Sudanese army says UN resolution ‘a declaration of war’
KHARTOUM, Aug 2 (AFP) — Sudan’s army has vowed to fight any foreign military intervention in Darfur, even after the government reluctantly accepted a UN demand to end the killing and atrocities in the troubled region within 30 days.
The World Food Programme (WFP) meanwhile announced it had started to airdrop supplies to some of the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the conflict, as Arab foreign ministers said they would meet in emergency session on Sunday to discuss the crisis.
As international concern gathered further momentum, a European Union mission was to head to Darfur on Tuesday to evaluate how the EU could help implement a ceasefire there.
“The Security Council resolution about the Darfur issue is a declaration of war on the Sudan and its people,” armed forces spokesman General Mohamed Beshir Suleiman told Monday’s official Al Anbaa daily.
“The Sudanese army is now prepared to confront the enemies of the Sudan on land, sea and air,” he said.
The general’s warning came after the Security Council’s decision to pass a watered-down resolution Friday threatening “international measures” against Sudan if it did not rein in its troops and Janjaweed militia allies blamed for much of the slaughter in the western area of Africa’s largest country.
On Saturday, the Sudanese government — which has repeatedly promised to act on the crisis — reluctantly accepted the UN resolution, reversing an earlier stand, a minister said.
“Although we don’t like the resolution, we are already committed to the implementation of its measures on the basis of the agreement that was concluded with (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan ,” the minister of state for foreign affairs, Neguib al-Kheir Abdul Wahab, told AFP.
Abul Wahab was referring to an agreement between the government and the United Nations earlier in July under which Sudan agreed to disarm the Arab militias and take a range of other measures.
Friday’s Security Council resolution, which avoided the term “sanctions”, made no mention of possible use of force, although foreign officials have spoken of sending troops to Darfur to try to force an end to the crisis.
The African Union has said it may transform a planned protection force into a “full-fledged peacekeeping mission” to force the Janjaweed to lay down arms.
The pan-African body already has plans to send some 300 troops to Darfur to protect its team of observers and monitors overseeing the implementation of a shaky ceasefire deal between the militia and ethnic minority rebels.
Arab diplomats said proposals to deploy an Arab unit as part of the African force would top the agenda at Sunday’s emergency foreign ministers’ meeting.
“The participation of an Arab force in the African Union protection force in Darfur will be one of the main items on the meeting’s agenda,” a senior Arab diplomat said in Cairo.
Egyptian President Hosni Moubarak telephoned his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir and discussed with him the “need to cooperate with the positive aspects of the (UN) resolution,” Egyptian state television reported.
The United Nations estimates that up to 50,000 people have been killed in Darfur and more than a million have fled their homes, 200,000 of them seeking refuge in neighbouring Chad.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said it had started to airdrop urgent food supplies into inaccessible areas of Darfur, where rain and insecurity had stopped aid getting through to people.
The first supplies were airdropped on Sunday in the farming town of Fur Buranga in West Darfur, the WFP said in Nairobi.
“The food will assist more than 70,000 displaced people and local residents who have been cut off from aid because of rainy season and insecurity,” it said.
Egypt’s official MENA news agency meanwhile said Cairo had sent “several military transport aircraft to Sudan Monday, carrying ambulances and tonnes of medicines and vaccines as well as food and a large number of tents,” accompanied by a team of doctors and nurses.
Overnight, the current chairman of the African Union, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, made lightning visits to both Sudan and neighbouring Libya for talks on the crisis.
In Tripoli, he secured Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi’s agreement to use his influence with Khartoum to relaunch peace talks with the rebels which broke off last month, diplomats said.
In Brussels, an aide of EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana, said of the planned visit to Darfur: “The goal is to assess how the EU can help the African Union in strengthening the existing ceasefire monitoring mission.”