Sudan threatens veto on African force
PLANS to send 2,000 African troops to Darfur were in jeopardy yesterday after the Sudanese government said it had not given permission for the force to enter the country.
Sudan’s interior minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, said the Khartoum government reserved the right to veto the proposal, agreed by members of the African Union this week.
Meanwhile, a senior United States senator warned that the international community would have few troops to spare for any military intervention in Darfur if it became necessary.
Sudan has allowed African Union military observers into Darfur and the AU is proposing to send 2,000 armed troops with a mandate to protect the observers as well as serve as a peacekeeping force in the western region.
More than one million people there have been displaced by conflict between black African rebels and the Arab Janjaweed militia.
Mr Hussein said the Addis Ababa-based organisation has not made an official request to send troops.
"This is merely talk propagated by the media and we don’t have anything official about it ... It would be meaningless if it doesn’t obtain our approval," he said.
"We will not agree to the presence of any foreign forces, whatever their nationality," the minister said, using a word for foreign that would not necessarily include Arabs or Africans.
UN peacekeeping experts arrived in the Ethiopian capital yesterday for talks with African Union officials, a spokesman said.
"The UN team is here to assist and reinforce the AU capacity to deploy peacekeeping troops in Darfur," said a spokesman, Adam Thiam. The UN team is expected to leave for Darfur tomorrow to study how best to deploy AU troops there.
In Cairo, the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said the AU Commission chairman, Alpha Oumar Konare, and possibly the UN envoy Jan Pronk, would attend an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers on Sudan in Cairo tomorrow.
Egypt hopes the meeting will help the Sudanese government deal with the UN Security Council resolution and alleviate the plight of the displaced people in Darfur, he said.
A UN investigator said yesterday the Sudanese government’s responsibility for large numbers of killings in the Darfur region was "beyond doubt" and it was largely to blame for the humanitarian disaster there.
A Pakistani lawyer, Asma Jahangir, made the accusations in a report for the UN sub-commission on human rights after a visit with a team of experts to western Sudan in June.
Ms Jahangir said she had found "that it is beyond doubt that the government of the Sudan is responsible for extrajudicial and summary executions of large numbers of people over the last several months in the Darfur region".
Mr Hussein said the Sudanese government had armed only "popular defence forces" and not the Janjaweed.
But he added: "It is true that the situation is out of control, but we will make an effort."
Sudan has about three weeks left to show the UN Security Council that it is serious about disarming the Janjaweed or face possible sanctions. The police commissioner in North Darfur has said the disarmament process would begin this week.
With threats of possible military intervention by western countries, Sudanese officials have indicated that Khartoum is ready to discuss any plans the AU develops.
But Richard Lugar, chairman of the United States Senate foreign relations committee, yesterday said many armies were overstretched and could not meet the call for troops if an international force were required for Sudan.
- The Scottsman, Jonathan Wright
PLANS to send 2,000 African troops to Darfur were in jeopardy yesterday after the Sudanese government said it had not given permission for the force to enter the country.
Sudan’s interior minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, said the Khartoum government reserved the right to veto the proposal, agreed by members of the African Union this week.
Meanwhile, a senior United States senator warned that the international community would have few troops to spare for any military intervention in Darfur if it became necessary.
Sudan has allowed African Union military observers into Darfur and the AU is proposing to send 2,000 armed troops with a mandate to protect the observers as well as serve as a peacekeeping force in the western region.
More than one million people there have been displaced by conflict between black African rebels and the Arab Janjaweed militia.
Mr Hussein said the Addis Ababa-based organisation has not made an official request to send troops.
"This is merely talk propagated by the media and we don’t have anything official about it ... It would be meaningless if it doesn’t obtain our approval," he said.
"We will not agree to the presence of any foreign forces, whatever their nationality," the minister said, using a word for foreign that would not necessarily include Arabs or Africans.
UN peacekeeping experts arrived in the Ethiopian capital yesterday for talks with African Union officials, a spokesman said.
"The UN team is here to assist and reinforce the AU capacity to deploy peacekeeping troops in Darfur," said a spokesman, Adam Thiam. The UN team is expected to leave for Darfur tomorrow to study how best to deploy AU troops there.
In Cairo, the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said the AU Commission chairman, Alpha Oumar Konare, and possibly the UN envoy Jan Pronk, would attend an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers on Sudan in Cairo tomorrow.
Egypt hopes the meeting will help the Sudanese government deal with the UN Security Council resolution and alleviate the plight of the displaced people in Darfur, he said.
A UN investigator said yesterday the Sudanese government’s responsibility for large numbers of killings in the Darfur region was "beyond doubt" and it was largely to blame for the humanitarian disaster there.
A Pakistani lawyer, Asma Jahangir, made the accusations in a report for the UN sub-commission on human rights after a visit with a team of experts to western Sudan in June.
Ms Jahangir said she had found "that it is beyond doubt that the government of the Sudan is responsible for extrajudicial and summary executions of large numbers of people over the last several months in the Darfur region".
Mr Hussein said the Sudanese government had armed only "popular defence forces" and not the Janjaweed.
But he added: "It is true that the situation is out of control, but we will make an effort."
Sudan has about three weeks left to show the UN Security Council that it is serious about disarming the Janjaweed or face possible sanctions. The police commissioner in North Darfur has said the disarmament process would begin this week.
With threats of possible military intervention by western countries, Sudanese officials have indicated that Khartoum is ready to discuss any plans the AU develops.
But Richard Lugar, chairman of the United States Senate foreign relations committee, yesterday said many armies were overstretched and could not meet the call for troops if an international force were required for Sudan.
- The Scottsman, Jonathan Wright
publicado por MP às 11:59
