The United States on Thursday called emergency UN Security Council consultations after Sudan warned nations considering troops for Darfur that their action was a ”prelude to an invasion”.
The letter from Sudan’s mission to the UN was sent to dozens of states who attended a meeting on September 25 on potential troop contributions to a future UN force in Darfur, if the Khartoum government agrees, which it has not.
”Any volunteering to provide peacekeeping troops to Darfur will be considered as a hostile act, a prelude to an invasion of a member country of the UN,” the letter said.
The meeting, diplomats said, would discuss how to respond to the Sudan letter.
The letter said that Sudan ”fully supports” augmenting an African Union force now in Darfur but said again that Khartoum rejected a UN-run operation.
The UN peacekeeping department organised a meeting to discuss troops for any future force in Darfur so the world body could move into Darfur as soon as Sudan agreed.
Norway offered 250 logistics experts and together with Sweden, a battalion of engineers while Tanzania, Nigeria and Bangladesh pledged infantry soldiers.
But the force, approved by the UN Security Council, is still on paper only, with its goal of 22 500 soldiers and police. Sudan’s President, Omar Hassan Bashir, has refused to allow the UN to take over the AU operation.
The African Union force of about 7 000 troops and monitors has agreed to stay until the end of this year to help stop atrocities in Darfur but has been unable to stop the violence that has driven 2,5-million people from their homes and left an estimated 200 000 dead since 2003.
At the moment, the world body is trying to reinforce the African troops and AU nations have promised 4 000 additional soldiers. The UN is sending 100 personnel to run communications and other equipment as a prelude to a UN operation.
The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003, when non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government, claiming the region was being marginalised. In response, the government armed Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, which have been accused of murder, rape and looting.
In recent months, rebels have split into factions and carried out banditry and atrocities against civilians. — Reuters