Sudan opposes intervention

2004-07-28 08:47

Khartoum - Sudan put its government institutions on alert Tuesday as it vowed to face down any foreign intervention in the crisis in the strife-torn Darfur region.

"The government will appropriately deal with any soldier who sets foot on Sudanese territory," Agriculture Minister Majzub al-Khalifa Ahmed told reporters after an emergency cabinet meeting.

The hardening of the Khartoum government's position came as French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier visited Darfur and the international community continued to step up pressure on it to end a 17-month conflict between rebels and Arab government-backed Janjaweed militias that has cost up to 50 000 lives.

But US Secretary of State Colin Powell, on a visit to Cairo where Darfur was high on the agenda, said it was too soon to talk of military intervention in the crisis.

The Sudanese cabinet ordered the "political and strategic mobilisation of all government institutions", Ahmed said.

They also decided to "strongly resist all (UN Security Council) resolutions calling for despatching international forces to Darfur," said Ahmed, who is Khartoum's pointman in the bloody conflict in the west Sudanese region.

"The government will from now on harden its attitude in rejection of any foreign intervention in Darfur and will notify the international community of this position," the minister warned.

Mobilisation will also include public protest demonstrations against foreign intervention, Ahmed said.

The cabinet's announcements followed a stark warning from Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail that Khartoum was prepared to face down any foreign intervention in Darfur, by force if necessary.

"We are not looking for confrontation, and we hope that we will not be pushed to that," he told reporters during a visit to Ankara.

"But, if we are being forced to do so, if we are being attacked, definitely we are not going to sit silent, we will retaliate or we will hit back. But we hope that we are not going to reach that situation," said Ismail.

Sudan undertook earlier this month to disarm the Janjaweed militias, facilitate humanitarian action and work for a political settlement of the crisis, as the United Nations and the United States have demanded.

But in recent days there has been growing international pressure on Khartoum and some states have spoken of the possibility of military intervention on humanitarian grounds.

Britain, France, the United States and other countries have been exerting increasing pressure on the Sudanese government to rein in the Janjaweed militias which have been accused of systematic rape and other atrocities against the indigenous black Africans living in Darfur. An estimated 1.2 million people have fled their homes.

But Powell said talk of military intervention was premature.

"Some nations have gone further and started to talk about other actions of a military nature but I think that's premature," he told the travelling press en route to talks in Cairo.

"We should not underestimate what a difficult choice that would be in a sovereign country when there is no UN resolution for any such action and where the government, I believe, still has the ability to take action to bring this violence under control," he said.

- AFP