This thread dedicate to the news from Sudan

 

Feel free to submit news

Bush warns Sudan to end Darfur conflict

 

 

WASHINGTON - President Bush warned Sudan's government on Tuesday that it must move soon to end the deadly conflict in its wartorn Darfur region.

 

Bush spoke to reporters after meeting with Andrew Natsios, the United States' special envoy to Sudan. Bush said Natsios delivered a "grim report about the human condition" in Darfur after a 10-day trip to the area.

 

"The government of Sudan must understand that we're serious, when you deliver a message to them on behalf of our government, that we're earnest and serious about their necessity to step up and work with the international community," the president said.

 

The vast, remote western province of Darfur has suffered from a 3-year-old war that has left some 200,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Sudan's government is accused of unleashing brutal militiamen known as Janjaweed to quell a tribal rebellion against the government.

 

The U.N. has authorized 20,000 troops to replace an ill-equipped and underfunded force of 7,000 African Union troops in Darfur to enforce a peace agreement, which has not held. But the Sudanese government has rejected the U.N. force, and last week expelled the U.N.'s Sudan envoy, Jan Pronk.

 

Bush said a "credible and effective" international force is crucial to bringing peace to the region.

 

"The United States is going to work with the international community to come up with a single plan on how to address this issue and save lives," he said.

China's Hu urges Sudan to seek solution over Darfur

 

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese President Hu Jintao has praised the efforts of Sudan President Omar al-Beshir to bring peace to the troubled Darfur region and urged him to seek a proper solution to the humanitarian crisis.

 

"The Chinese side admires and supports Sudan in the realization of north-south peace and is willing to participate in the rebuilding," China Central Television quoted Hu as telling Beshir.

 

"China understands the concerns of the Sudan government on this issue, and hopes that Sudan can maintain dialogue with all sides, adjust its position and strengthen efforts to reach a proper resolution to maintain a stable situation in Darfur and continue to improve the humanitarian situation."

 

During the bilateral meeting at the Great Hall of the People, Beshir said the situation in Darfur was improving and that his government was seeking the help of the African Union to push forward the peace process, it said.

 

Beshir is one of nearly 40 African leaders visiting Beijing for a three-day China-

African forum starting Friday aimed at strengthening political and economic relations between the two regions.

 

Darfur is a region the size of France where at least 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million been left homeless since a rebellion against the Khartoum government broke out in early 2003.

 

The fighting pits the regime in Khartoum and allied Arab militia against Darfur's mostly black African population, which is seeking autonomy for the region.

 

Beshir's government has been widely held responsible for most of the violence, while fighting between rebel and government forces in the region has intensified, cutting off humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians.

 

Hu's statements come as the United States looked set to pull back from its muscular approach to ending what it calls genocide in Darfur.

 

President George W. Bush announced a policy review this week after repeatedly failing to obtain Sudanese government compliance with a US-sponsored UN resolution demanding the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur.

 

"The United States is going to work with the international community to come up with a single plan on how to address this issue and save lives," Bush said Tuesday.

 

Beijing has abstained from votes on sending in peacekeepers to Darfur and voiced opposition to UN sanctions on Sudan, which is a key supplier of oil to China.

 

"We hold that the United Nation should and can play an active role in the settlement of this (Darfur) issue," China's foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told journalists Thursday.

 

"But we believe that on the specific measures, the international community needs to respect the rational concerns of the Sudanese government and get the consent of the Sudanese government."

 

The New York-based Human Rights Watch also Thursday urged China to pressure Sudan into accepting UN peacekeepers, while criticizing Beijing for engaging African nations who are accused of gross rights violations.

 

"China's policies have not only propped up some of the continent's worst human rights abusers, but also weakened the leverage of others trying to promote greater respect for human rights," the group said in a statement.

Bush envoy confirms backdown on Darfur peace force

 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - In a major policy reversal, Washington's special envoy for Sudan has confirmed the United States is backing away from demands for deployment of a UN peacekeeping force to halt what it has called genocide in the the war-torn region of Darfur.

