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Speed up deployment, Sudan told
29/02/2008 11:54 - (SA)
Beijing - British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called on 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 was 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," said Miliband, referring to a fresh offensive by government soldiers and Arab militiamen against rebels in the war-torn region, where hundreds of thousands had been killed in bombings and raids by militias.
Govt 'not obstructing deployment'
At least 12 000 refugees had fled to Chad this month to escape the escalating violence, the UN said, while renewed aerial bombardments by the Sudanese government in West Darfur were endangering tens of thousands of civilians.
The UN peacekeeping mission to Darfur, UNAMID, was launched in January. It had been tasked with preventing such violence, but still lacked 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 were in Darfur.
Sudanese officials denied the government was obstructing the deployment and blamed 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.
2.5m people flee their homes
But the Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in an Islamist and military coup in 1989, had refused to approve non-African units from Thailand, Nepal and Nordic countries, which withdrew their offers.
More than 200 000 had died in Darfur and 2.5 million had fled their homes since 2003, after local ethnic African rebels took arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination.
Sudan denied backing the janjaweed militia of Arab nomads accused of the worst atrocities in the conflict.
China's close ties with Sudan had seen it come under heavy pressure from non-governmental organisations, celebrity campaigners, and the US Congress, who said 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.
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