...why don't I just whack it some more, eh?
{...}U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Washington wanted to strengthen its original resolution to "put teeth" behind the U.N. agreement with the Sudanese government on July 3. Sudan promised Annan in the July 3 agreement that it would rein in the Janjaweed militiamen, but Annan's representative in Khartoum, Jan Pronk, said Wednesday that the government has made "no progress whatsoever." Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail accused the United States and Britain of meddling, saying their increased pressure was the same tactic they used against Iraq. He told a news conference in Paris that threatening Sudan with international sanctions would complicate the Darfur crisis. The new U.S. draft for the first time directly threatens sanctions against the Sudanese government. It also calls for an arms embargo on Darfur, which would apply to individuals, groups or governments that supply the Janjaweed or rebel groups. The original U.S. resolution of June 30 called for an arms embargo and travel ban on the Janjaweed. It did not call for action against the Sudanese government, but said the sanctions would be reviewed in 30 days and could be extended. Many Security Council ambassadors called the latest U.S. draft a good basis for discussion. They included France, China, Algeria, Brazil, Germany and Pakistan. There is no outright opposition to the draft, but several council members, including Pakistan, Russia and China, had called for Sudan to be given sufficient time to meet its commitments under the July 3 agreement, and appeared reluctant even to threaten sanctions. "It's a basis on which we can work and we hope it will lead to a consensus as soon as possible," Pakistan's U.N. Ambassador Munir Akram told The Associated Press. "We have to see what is the approach to sanctions, exactly what we should do now, and what we should threaten now, and what we should keep in our pocket for later."{emphasis mine}
Sigh. Here comes the full-time hedging.
And then we have the Sudanese Foreign Minister laying down threats against the US and Britain.
"The increase in pressure from the United States and Great Britain is ... the same as the increase in pressure that they put against Iraq," Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said at a news conference in Paris. Ismail also said Britain should think twice before choosing a course of action in Darfur, a vast region of Sudan where a 15-month conflict has killed up to 30,000 people, forced over 1 million to flee their homes and left 2.2 million in desperate need of food and medicine. The death toll could surge to more than 350,000 if aid doesn't reach more than 2 million people soon, the U.S. Agency for International Development has warned. According to British press reports, Prime Minister Tony Blair was ruling out "absolutely nothing" in responding to the crisis. But Ismail suggested it would be a mistake for Blair to send troops. "If he is going to send troops to Darfur, we will withdraw our troops and give him a chance to maintain security," Ismail said. "You know what is going to happen in one or two months, these troops are going to be considered by the people of Darfur as occupying forces, and you'll have the same incidents you are facing in Iraq."{insert shaking of head here} Posted by Kathy at July 1, 2004 05:28 PM | TrackBack