World leaders must follow a move by the United States to impose fresh sanctions against Sudan for its refusal to allow a major United Nations-led peacekeeping force into war-torn Darfur, South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu said on Tuesday.
Addressing leading European lawmakers, Tutu said he endorsed ”wholeheartedly the imposition of targeted sanctions on Khartoum”.
The international community must set the Sudanese government a tough deadline to accept UN peacekeepers, disarm militia forces and allow humanitarian aid to Darfur, the former Anglican archbishop and anti-apartheid struggle veteran said.
He also said that China, the biggest buyer of Sudanese oil, must be pressed to raise its voice against the Sudanese government.
Echoing Tutu’s views, key members of the European Parliament called for a boycott of the 2008 summer Olympics Games in China if Beijing did not stop economic and political support for Khartoum.
”You cannot organise the games of peace in the world when at the same time you support the government in Khartoum,” said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of Parliament’s Green group.
”The only way to influence China is to threaten the Olympic Games,” he said.
In 2005, China used its veto power in the UN Security Council to block sanctions against Sudan. Its arms exports to Sudan raised international ire further.
Violence between rebels and government-backed militias in Darfur has left an estimated 200 000 people dead and more than two million displaced in a conflict which the US says amounts to genocide.
In April, Sudan agreed to allow the first two phases of a UN deployment, which includes 3 000 UN peacekeepers and logistical staff.
But the Khartoum government has resisted the call for a 23 000-strong joint UN-African Union force of peacekeeping troops and police to Darfur. — Sapa-dpa