African Union needs immediate US help to aid Darfur crisis: Holbrooke
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (AFP) — The African Union needs immediate help from the United States and European nations to help aid refugees in Sudan’s war-torn western region of Darfur, former US ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke said Tuesday.
Holbrooke, who visited Darfur refugee camps in late August, said that US and European forces should provide logistical support — airplanes, helicopters, ground transportation and the like — to African Union forces to monitor a ceasefire between Sudan and anti-government rebels.
It would be more efficient to support AU forces than to deploy US or NATO troops, said Holbrooke, speaking at an event sponsored by the Brookings Institution.
Democratic New Jersey Senator Jon Corzine, who visited the camps with Holbrooke, is pushing for a measure in the US Congress granting emergency aid to the African Union for Darfur operations.
The dismal camp conditions “lay down a moral imperative” for the United States “to take real action” on Darfur, Corzine said.
Corzine and Holbrooke called on President George W. Bush to appoint an experienced diplomat as ambassador to the African Union. Currently Washington is represented only by a low-level diplomat, Holbrooke said.
They also urged Bush to appoint a special envoy to Darfur, as former senator John Danforth spent three years as a special envoy to kick start a peace process in the civil war between Christians and Muslims in southern Sudan.
Danforth is the current US ambassador to the United Nations.
Holbrooke advises Democrat John Kerry’s presidential campaign on foreign affairs, and is seen as a possible secretary of state if Kerry were to win the November 2 election.
But he insisted any remarks Tuesday were non-political. “This is not a partisan issue,” Holbrooke said. “There are no political advantages on either side on this.”
On September 9, Secretary of State Colin Powell classified the Darfur atrocities as genocide and called on the United Nations to launch a probe into charges that the Sudanese government is arming and backing Arab militias, known as Janjaweed.
The militias have conducted what UN officials say is a scorched-earth campaign of ethnic cleansing against black Africans.
UN officials describe the Darfur situation the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis, estimating that some 1.4 million people have been displaced from their homes, between 30,000 and 50,000 people have been killed and a further 180,000 have fled to neighbouring Chad.