United States President George Bush on Wednesday bluntly warned that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had one “last chance” to help end violence in Darfur or face tougher US sanctions and other punishments.
“The time for promises is over, President Bashir must act,” Bush said in remarks at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. “If President Bashir does not meet his obligations, the US will act.”
The US president noted that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was in talks with Bashir on the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur, and warned: “President Bashir should take the last chance by responding to the secretary general’s efforts and meet the just demands of the international community.”
Bush said Khartoum must facilitate the deployment of UN support staff as well as a UN-African Union peacekeeping force, end support for the Janjaweed militia, reach out to rebel leaders, and let humanitarian aid reach Darfur.
He warned that Bashir only had “a short period of time” to comply before Washington would impose a series of economic sanctions, seek reinforced UN sanctions, and could consider unnamed “sterner measures” against Sudan.
Bush said the US Treasury Department would tighten economic sanctions on Sudan, targeting 29 companies with ties to the government in Khartoum, as well as individuals with ties to the violence.
He said he would direct US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to prepare a new UN Security Council resolution to apply new sanctions against Sudan’s government and human rights abusers, expand the arms embargo against Sudan, and prevent “offensive military flights” over Darfur.
He said Washington would begin consulting other UN Security Council members on the language of such a resolution.
Bush also warned of “sterner measures” tied to Khartoum’s alleged use of military aircraft to pound targets in Darfur, where an estimated 200 000 people have been killed and at least two million more displaced since 2003.
That was when government forces, including its Janjaweed Arab militias, began fighting rebel groups who had taken up arms in protest at the distribution of resources.
Bush said he was “looking at what steps the international community can take to deny Sudan’s government the ability to fly its military aircraft over Darfur”.
“And if we do not begin see signs of good faith commitments, we will hear calls for even sterner measures,” he warned. — AFP