U.S. envoy says Sudan bombing civilians in Darfur

This article has moved from Love America First-2 to Rosemary’s Thoughts.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (Reuters) — The top U.S. envoy for Darfur on Friday accused the Sudanese government of bombing civilian targets in its war-ravaged western region and rebels of cynically obstructing international efforts to end the conflict.

Andrew Natsios told a news conference in Khartoum following a visit to Darfur that both sides were to blame for the conflict that has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. “After a halt in the bombing between the beginning of February and the end of April in 2007, the Sudanese government has resumed bombing in Darfur,” Natsios said. “This should end, and the ceasefire that was agreed to sometime ago should be respected. We urge the Sudanese government to end all bombing in Darfur immediately,” he said.

Khartoum signed a ceasefire agreement with the two main rebel groups in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement, in 2004, but violence has continued. A May 2006 Darfur peace deal was signed by only one rebel faction. Since then, rebels have split into a dozen groups. “Some of them are descending into warlordism and criminality and this is not a good trend in Darfur, which is all the more reason why we need to accelerate the political process for a peace agreement,” Natsios said.

“Some rebel leaders are cynically obstructing the peace process and the United States government is very disturbed by this. It needs to end now,” he continued. Natsios said the bombing by the Sudanese military focused on the Jebel Marra region, a strong-hold of Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nour, leader of a faction of one of the Darfur rebel groups, and other targets in West and North Darfur.

“I think there were four attacks in Jebel Marra Mountains. We are troubled by this, because these have been stable areas before,” the U.S. envoy said. “And there had been other bombings I think in West Darfur and North Darfur of civilian targets,” he added.

The Sudanese military could not be immediately reached for comment.Natsios also said the United States was disturbed by reports that the Sudanese government was deliberately trying to change Darfur’s demography by settling non-Sudanese Arab tribes there.

“It is a very provocative action that concerns us all and will complicate any future political process for reconciliation in Sudan and particularly in Darfur,” he said. “Because when a settlement is reached and people go back to their homes and they find out someone is living on their land and farming it, this will simply create a new war.”

The U.S. envoy’s comments came as Britain, France and Ghana circulated a draft resolution in the U.N. Security Council for a joint African Union-U.N. force for Darfur, which also threatened force against those who attack civilians, relief workers and obstruct peace efforts. The resolution, expected to be adopted this month, allows the U.N. to formally recruit troops for the mission.

Under sustained international pressure, Sudan agreed last month to a combined U.N.-AU peacekeeping force of more than 20,000 troops and police to bolster the cash-strapped AU force of 7,000 already operating in Darfur. The AU troops have failed to stem the violence.

International experts estimate 200,000 [It has been 400,000 for 2 years now!] people have died as a result of ethnic[, religious] and political conflict in Darfur since it flared in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms after accusing the central government of neglect. [LIE! It was the Arab janjaweed that was raping, pillaging, murdering, flash burning the land, and committing genocide that started the war.] Washington calls the violence genocide, and blames the government and its allied militia. Khartoum rejects the term and says only 9,000 have died.

Other sources: AlertNet, AlertNet, , by Simon Apiku, U.S. envoy blasts Sudan for attacks (San Jose Mercury News, written by MOHAMED OSMAN Associated Press Writer), etc. May I also add that they are ALL using the same Reuters article! Will someone please explain to me why everyone goes to journalist school if they are only going to copy/paste? Just asking…

Paris pushes swift deployment of troops in Darfur

This article has moved from Love America First-2 to Rosemary’s Thoughts.

Source: CNN.

June 25, 2007.

PARIS, France (AP) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy pushed fast international action toward speeding up deployment of troops in Darfur, as key world players met Monday to try to consolidate efforts and resources for the ravaged Sudanese region.

Sudan was not invited to the one-day Paris conference, organized by a new French government that has made the four-year conflict in Darfur a top priority. The meetings come after Sudan agreed — under international pressure — to allow the deployment of a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in the region.

Sarkozy pledged an additional $13.4 million to the existing — and cash-strapped — African Union force. “Silence is killing,” in Darfur, Sarkozy said in greeting participants to the conference.

“The lack of decision and the lack of action is unacceptable,” he added.

He praised Sudan for agreeing to the hybrid force but insisted, “We must be firm toward belligerents who refuse to join the negotiating table.”

Stepping up pressure for progress, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said Sunday night that the international community has fallen down on the job in Darfur.

