Sudan: $300m to rebuild Darfur
2007-10-03 19:57
Kebkabiya - Sudan's president has promised to pay $300m in compensation to the country's war-torn Darfur region, tripling a previous pledge, former US President Jimmy Carter said on Wednesday.
Carter spoke during a tour of Darfur marred by a heated
exchange between the 83-year-old former president and Sudanese
security, who tried to keep him from visiting a tribal leader.
Carter told Reuters that President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan had made the compensation pledge during talks with him and other members of a visiting group of elder statesmen, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in Khartoum on Monday.
"He promised us there would be $300m in all coming to
the Darfur region in compensation, $100m coming from the
government, and $200m to be a loan from the Chinese,"
Carter said as he set off on a tour of the northern Darfur town
of Kebkabiya with the elders party.
Sudan promised to pay $30m in compensation to Darfur
under the terms of a 2006 peace agreement signed with only one
rebel group. Other rebel groups that refused to sign angrily
rejected the offer as too low and remained unhappy when it was
later raised to $100m.
Carter gets his way
Soon after making the statement, Carter publicly clashed
with a Sudanese security chief who objected to his attempt to
meet a Darfur tribal chief.
"No you can't go. It's not on the programme," Kebkabiya
security chief Omar Sheikh told Carter in a raised voice.
Carter angrily replied: "I don't think you have the
authority to do so. We are going to go anyway. I'll tell
President (Omar Hassan al-) Bashir."
The tribal leader Al-Tayyib al-Bukoura, regional head of the
local Fur people, eventually arrived and after refusing to speak in front of Sudanese security, drove off with Carter.
Displaced people from the town crowded the international
visitors, including British tycoon Richard Branson, and slipped
notes into their pockets detailing attacks and rapes.
Graca and Tutu get tough
Graca Machel, rights campaigner and wife of former South
African President Nelson Mandela, was visibly annoyed by
security officers crowding around her as she listened to reports of rape from women's groups. She ordered the men to leave.
International experts say some 200 000 people have died in Darfur since mainly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the
government in 2003. Khartoum says only 9 000 have perished.
Desmond Tutu on Wednesday called on world governments to
speed up the deployment of a replacement force of 26 000 joint UN-AU peacekeepers.
"I am making a call to people of good will ... for goodness
sake, tell your governments to get off their butts," Tutu said.
"It is unacceptable that the AU mission is not better
equipped. They couldn't even evacuate the injured after the
Haskanita attack because they don't have military helicopters,"
he told Reuters.