 

Andrew Natsios, President George W. Bush 's personal envoy to Sudan, said Washington and other Western governments were looking for an "alternate way" to deal with the violence in Darfur which has left at least 200,000 people dead and 2.5 million homeless in the past three-and-a-half years.

 

It was the first public admission that the United States was reconsidering its backing for an August 31 UN Security Council resolution, which Washington sponsored, demanding the immediate deployment of some 20,000 UN troops to replace an ineffective African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.

 

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir rejected the UN demand and refused to meet with Natsios during a visit to Khartoum last week, the US envoy said in an interview with the US National Holocaust Memorial Museum which was posted on the memorial's website on Friday.

 

Natsios said Beshir was furious over Bush's renewal this week of US financial sanctions imposed on Sudan for its handling of regional conflicts, including Darfur, and alleged support for international terrorists.

 

"They were quite upset about (it), so much so that they cancelled my meeting with President Beshir," he said.

 

At a White House meeting with Natsios on Wednesday, Bush said he was reviewing the US approach to the Darfur crisis, described as the first genocide of the 21st century, but he and other US officials refused to provide details.

 

The crisis in Darfur, a region roughly the size of France in western Sudan, erupted in early 2003 when rebel's representing the region's mostly black African population launched a revolt to obtain autonomy from the Arab-led government in Khartoum.

 

Beshir's regime responded by armed Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, who have carried out a scorched earth policy of rape and pillaging across the region.

 

A UN-brokered peace agreement signed in May with one of the rebel groups brought hope for an end to the carnage, but ultimately failed when the other groups refused to sign on.

 

Since then government-allied forces have renewed offensives in the region, with the UN reporting Friday that scores of civilians had been massacred in refugee camps in the region over the past few days.

 

Under pressure from European allies and human rights groups, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made Darfur a major US foreign policy priority in the middle of this year, insisting that only a UN "blue-helmeted" force would have the financial and political clout to stop the killing.

 

But Besher has refused to budge.

 

"Our real interest here is not what it is called or what it looks like in terms of its helmet, but how robust and how efficient it is," he said.

 

"If it does not have a UN helmet, but it is very competent and very aggressive, then we have fulfilled our intention," he said.

 

 

Washington could accept either a strengthened African Union force or one led by Arab or Muslim nations, possibly backed by UN financial or logistical support, he said.

 

Another element of the new US approach is to use African mediation -- Natsios mentioned Eritrea as a potential go between -- to renegotiate the May peace agreement in a bid to draw in other rebel groups.

The prospect of a policy turnaround amid the ongoing violence in Darfur was assailed as "shameful" by one former US official involved in the issue.

 

"If where we're headed now is some sort of appeasement or accommodation with the government of Sudan so they can yet again cherry pick and constrain a new peacekeeping force, we really are complicit in failing to stop this second wave of genocide," said Susan Rice, the State Department's top Africa official in the previous administration of president Bill Clinton.

 

"The only reason the Sudanese don't want the United Nations is because they think it will be more effective in protecting civilians, and that's precisely why we should want it," she said.

ICC says Darfur evidence enough to prosecute

 

By Nicola Leske

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor has nearly completed an investigation into war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region and has sufficient evidence to file charges soon, he said on Thursday.

 

"Based on a careful and thorough source evaluation of all the evidence collected, we were able to identify the gravest incidents and some of those who could be considered to be the most criminally responsible," Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in a speech to the annual meeting of the court's member states.

 

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and 2.5 million forced from their homes in three years of conflict in Darfur, a remote region of western Sudan where the U.S. government says genocide is taking place. Khartoum rejects the charge.

 

Moreno-Ocampo said the crimes committed include persecution, torture, rape and murder.

 

Jan Egeland, the top U.N. humanitarian official accused Sudan on Wednesday of deliberately hindering relief aid in Darfur, attacking villages and arming Arab militia to combat rebels and bandits.