Rice and Sarkozy had their first face-to-face talks since Sarkozy took over last month from Jacques Chirac.

Details about the composition, mandate and timetable of the joint force are expected to top discussions at Monday’s meetings.

More than 200,000 people have died in the Darfur region of western Sudan and 2.5 million have become refugees since 2003, when local rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan’s government is accused of unleashing in response a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed — a charge Sudan denies.

The U.N. and Western governments had pressed Sudan for months to accept a plan for a large joint force of U.N. and AU peacekeepers to replace the overwhelmed 7,000-strong African force now in Darfur.

Sudan initially accepted the plan in November but then backtracked, before finally agreeing earlier this month. Rice warned Sudan’s government not to renege on its agreement.

Bernard Kouchner, French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, insisted Sunday, “This is not a ‘peacemaking’ meeting, but on the contrary, a meeting to support the international efforts that have been deployed.”

Kouchner, a Socialist who co-founded the aid group Doctors Without Borders, said “humanitarian work … is not enough.” He also noted that the world powers must agree to support the U.N. force financially.

“If there are 20,000 forces who are in the hybrid force, whoever they are, they must be paid,” he said.

The conference includes Rice, Kouchner, officials from the United Nations including Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the Arab League and the European Union, as well as 11 European countries, Egypt and China.

Notable absences, other than Sudan, include the African Union and neighboring Chad, which has seen an influx of tens of thousands of people fleeing Darfur and is a key conduit for aid.

China is viewed as a power broker in Sudan because of its heavy investment in the country. China has long opposed harsh measures against Sudan over Darfur.

Beijing has dramatically stepped up efforts to end the violence in Darfur in the wake of mounting criticism that threatened to taint the 2008 Olympic Games, which it is hosting.

China has not received a formal request to send soldiers for the AU-U.N. peacekeeping mission, but officials have said the country is open to contributing troops.

France had long been less vocal than the United States, Britain and others in pushing for peace in the region, but Sarkozy has made Darfur a foreign policy priority since taking office last month.

Sudan accepts revised plan for joint Darfur force

Source: , June 12, 2007.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Sudan on Tuesday accepted a revised plan for a joint African Union and United Nations peacekeeping force of between 17,000 to 19,000 troops in Darfur, a senior African Union official said.

African Union, United Nations and Sudanese officials held a two-day meeting to discuss a force whose deployment would mark the final phase of a three-stage U.N. plan to bolster a poorly equipped and underfunded force of 7,000 AU peacekeepers, which has been unable to end four years of death and destruction in Darfur.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir agreed to the package in November, but stalled acceptance of the first two phases and has since backtracked on his approval. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday that al-Bashir told him he fully agreed to the proposed “hybrid” force but was adamant that all of the troops must come from Africa.

“In view of the explanation and clarification provided by the AU and the U.N. as contained in the presentation, the government of Sudan accepted the joint proposals on the hybrid operation,” said Said Djinnit, the African Union’s top peace and security official.

The decisions made Tuesday still have to be approved by the U.N. Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, Djinnit said.

He was reading a joint African Union, U.N. and Sudan statement after the two-day meeting.

Sudan has not changed its position on the hybrid force, said Mutrif Siddig, a senior Sudanese Foreign Affairs Ministry official who attended the meeting in the Ethiopia capital, Addis Ababa. The country has always demanded that the force be under African Union command and its members be Africans only, Siddig told journalists.

“It has been our stance from the beginning to have the hybrid operation. … But we rejected the transfer of the African mission to the United Nations,” Siddig said, referring to the overall command of the peacekeeping force.

“If African countries do not have enough troops or are not willing to contribute [to the force], in consultation with the Sudanese government, the United Nations and African Union, we are ready to recruit other countries according to our agreement,” Siddig said.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, Security Council diplomats said they had been informed that Sudan’s acceptance had conditions, including requiring all troops in the hybrid force to be Africans. That could make putting together a robust force difficult, if not impossible, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because there has been no public announcement.

“I’d like to see what the agreement is,” said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. “If the agreement is unconditional support of the package, then we obviously would welcome that, because the letter we got yesterday was a little bit more of the same kind of pattern we have seen before of vagueness and lack of clarity.”

“But if this is a clear, unconditional acceptance of the AU-U.N. concept it’s welcome. Now we move to the implementation, which is another issue that has been there in the past, where there has been acceptance and then implementation has been a problem,” Khalilzad said.

