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China presses Sudan for peace
25/02/2008 10:04 - (SA)
Khartoum - China, under international pressure to help end conflict in Darfur, made a rare call on its Sudanese ally on Sunday to do more to allow foreign peacekeepers to deploy to the region.
But there was no respite in the fighting and the United Nations said it feared for thousands of civilians after reports that Sudan's forces bombed a rebel-held area in western Darfur.
China's envoy to Darfur, in a departure from Beijing's usual public diplomatic vagueness, made an unusual rebuke to Khartoum during a visit there and urged Sudan to remove obstacles to full deployment of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force.
"Rolling out the hybrid peacekeeping operation and resolving the Darfur issue require the joint efforts of all sides," Liu Guijin told China's official Xinhua news agency.
"First, the Sudan government should cooperate better with the international community and demonstrate greater flexibility on some technical issues. Next, anti-government organisations in the Darfur region should return to the negotiating table."
2.5 million people flee homes
China's role in Sudan had come under renewed attention since film director Steven Spielberg quit as an artistic director to the 2008 Beijing Olympic games, saying China had failed to use its sway in Khartoum to seek peace in Darfur.
China was a big investor in Sudan's oil industry and was its largest weapons supplier.
International experts estimated that 200 000 people had died and 2.5 million driven been from their homes since mostly non-Arab Darfur rebels took up arms five years ago.
Even as the Chinese envoy spoke, powerful Sudanese presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie rejected any notion of accepting non-African troops in the UNAMID peacekeeping force until all African soldiers had deployed to Darfur.
Western countries accused Sudan of using conditions such as the composition of the force as delaying tactics. So far, just 9 000 of an eventual 26 000 peacekeepers were on the ground.
114 people killed
The UN said on Sunday it had received reports of aerial bombing in the Jabel Moun area in western Darfur, a region where Sudan launched an offensive on February 08 to retake rebel-held areas.
"We are gravely concerned for the safety of thousands of civilians in this area," the UN statement said.
Residents said at least 114 people had been killed in the offensive, but the army said many of those were rebels in civilian clothing. Thousands of people had fled the fighting, some into neighbouring Chad.
UN officials estimated some 20 000 people were in Jabel Moun. They said the bombing was in spite of assurances from Khartoum on Sunday that civilians would be allowed to leave the area. UNAMID was seeking similar assurances from the rebels.
"The risks at this stage to civilians are unacceptably high. The solution for Darfur's problems can never be a military one," the statement said.
- Reuters
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