British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called Friday for Sudan to speed up the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur and to end aerial bombing in the troubled region’s western districts.
Miliband said the international community is united in the need for a hybrid United Nations-African Union force, but the effort is stalled by a lack of necessary support from Khartoum.
”The government of Sudan has to facilitate [peacekeepers’] entry in sufficient numbers and ensure they can do their job properly,” Miliband said in a speech to students at prestigious Peking University on the final day of his visit to China.
Sudan must also end the ”terrible bombings in West Darfur,” Miliband said, referring to a fresh offensive by government soldiers and Arab militiamen against rebels in the war-torn region where hundreds of thousands have been killed in bombings and raids by militias.
At least 12 000 refugees have fled to Chad this month to escape the escalating violence, the United Nations says, while renewed aerial bombardments
by the Sudanese government in West Darfur are endangering tens of thousands of civilians.
The UN peacekeeping mission to Darfur, UNAMID, was launched in January. It has been tasked with preventing such violence but still lacks most of the 26 000 peacekeepers planned for the mission.
Only about 7 500 military personnel — including many from China — and 1 500 police officers are now in Darfur.
Sudanese officials deny the government is obstructing the deployment and blame the delay on a lack of necessary Western funding.
At Sudan’s insistence, the UN Security Council agreed that the force would be predominantly African.
But the Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in an Islamist and military coup in 1989, has refused to approve non-African units from Thailand, Nepal and Nordic countries, which withdrew their offers.
More than 200 000 have died in Darfur and 2,5-million have fled their homes since 2003, when local ethnic African rebels took arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Sudan denies backing the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads accused of the worst atrocities in the conflict.
China’s close ties with Sudan have seen it come under heavy pressure from non-governmental organisations, celebrity campaigners, and the United States Congress, who say China’s failure to use its influence to persuade Sudan to end the Darfur violence could tarnish this summer’s Beijing Olympics.
Hollywood director Steven Spielberg drew fire from Beijing earlier this month after he announced he would withdraw as an artistic adviser for the Games’ opening and closing ceremonies, saying China and other nations were not doing enough to ease the suffering in Darfur.
Miliband, who on Thursday said human rights issues should not be overtly linked to the Olympics, said the impact of Spielberg’s act would be limited. However, he called on China to view such criticisms as constructive.
”Do not believe Steven Spielberg is going to wreck the Olympics, however much the Olympics focuses the world’s attention on China,” Miliband said.
”But do recognise that when individuals raise concerns over government policies, this is not born of desire to pick on China or block its rise, but instead see its power used as a force for good in the world,” he said. – Sapa-AP