“The participants further agreed on the need for an immediate comprehensive cease-fire accompanied by an inclusive political process,” Djinnit said, adding they called on countries to step up and quickly contribute troops and money toward the operation.

Djinnit said that there will be more discussions on the force’s size and one factor will be whether there will be enough air transport to move the troops around Darfur.

U.N. peacekeeper killed in Darfur

Source: CNN.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — A U.N. peacekeeper was killed in Darfur, the first U.N. casualty since the world body began sending small reinforcements to a beleaguered African Union force deployed in the violent western Sudan region, the AU and the United Nations said Saturday.

The U.N. peacekeeper, Egyptian Lt. Col. Ehab Nazir, was shot by unidentified gunmen who looted his house late Friday in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state. He died hours later in an AU hospital at the African force’s headquarters about one kilometer (half mile) away, the AU said.

“The senseless killing of an innocent man in the confines of his residence is beyond comprehension,” said Hassan Gibril, the deputy head of the AU mission, at a memorial for the peacekeeper held Saturday at the AU’s headquarters.

“He is the first peacekeeper sent to us as reinforcement to be killed in Darfur,” AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni told The Associated Press by telephone.

The U.N. mission in Sudan confirmed the Egyptian officer’s death — the first time a blue helmet was slain in Darfur.

The unidentified gunmen who killed him where thought to be burglars, but an official close to the investigation said authorities would not exclude other motives for the killing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

In Cairo, the foreign ministry deplored the Egyptian officer’s death and deeply condemned in a statement the “sinful aggression” in which Nazir became the “casualty of an attack by armed elements.”

African Union faces increasing hostility

The AU has faced increased hostility from warring factions in Darfur, and has lost 19 of its own peacekeepers since it first deployed in June 2004.

“Not a month goes by without a new killing, it’s very difficult,” AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni said.

The U.N. began deploying some 180 staff to Darfur in December as reinforcement to the overwhelmed 7,000-strong AU mission.

This “light support package” is part of a broader agreement that should lead to 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers moving into Darfur in 2007, but the AU and U.N. both acknowledge that even the first batch of 180 reinforcements have not yet all arrived.

The Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir has rejected a U.N. resolution for some 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers to replace the AU in Darfur, where over 200,000 people have been killed and 2,5 million chased from their homes in four years of fighting.

Since then, Khartoum, the U.N. and the AU continue to negotiate a compromise deal for U.N. forces to slowly beef up world efforts to end Darfur’s spiraling violence.

Report: Sudan agrees to U.N., AU troops

Source: CNN, April 15, 2007.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Sudan has signed a joint agreement with the United Nations and the African Union that defines their respective roles in Darfur, the official Saudi news agency reported.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir phoned Saudi King Abdullah and told him the Sudanese government had signed the agreement, the SPA news agency reported Sunday.

It quoted the king as saying the agreement “will support Sudan’s unity, security, stability and peace.” No additional details were provided.

In New York, U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said she could not immediately confirm the Saudi report.

Abdullah, along with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Arab League chief Amr Moussa, met al-Bashir at an Arab summit in Riyadh last month to discuss the introduction of U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur.

The news came as Libya announced it will host representatives from the U.S. and several European and African countries in late April to discuss the crisis in Darfur.

The conference will be held in Tripoli on April 28th and will include officials from the U.S., the European Union, the African Union, Sudan, Chad and Eritrea, said Ali al-Teraiki, the AU representative in Libya’s foreign ministry.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million forced to flee their homes in the four-year conflict in Darfur, which began when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the central government. The government is accused of responding by unleashing the Janjaweed militias of Arab nomads — blamed for indiscriminate killing. The government denies the charges.

The United Nations and Sudan agreed in November on a three-stage plan to strengthen the undermanned and underequipped AU peacekeeping force of 7,000 in Darfur. It was to culminate in the deployment of a joint AU-U.N. force with 17,000 troops and 3,000 police officers.

The first phase, a light support package including U.N. police advisers, civilian staff and additional resources and technical support, has already been sent to Darfur.

The U.N., AU and Sudan agreed on a second phase last Monday — including more than 3,000 U.N. troops, police and other personnel as well as substantial aviation and logistics equipment. But Sudan rejected a proposal to include six attack helicopters.

Al-Bashir has backed off from the final stage, saying he would only allow a larger AU force, with technical and logistical support from the United Nations. He maintains that deployment of U.N. troops would violate Sudan’s sovereignty.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was in Khartoum Sunday as part of the international push to persuade the government to accept the larger third-phase force. His visit comes as the United States is holding off on imposing sanctions against Sudan so negotiations can take place on the proposal.