 

The UN , Sudan and the African Union (AU), which has fielded a 7,000-member force, agreed in principle in Addis Ababa last week on a beefed-up AU force with extensive U.N. support.

 

Sudan had previously ruled out a big U.N. role in Darfur, concerned that its forces may try to enforce ICC warrants.

 

Before the prosecution submits the evidence to ICC judges, the office of the prosecutor will assess whether Sudan's government is conducting its own judicial proceedings on the same incidents and persons, Moreno-Ocampo said.

 

Under the treaty that set up the ICC in 2002, the Hague-based court cannot prosecute suspects who have already been tried in fair trials in their home countries.

 

"I plan to have collected this information by the beginning of December," Moreno-Ocampo said.

 

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has charged that Khartoum set up the court to head off the ICC investigation and tried just 13 criminal cases unconnected to Darfur since the court was formed in June 2005.

 

The ICC was set up as the first permanent global war crimes court to try individuals and issued its first warrants last year for leaders of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), who have led 20 years of war.

 

The LRA has signed a truce with the government but the LRA has repeatedly said it will not sign a final peace deal unless the ICC indictments against its leaders are dropped.

 

Moreno-Ocampo said the government of Uganda had reiterated it understood its obligations and that arresting LRA commanders would "prevent recurrent violence and provide justice to the victims."

 

"The victims have a right to peace, security and justice," he said

Sudan dismisses Blair threats, welcomes UN mission

 

By Alaa Shahine

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan on Thursday dismissed British Prime Minister Tony Blair threats of sanctions and a "no-fly zone" over Darfur, and said it welcomed the visit of a U.N. mission as long as it reflected reality.

 

Blair's spokesman quoted him as saying during a visit to Washington last week that the option of a no-fly zone in Darfur should be considered as part of sanctions against Sudan if it did not agree to a U.N. peace plan.

 

"Statements like this ... do not enhance peace," said Al-Samani Al-Wasiyla, the Sudanese minister of state for foreign relations. "They prolong the crisis," he told Reuters.

 

The United States is also growing frustrated with Sudan's refusal to accept an international force in Darfur, and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that, while diplomacy was the focus, other options were being explored.

 

Sudan has rejected a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the deployment of 22,500 U.N. troops and police in Darfur, where experts say around 200,000 people have been killed since the conflict flared in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government, accusing it of neglect

 

The UN says 4 million people in the region rely on humanitarian aid to survive, but that increasing violence and banditry are stopping aid getting through.

Manuel Aranda da Silva, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, said in Geneva that in November relief agencies had managed to get aid to only 62 percent of those who needed it.

 

Sudan says Western media have invented and exaggerated the crisis in Darfur and only 9,000 people have died there.

 

GOOD FAITH

 

The violence prompted the 47-state U.N. Human Rights Council to agree on Wednesday to send a high-level mission to Darfur to investigate allegations of worsening abuses against civilians.

 

"We have never closed our door in the face of any committee, as long as it wants to help us," said Al-Wasiyla.

 

"We will deal with it and want it to reflect what it sees on the ground. People talk about the situation in Darfur and they forget that most areas in Darfur are calm ... that the aftermath of war cannot be solved within 24 hours."

 

Rights group, rebels and a former rebel group that signed a peace deal with the government say Khartoum has armed a proxy militia accused of war crimes in Darfur.

 

The government denies supporting the militias, locally known as the Janjaweed.

 

The militias have been accused of triggering deadly clashes in El Fasher, the main town in Darfur, last week that killed at least six people.

 

Pekka Haavisto, the EU special envoy to Sudan, said he had complained about the Janjaweed activities in El Fasher to the government on Thursday.

 

"The government response was: they are not Janjaweed, we are not calling them Janjaweed, because they are government border guards," he said.

 

 

"And my response was that if you recognize (them) as being part of the government, you have even more responsibility for their behavior."

There was no comment from the government, but state-run media have referred to one of the groups involved in the clashes as the "Border Intelligence Forces."