Sudan president accuses “Zionism” of hampering peace in the south

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Dec 5, 2004 (AP) — President Omar el-Bashir on Sunday accused “international Zionism” and colonial powers of frustrating his peace efforts with rebels in southern Sudan by fanning unrest in Darfur.

The situation in Darfur has been “over-propagated by the hostile media and taken up by the hands of the international Zionism,” said el-Bashir, who also said the Sudan was targeted for its natural resources that would be a “strategic reserve they would use to achieve their expansionist ambitions…even if they cloaked themselves in humanitarian principles.”

El-Bashir has struggled with violence between his government and rebels in the south of the country along with the Darfur conflict, which the U.N. calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Since March alone, disease, hunger and other hardships brought on by war in Darfur have killed more than 70,000 of the 1.8 million people who fled from their homes.

El-Bashir’s Arab-dominated government is accused of mobilizing an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed for attacks on Darfur’s non-Arab villagers in retaliation for uprisings launched by two rebel movements in February 2003.

El-Bashir said the Sudan was still heading toward a peace deal in the south. The government and the southern rebels, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, are pledged to meet a Dec. 31 deadline for a permanent settlement.

Sudan will continue “fighting terrorism and uprooting it through ending of injustice,” said el-Bashir, but he would also insist on reaching a “unified definition (of) terrorism.”

El-Bashir said the Sudan would continue to back the Palestinian bid for its own state and that the country would support the Iraqi people until occupation troops pull out.