

The European Union on Saturday warned Sudan’s foreign minister that the country would likely face international sanctions if there is not quick progress in Darfur.

The United States last Thursday put forward a draft UN Security Council resolution authorizing sanctions against Sudan if militia leaders are not brought to justice, while the US Congress unanimously labelled the situation a “genocide”.

Sudan has claimed it is taking steps against the militias and pledged to help humanitarian aid get to the region, but thus far no improvement has been seen.

After going to Darfur, Barnier will cross over the border into neighbouring Chad, to where many refugees have fled.

There, in the border town of Abeche, he will hold talks with President Idriss Deby, who is attempting to act as a mediator in the crisis.

Barnier will wrap up his tour in South Africa on Wednesday for talks on the restive Democratic Republic of Congo, which has accused Rwanda of fomenting a rebellion in its eastern border region.

He will meet Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande in Pretoria after seeing South African President Thabo Mbeki and Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.