On Monday, Ban is to host a meeting at U.N. headquarters attended by AU negotiators to try to get a political agreement on Darfur.

Excuse me, but this is not news. We already know that al-Bashir will not allow UN Peacekeepers into the country. We already know that al-Bashir is using the janjaweed to murder civillians in Darfur. So what is new? They had another dead-end meeting? They’ve been stringing everyone along since we screamed loud enough for you to hear us! Do Not Write Another Article Until You Have Some News.

African Union peacekeeper killed in Darfur

Source: CNN, April 15, 2007.

NYALA, Sudan (AP) — Unidentified gunmen killed a Ghanaian military officer in the African Union’s peacekeeping force in the Darfur region and hijacked his car within yards of the AU mission’s headquarters, the AU said Sunday.

The officer was traveling alone in his vehicle when he was ambushed in the town of El Fasher late Saturday, AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni said.

The ambush took place hours after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte visited the peacekeeper headquarters during his trip to push Sudan’s government to let U.N. troops reinforce the AU mission. He was in the capital, Khartoum, on Sunday to meet with Sudanese officials.

The dead officer was the seventh peacekeeper slain this month, raising to 18 the number of AU soldiers killed since the mission deployed in 2004 to try to stop a brutal conflict between ethnic Africans and Arabs. An AU officer also has been a hostage since December.

“If this growing hostility continues, truly the mission will be compromised and we will have to take the necessary measures,” Mezni told The Associated Press.

Mezni and other AU officials said they did not know the identity of the gunmen, who struck on the outskirts of El Fasher, a government-controlled town in North Darfur. The 7,000-soldier AU mission has had its headquarters there since deploying to Darfur in 2004.

Mezni said more than 90 vehicles have been hijacked from the AU since the beginning of the mission.

“The AU will not let itself be dragged into the conflict,” he said. “This cannot happen. … We came here to protect civilians. If this is becoming impossible, we will take appropriate measures.”

Last week, one soldier from Rwanda’s contingent in the AU mission was slain during a patrol in North Darfur and an AU car was stolen during the assault, which took place in a zone controlled by the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, the AU said. Two other Rwandans were wounded.

Earlier this month, five Senegalese peacekeepers were killed in an ambush a day after the deputy commander of the AU force narrowly escaped being shot down in his helicopter as he flew to a meeting with rebels.

More than 200,000 [sic] [400,000 is more accurate] people have been killed in Darfur since 2003, when local rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of discrimination against Darfur’s ethnic Africans.

The International Criminal Court says the government retaliated by arming militias of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed, and has listed 51 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes against a Sudanese Cabinet minister and a suspected janjaweed chief.

Some rebels also have been accused of abuses. There are almost daily reports of vehicles being hijacked, aid workers assaulted and refugees harassed throughout Darfur, an arid region nearly the size of Texas where many areas are off-limits to the weakly armed AU peacekeepers.

The Sudanese government blocked a plan by the United Nations to replace them with a 22,000-strong U.N. force. But Sudan and the United Nations are now edging toward a compromise that would allow some 3,000 U.N. soldiers to deploy in Darfur as reinforcement to the AU force.

China leans on Sudan to accept peacekeeping plan

Source: CNN.
April 11, 2007.

BEIJING, China (Reuters) — China urged Sudan in unusually strong terms on Wednesday to show more flexibility on a peace plan for its devastated Darfur region, but said the international community would get nowhere by dictating terms to Khartoum.

China, which buys much of Sudan’s oil and wields veto power on the U.N. Security Council, has been criticized in the West for not using its leverage to force Khartoum to act to curb violence in Darfur, where ethnic tensions erupted into a revolt in 2003.

“We suggest the Sudan side show flexibility and accept this plan,” Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun told a news conference on his return from a three-day trip to the African country.

Sudan has rejected U.N.-A.U. force

He was referring to a peace plan put forward by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan to deploy a hybrid African Union-U.N. peacekeeping force. Sudan has had reservations about the deal.

Zhai met Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as well as Foreign Ministry officials and visited refugee camps in Darfur — a rare step for a Chinese official. He said on Wednesday Beijing was using its influence in its own way and rejected suggestions that it would get further by using threats.

“The international community should pay attention to the way of having consultations with the Sudan government in order to achieve better results. This is my opinion,” Zhai said.

