Tanzania considers sending troops to Darfur

By Helen Nyambura

DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 12 (Reuters) – Tanzania is considering a request by the African Union (AU) to send troops to Sudan’s Darfur region, Tanzania’s defence minister said on Thursday.

“I have been requested (for troops) but the decision has not yet been reached because the situation there is very fluid,” Defence Minister Philemon Sarungi told Reuters, adding that the government was assessing the situation in Darfur.

The AU has said it would send more than 300 troops to western Sudan to protect AU monitors there but it is considering expanding its mission to about 2,000 soldiers who would have a peacekeeping role.

Sudan — under intense international pressure to rein in Janjaweed militias accused by rebels of attacking, killing and raping black African villagers — has objected to any possibility AU troops might be used as peacekeepers.

Sudan insists peacekeeping is its responsibility.

So far only Rwandan and Nigerian troops had been picked to be part of the 53-member AU’s force in Sudan. Tanzania’s defense minister said forces from his country may also participate.

“When they (Tanzanian troops) go, their role will be peacekeeping,” he said, adding that the possible number of Tanzanian troops to be sent was still under consideration.

On Saturday, the Netherlands is due to airlift a contingent of Rwandan soldiers to Darfur, the site of what the U.N. calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. They will be charged with protecting AU ceasefire observers monitoring a fragile truce between the government and Darfur rebels.

Tanzanian troops would form part of an expanded mission, if the plan is approved by the AU’s security body, the Peace and Security Council.

The United Nations estimates at least 50,000 people have been killed and more than 1 million made homeless in the arid, impoverished Darfur.

Africa’s largest country has less than three weeks to prove it is disarming the horse-mounted Janjaweed — loosely translated from Arabic as devils on horseback — or face possible U.N. sanctions.

The U.S. Congress in July labelled the violence genocide and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he has not ruled out military intervention in the vast region, the size of France.

Khartoum rejects the charge of genocide, saying international concern over mainly Muslim Darfur, aims to undermine the Islamist government of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup.