The United States will slap fresh sanctions on Sudan over the Darfur conflict on Tuesday and seek a tough new United Nations Security Council resolution punishing Khartoum, top US officials said late on Monday.
US President George Bush will announce the move at 8am local time in remarks that single out Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the officials said in a briefing arranged by the White House on condition they not be named.
Washington will toughen enforcement of existing sanctions; bar another 31 companies, including oil exporters, from US trade and financial dealings; and take aim at two top Sudan government officials, they said.
”President [al-]Bashir’s actions over the past few weeks follow a long pattern of promising cooperation while finding new methods of obstruction,” Bush said in remarks prepared for delivery from the White House diplomatic reception room.
The Darfur conflict has cost at least 200 000 lives and forced more than two million people from their homes, according to the United Nations, though Sudan contests those estimates, saying 9 000 people have died.
Washington’s sanctions will be ”effective tomorrow [Tuesday]” — even as US diplomats launch an effort to win support for a new UN resolution, including efforts to overcome possible Chinese resistance, one top US official said.
From a US perspective, a new UN resolution would apply new multilateral financial sanctions against Sudan and the three newly targeted individuals and expand an existing arms embargo from individuals operating in Darfur to any sales to Sudan’s government, the official told reporters.
It would also impose UN measures to prevent the government in Khartoum ”from conducting any military flights over Darfur”, the official said in a conference call.
”I don’t want to say that we have a specific resolution right this minute,” the official said. ”We have some draft pieces. We’ll see how those pieces will fit together.”
The violence erupted in the western Sudanese region in 2003 when Khartoum enlisted the help of Arab militia known as the Janjaweed to put down an ethnic minority rebellion.
The Sudanese government has repeatedly rejected plans to deploy UN troops alongside the African peacekeepers in a joint force numbering about 23 000 soldiers.
The UN Security Council on Friday announced its endorsement of plans for a hybrid UN-AU force, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has agreed to travel to Khartoum to discuss plans for a joint peacekeeping force for Darfur.
Khartoum’s hand has been strengthened by China, which has opposed US-led plans within the UN Security Council to use sanctions to force al-Bashir to accept a UN deployment.
”We don’t have a specific commitment from the Chinese” to support a new UN resolution, the US official said. ”We’ll work with them on the specifics of a resolution.”
China supplies arms to Sudan and buys more than half of the African state’s oil output. ‒ Sapa-AFP