SENEGAL: Sudan's Bashir resists pressure for Darfur U.N. force

Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Thursday (September 14) fended off intense international pressure for him to accept U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur, denouncing what he called a hidden agenda to "recolonise" his country. But some senior members of Sudan's national unity government broke ranks and came out in favour of a U.N. mission in Darfur. They said African Union peacekeepers already on the ground were failing to halt the bloodshed in the conflict-torn region. Western leaders, some African presidents, and humanitarian groups are piling pressure on Bashir to accept a U.N. resolution to deploy more than 20,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops in Darfur, which has been rent by political and ethnic violence since 2003. They say this is the only way to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in the west Sudanese region, where tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced by fighting between government troops, rebels and militias. On Thursday (September 14), Bashir again reaffirmed his resistance to a U.N. peacekeeping force. "Our position is for the armed forces of the African Union countries to continue their mission in Darfur, and their mission should not be relinquished to the United Nations troops," Bashir said, adding that the 7,000-strong AU peacekeeping force in Darfur had been successful. Bashir rejected arguments that the AU lacked resources. "The lack of resources is a pretext because, already last March in Khartoum, the Arab League summit agreed to fund the AU peacekeeping mission for six months," Bashir said. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade chided him for refusing to accept U.N. troops. "Africa's position has been that we don't have either the troops or money to fix Darfur's problems," Wade said, adding Sudan's decision to turn down the international troops surprised the African community. None of us (African heads of state) could or did foresee that Sudan would refuse the presence of the U.N. troops on its territory," Wade said. The AU mission expires on September 30 and the U.N. Security Council last month passed a resolution for more than 20,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops to take over in Darfur. Breaking ranks with Bashir's line, Sudan's most senior official on Darfur said he was not satisfied with what the AU was doing and would accept U.N. troops in the region. Minni Arcua Minnawi, head of the former rebel Sudan Liberation Movement and now the fourth-ranking member of the presidency in Khartoum, said he was also worried about renewed fighting in North Darfur which has displaced tens of thousands. Wade said African leaders would meet in New York on Monday (September 18) to discuss the Darfur crisis, calling to all the leaders to help solve the crisis. "The duty of every African leader is to try to find a solution so that we can get out of this situation of imminent confrontations," Wade said. European Union foreign ministers will press the Sudanese government on Friday (September 15) to halt attacks on civilians in Darfur, according to a draft EU statement obtained by Reuters. And even China, a close ally of Sudan, has been lobbying Khartoum to let a U.N peacekeeping force into Darfur, Beijing's U.N. ambassador said.

ITN Source | September 16, 2006

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