UN tries to keep dialogue after Khartoum irked by criticism on Darfur

KHARTOUM, Aug 12 (AFP) — The UN envoy to Sudan has tried to ease the pressure on Khartoum after a flurry of indictments of the government’s failure to end the crisis in Darfur drew irate reactions from President Omar al-Beshir.

Jan Pronk, quoted in Thursday’s Akhbar Al-Youm daily, said an action plan Khartoum has agreed to “does not set 30 days as a deadline but as a period which can be renewed and amended until all provisions” of a Security Council resolution are implemented.

The action plan for Darfur signed Tuesday by Pronk and Sudan’s
Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail gave the authorities 30 days to
create safe areas for civilians to search for food and cultivate
their land without fear of attack.

The deal was already backtracking on a July 30 Security Council resolution giving Khartoum 30 days to crack down on the pro-government Arab Janjaweed militias accused of committing atrocities against the black African population in Darfur.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s envoy on the ground was trying to ease the war of words which has been escalating between the world body and Khartoum.

Ismail, speaking to reporters Wednesday, asked the United
Nations to control its statements “if it really wants security to prevail in Darfur, otherwise the government will reconsider its commitments.”

Reports from the United Nations and rights groups issued over the past few days harshly criticised the Sudanese government for failing to end the crisis in Darfur, which the world body says has left between 30,000 and 50,000 people dead.

The reports alleged Khartoum was incorporating into the police militias which are accused of war crimes, continuing raids on Darfur and failing to protect the estimated 1.2 million displaced, instead arresting those who spoke to foreign officials or journalists.

Ismail complained the United Nations was violating an agreement for Pronk to be the world body’s spokesman on Darfur, and charged the recent flurry of statements was counterproductive and only hurting Sudan’s image.

Quoted in the press on Thursday, Pronk acknowledged the black African groups which started the rebellion in Darfur in February 2003 should be disarmed as well as the marauding Janjaweed.

Pronk’s conciliatory comments came as another Sudanese
newspaper, the Al-Anbaa daily, quoted Beshir as requesting the help of tribal leaders in Darfur to rein in the rebel groups.

Beshir has repeatedly tried to put the ball back in the rebels’ court by saying the Janjaweed could be brought under control only if Darfur rebel groups disarmed at the same time.

Reacting to the recent string of accusations levelled at his
action since the Darfur crisis hit the limelight last month, Beshir reiterated his commitment to ending the bloodshed and what has been described the worst humanitarian disaster in the world.

Calls in the United States for a military intervention in Darfur have been gaining momentum, prompting Beshir to accuse Western powers of seeking to plunder his country’s resources.

A 300-strong contingent of African Union troops due to be
airlifted to Darfur shortly is only tasked with protecting ceasefire monitors. Khartoum has fiercely opposed any plans for a larger peace-keeping force.

Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo has invited
representatives of the Sudanese government and rebel leaders to attend talks in Abuja on August 23 in order to find a way to end the war.

The country also warned Sudan on Thursday that if it does not
allow African Union peacekeepers and diplomats to resolve the Darfur
crisis it will end up facing less friendly pressure from outside the
continent.

“What has to be made clear is that if Sudan will not yield to
gentle and African pressure it will have to succumb to extra-African
pressure that might not be so gentle,” said government spokewoman
Remi Oyo.

Also on Thursday, Libyan Foreign Minister Abderrahman Shalgham
said that Tripoli had proposed to the African Union that it stage a
meeting of all the parties in the Darfur conflict.

Shalgham, in an interview with the Egyptian government-owned
Al-Ahram daily, said the Sudanese government should be helped to
carry out its commitments, and warned against the dispatch of
Western troops to Darfur.

“It would be a disaster,” he said. “Islamists would come from everywhere on the pretext of fighting a holy war, the people of Darfur would also fight, the problem would become more difficult and Darfur would become a new Afghanistan, a second Iraq.”