“On the Annan plan, China has played an essential role. Just because of the Chinese government, Sudan is adopting a flexible attitude,” he said. “China can’t do everything, but we respect each other and consult as equals.”

But while insisting its role in Sudan is constructive, China has offered Khartoum increased military cooperation. Last week it played host to its Joint Chief of Staff in Beijing.

Chinese weapons are also used by all sides in the Darfur conflict despite an arms embargo on the region.

Calls Janjaweed ‘only a group of bandits’

Zhai played down the strength of the government-allied Janjaweed, calling their militias “only a group of bandits”. And he said China would not support sanctions against Sudan.

“We should help Sudan resolve this issue instead of creating further problems or complicating the issue. Therefore, we are not in favor of sanctions,” he said, adding that it was too early to say if China would veto such a resolution.

Zhai’s trip was the latest sign of China’s intensifying engagement with Sudan and follows a trip by President Hu Jintao in February.

Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo also discussed promoting diplomatic efforts to resolve the Darfur issue with his U.S. counterpart John Negroponte by telephone earlier this week.

The four-year war in Darfur has killed an estimated 200,000 people and driven more than 2 million from their homes.

But the Khartoum government has been resisting the deployment of international troops to back ill-equipped African forces.

“Sudan has accepted in principle the three-phased Annan plan. However, on some of the details, it has reservations,” Zhai said. “Sudan is most concerned about its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Five African Union peacekeepers killed in Darfur

Source: CNN.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (Reuters) — Unidentified gunmen killed five African Union peacekeepers in the Darfur region of western Sudan, the deadliest single attack against the force since late 2004, an AU spokesman said Monday.

The five were guarding a water point near the Sudanese border with Chad when they came under fire Sunday, Noureddine Mezni said. Four soldiers were killed in the shooting, and the fifth died of his wounds Monday morning.

Three gunmen also were killed, he said.

“We strongly condemn this cowardly attack against the very people who are working hard to achieve peace in Darfur,” Mezni told Reuters. “It was totally unprovoked.”

The new bloodshed came after the new U.N. humanitarian chief, John Holmes, said during a visit to the region last month that aid efforts in Darfur — the largest in the world — could collapse if the situation keeps deteriorating.

Asked if the assailants’ bodies were identified, Mezni said: “An investigation is under way, and there will be a statement with more details.”

The killings bring to 15 the number of African Union personnel killed in Darfur since the troops were deployed in late 2004. A senior Nigerian officer working with the mission has been missing since he was kidnapped in December.

The African Union operates an overstretched 7,000-strong force in Darfur. Sudan has rejected the deployment of a larger U.N. force in the region, where violence has persisted despite a 2006 peace agreement between the government and one rebel faction.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Monday reiterated his position that the AU had the main security responsibility for Darfur but said a “dialogue” was under way on other issues.

Sudanese officials recently said they were willing to review U.N. proposals for easing the violence in Darfur, where AU forces have failed to tackle the bloodshed.

Al-Bashir stressed, however, that the key to ending the conflict in Darfur rests with the Sudanese.

“The solution to the Darfur issue must be a national responsibility, with the sons and daughters of Sudan,” al-Bashir told parliament.

The U.N. Mission in Sudan condemned the attack, stressing in a statement “the urgent need to identify those responsible for the attacks … and to hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

That may not be easy. U.N. officials and aid workers say all types of armed groups are exploiting Darfur’s chaos, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell them apart.

Experts estimate that around 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have fled their homes since the conflict flared in 2003, when rebels took up arms against Khartoum, charging it with neglect. The government says 9,000 people have died.

Darfuris say government-backed Janjaweed militias have stormed through their villages, killing, raping and burning down their huts. The government says it has no ties to the Janjaweed, which it calls outlaws.

The attack on AU forces came a day after a helicopter carrying the African Union deputy force commander came under fire on its way from western Darfur to the force’s headquarters in El Fasher, the region’s biggest town.

Top officials: U.S. to impose Sudan sanctions soon

Source: CNN.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The United States will impose tough new measures against Sudan, likely within days, to try to force it to change course on Darfur and aims to pressure Khartoum militarily by helping rebuild forces in the south, U.S. officials said.

State Department, Defense, Treasury and other U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the goal was to “tighten the screws” on President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and have him accept an international force in the vast western province.

A White House announcement on sanctions and a further limit on dollar transactions was expected very soon, a State Department official said.

