Sudan rejects UN deadline on militias

By David Blair Africa Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph (London).

SUDAN said yesterday that it would ignore the United Nations’ 30-day deadline for disarming the Janjaweed militia and accused America of plotting an invasion. It condemned the UN resolution as “a declaration of war”. Gen Mohammed Bashir Suleiman, the military spokesman, said the army was ready to fight any foreign forces and accused the regime’s enemies of manipulating the refugee crisis in the western province of Darfur for their own ends. His belligerent remarks, published in an official daily in Khartoum, deepened the regime’s isolation and seemed intended to show that it was impervious to outside pressure. The regime said that disarming the Janjaweed would take three months, as agreed with Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, in Khartoum last month. The Arab militias are accused of driving at least a million black Africans from their homes in Darfur.

Some 50,000 people are thought to have been killed and observers from the UN and the African Union have testified to the Janjaweed’s brutality. But Gen Suleiman said the charges had been framed to provide an excuse for an invasion. He said that “foreign powers”, especially America, were waging a psychological war before attacking. “We will not welcome the Americans with flowers or white flags,” he said. “We are ready to fight them in a way that will be disclosed when the time comes.” Sudan’s hard-line Islamist regime, which seized office 15 years ago, has always claimed to hold power in the face of American and other western plots. Gen Suleiman sought to rally Muslim sentiment by pledging that Sudan would wage a jihad against any invaders, despite a peace agreement ending decades of civil war with southern rebels. “The door of the jihad is still open and, if it has been closed in the south, it will be opened in Darfur,” he said. His rhetoric was echoed by Mustapha Osman Ismail, the foreign minister, who described the UN’s 30-day deadline as “illogical”. He said that only the 90-day understanding reached with Mr Annan would be observed. But last Friday’s resolution supersedes all previous agreements. It was passed under chapter seven of the UN charter, which deals with “threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression”. Any resolutions passed under that chapter impose legally binding obligations on member states. The resolution “demands that the government of Sudan fulfil its commitments to disarm the Janjaweed militias” and instructs Mr Annan to report on progress after 30 days. If Sudan fails to comply, the resolution specifies that “measures” may be taken under article 41 of the charter, which provides for economic sanctions. Arab and African leaders are trying to reach a solution that would prevent Sudan from being isolated and facing UN sanctions. Olusegun Obasanjo, the president of Nigeria and the chairman of the African Union, held talks with President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum on Sunday. Mr Obasanjo stressed that the African Union, a grouping of all 53 countries on the continent, had a special responsibility to resolve the crisis. But the Khartoum regime clearly views the Darfur crisis as a threat to its survival and appears in no mood for retreat.