The European Union (EU) on Saturday renewed a threat to slap sanctions on the Sudanese government if it does not do more to rein in militias in the western Darfur region.
Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, welcomed some progress on the humanitarian situation in Darfur, but lamented that security remains a problem.
The comments came as EU ministers turned their attention to the Darfur crisis on the second day of informal talks in the Netherlands, clouded by the bloody end of the Russian hostage drama.
”Whereas we note some progress in the humanitarian field we are still particularly worried at the security situation caused by lack of progress in disarming and controlling the Janjaweed” pro-government militias in Darfur, said Bot.
”It is necessary to make it quite clear that we may be forced to impose sanctions at some point in the future,” he said, adding that EU officials have been asked to draw up a list of possible sanctions and their implications.
He underlined that the 25-member bloc will ”continue to exert pressure on the
Sudanese government to comply with” UN demands, adding that an oil boycott ”may be one of the measures,” although details had not been discussed.
The United States is planning to introduce a new UN Security Council resolution to deal with the Darfur crisis, after a critical report on Khartoum’s compliance with the council’s demands in an earlier resolution.
According to UN estimates, up to 50 000 people have died in Darfur, about 1,4-million people have fled their homes with about 180 000 crossing the border into Chad.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer also reiterated the EU threat to the Sudan government.
”We must keep pressure on the Khartoum government,” he said. ”If the global community had not reacted so strongly, the humanitarian situation — which has a real genocidal potential — would be even more dreadful than” it is.
Bot added that the EU stands ready to help fund and plan notably the extension of a monitoring mission and protection force for Darfur.
”We should also consider launching a police mission in support of an African Union police mission in Darfur,” he added, although stressing that the AU should take the initiative.
The Dutch minister added that he hoped progress could be made at African Union-sponsored talks between rebels from Sudan’s Darfur region and government officials from Khartoum, which resumed Saturday in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
”We call on the parties at the Abuja talks … to move forward and to come to a settlement,” said Bot.
The Abuja talks got off to a difficult start on August 25, with the two rebel groups — the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) — refusing to demobilise their forces ahead of a comprehensive political settlement.
Meanwhile on Saturday the Sudanese government kept up its demand for ethnic minority rebels in Darfur to be disarmed alongside state-sponsored Arab militias.
Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail railed against what he described as the double standards of the international community in demanding the immediate disarmament of the militias but not putting the same pressure on the rebels.
”The two rebel movements were moving around with their weapons among civilians,” the Sudanese Al-Akhbar Al-Youm daily quoted the minister as saying.
Still no word on troop deployment
Sudan’s foreign minister said his country does not object to increased numbers of foreign cease-fire monitors, plus troops to protect them, being deployed to crisis-torn Darfur.
Mustafa Osman Ismail’s comments on Saturday follow UN calls on his government to allow more than 3 000 troops enter Darfur, something which Khartoum has yet to sanction.
But Ismail included the proviso that Khartoum would maintain the final say in choosing which countries provide more forces to monitor a rarely adhered to April 8 cease-fire deal between Sudanese authorities and two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement.
Sudan has been cool on allowing Western nations deploy forces to Darfur, but has shown more support for troops and monitors being sent by the African Union, which currently has about 80 military observers in Darfur protected by just over 300 soldiers. – Sapa-AFP