Military options like a no-fly zone over Darfur — which Britain wants — or a forced intervention have been ruled out for now, but the Pentagon has done some “back of the envelope” calculations on what might be needed, a defense official said.

Some Sudan experts said the new sanctions were too little, too late.

“This is the right idea but it is simply not enough and not multilateral enough to make an impact, a dent, in the calculations of the Sudanese regime,” said John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group.

The United States had threatened an unspecified “Plan B” by January 1 if Bashir did not agree to a U.N./African Union force in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 in what Washington says is this century’s first genocide.

That deadline passed but it was Bashir’s comments that he would not accept a hybrid force that pushed the administration to roll out “Plan B,” senior officials said.

One idea: Bolster military force in the south

The U.S. government is also looking at how to change the military equation in Sudan.

One tactic is to help the government in the south build a strong force out of the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army which was at war with the north until a 2005 peace deal.

“If he (Bashir) is faced with a credible force in the south, he will start to relook at how his forces are dispersed and where his risks are,” the defense official said.

But the initial focus will be on putting the financial squeeze on Bashir.

About 130 firms with ties to Sudan’s government, including the two leading oil companies, are already on a U.S. sanctions list barring them from doing business with the United States or from using U.S. financial institutions to do dollar transactions — the favored currency for lucrative oil trades.

Other companies will be added to the list, current sanctions will be tightened and existing loopholes closed, making it harder to do dollar deals.

“The goal is to be more pro-active and have tighter enforcement (of sanctions),” said a Treasury Department official.

Aside from slapping travel and banking restrictions on at least three more Sudanese individuals, including a rebel leader, Washington also wants to put more pressure on splintered rebel groups in Darfur.

‘You have to squeeze them all,’ Khartoum and rebels both

“You have to squeeze them all,” said the defense official. “The goal is to get both Bashir and the rebels to come to the conclusion that they are not going to get anywhere with their current course of action.”

The United States is working closely with Britain, which takes over the presidency of the U.N. Security Council next month, and is planning a new resolution on Darfur.

But a senior U.S. official made clear the United States would not wait months for the United Nations to act.

Britain has been pushing for a no-fly zone in Darfur but the Pentagon sees that as fraught with problems, as it does a forced military intervention which would ostracize Arab nations still smarting from the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“When you look at a no-fly zone, the conclusion that pretty much everyone comes up with is that it will not have any impact at all,” a defense official said.

With Sudan’s limited number of fixed-wing aircraft, it would also be a logistical nightmare maintaining a no-fly zone in an area the size of Texas, the official said.

Key facts about Darfur

February 26, 2006.

(Reuters) — The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor will name the first suspects accused of committing war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region on Tuesday.

Here are some facts about the conflict in the Darfur region.

The conflict.

• Rebels in Sudan’s western region of Darfur rose up against the government in February 2003, saying Khartoum discriminated against non-Arab farmers there.
• Khartoum mobilised proxy Arab militia to help quell the revolt. Some militiamen, known locally as Janjaweed, pillaged and burned villages, and killed civilians. The government has called the Janjaweed outlaws and denied supporting them.
• Experts have estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in the region since early 2003, some crossing the border into Chad exacerbating a refugee crisis there.
• The United Nations calls Darfur one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The United States says the violence in Darfur amounts to genocide.

Cease-fires:

• A ceasefire was agreed in Darfur in April 2004 and the African Union eventually sent nearly 7,000 peacekeepers with a mandate to monitor the peace and protect those displaced in the camps. The ceasefire has been violated frequently, with fighting blamed on government troops, rebels and Janjaweed militias.
• A peace deal in May 2006 was signed by only one of three rebel negotiating factions. The agreement was almost immediately rejected by many people in Darfur who said it did not go far enough in ensuring their security. A new rebel coalition has since formed and renewed hostilities with the government.

Peacekeeping force for Darfur:

• In August 2006, the U.N Security Council adopted a resolution on deploying a 22,500-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur to replace and absorb African Union forces who have been unable to stem the violence in western Sudan.
• It invited the consent of Sudan, which has so far refused.
  Then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested a hybrid force, which Khartoum also rejected. But Sudan has agreed to allow a “hybrid operation”, involving technical U.N. support personnel, to deploy to Darfur to help the AU. It has allowed the first phase of that three-phased deployment to proceed but has balked at phase two, which involves some 3,000 U.N. personnel, as well as equipment.

Source: CNN.

NOTE: Consider the source and the outcome so far. I give them below a failing grade. I call it complicit.