Darfur: US Seeks Clarification of Reported Sudanese Concessions

From VOA

In a talk with reporters here, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said reports from Riyadh are unclear about whether Sudan is ready to accept the hybrid force without conditions.

He also said the Bush administration wants to hear directly from the U.N. chief before deciding how to proceed.

"It is fair to say that we want to understand from the Secretary-General what he heard," he said. "Is there a change in view from the Sudanese? Is there something in their comments with which the international system can work? Now, I have to caution you that to this point the Sudanese have not given any indication, or any real public indication that they're dropping any preconditions, or that they're are ready to follow-up on the Addis Ababa agreement."

The Sudanese agreed in principle at an international conference in Addis Ababa last November to accept the hybrid force, mandated earlier by the U.N. Security Council.

But Khartoum has since blocked the admission of U.N. logistics teams, frustrating the United States and other supporters of expanded peacekeeping in Darfur.

The reported Sudanese concession came amid reports the Bush administration is only a few days away from announcing a package of new financial sanctions against the Khartoum government.

Spokesman McCormack said whether the sanctions go forward depends on an administration assessment of what he termed "the whole landscape," including the latest Sudanese comments, and whether they actually reflect a change in policy.

McCormack said in diplomatic contacts, the United States assured Sudanese officials the hybrid force would focus its activities in Darfur, and not function as what he termed a "posse," trying to round up alleged war criminals in Khartoum.

From Reuters

The United States was dubious Friday that Sudan's government was more open to letting international peacekeepers into Darfur and held out the threat of impending new U.S. sanctions against Khartoum.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States was seeking more information following an announcement by Saudi Arabia Thursday that Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir had agreed to allow U.N. logistic support to help African Union forces already in Darfur.

"We are going to follow up and see what, if anything, might be built upon from the conversations in Riyadh," McCormack said, referring to meetings Bashir had in Riyadh with Saudi, U.N. and African officials. "We want to understand if there is anything that could be seen as a change of posture."

"I have to caution you that to this point the Sudanese have not given any indication, any real public indication, that they have dropped any preconditions (for a force)," he added.

Bashir has long resisted the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to the vast western province of Darfur, where Washington says a genocide has taken place through government support for nomadic militia groups. Sudan denies this.

More than 200,000 people have been killed in the fighting and about 2.5 million displaced by the conflict.

A concern of Sudan's government is that U.N. peacekeepers will be used to round up officials suspected of committing atrocities in Darfur, which McCormack said was not the aim of the new force.

"We have sought to assure the Sudanese that this is not a force that is focused on activities in Khartoum but is focused on what is happening in Darfur," said McCormack.

The United States is expected, possibly within the next few days, to announce expanded sanctions against Sudan, including a further limit on dollar transactions and a travel and banking ban on three more individuals, one of them a rebel leader.

Asked whether he thought Bashir was trying to stall these sanctions by appearing more open to the hybrid force, McCormack said he did not know what the Sudanese leader's calculations were but he made clear sanctions were still an option.

"It is a fact that we are looking at what other diplomatic levers we might apply to the situation to get a change in view from the Sudanese," said McCormack, adding that an announcement was not likely on Friday.

Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for the group Human Rights Watch, said it appeared that Bashir was once again using stalling tactics. The United States, he said, should act now and not wait.

"Nothing is going to happen until they roll out the sanctions," Malinowski said.

Darfur: UN Council Stops Short of Blaming Sudan

From the AP

The U.N. Human Rights Council expressed concern over the situation in Darfur on Friday, but stopped short of criticizing Sudan's government.

The compromise resolution passed by consensus without a vote after Germany agreed to remove any mention of holding Khartoum responsible for the "armed attacks on civilian population and humanitarian workers, widespread destruction of villages, and continued and widespread violence."

The resolution took note of a report released earlier this month by a group of experts that accused the government of President Omar al-Bashir of orchestrating attacks by Arab janjaweed militiamen against civilians in Darfur.

The resolution _ which bridged the positions of the European Union and African countries led by Algeria _ also expressed regret that the group led by American Nobel laureate Jody Williams was unable to visit the western Sudanese region. However, it neither criticized Sudan's government for blocking the mission or officially adopted the report's findings.

Khartoum refused to grant visas to Williams' six-member team to visit Darfur because it said one of the experts was biased.

The council's resolution called on Sudan to allow a new group of experts to visit the region. As at the last team's establishment, Khartoum immediately pledged cooperation.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million driven from their homes in Darfur in four years of fighting between rebels and militias.

The resolution passed by the 47-nation council makes no mention of the recommendations in the Williams report that U.N. peacekeepers be deployed to Darfur in support of a poorly equipped African Union force there, and that Sudan cooperate with prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague examining war crimes allegations.

The issue of Darfur is seen as a key credibility test for the council, which replaced the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission last year but has already suffered its own share of criticism for focusing heavily on alleged Israeli abuses, while ignoring crises in other parts of the world.

From Reuters

The United Nations' top human rights body on Friday kept up the pressure on Sudan over Darfur, but stopped short of blaming Khartoum for widespread killings and rape in its vast western region.

A resolution, passed unanimously by the 47-state Human Rights Council, expressed deep concern at the "seriousness of ongoing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Darfur."

The text, agreed after days of hard wrangling between European and African states, instructed Council special investigators into abuse, including torture and violence against women, to scrutinize Khartoum's compliance with past international recommendations and report back in June.

"The decision is a success for the European Union, it is a success for Africa, it is a success for the Human Rights Council and we hope very much that it will be a success for the people of Darfur," said ambassador Michael Steiner of Germany, whose country holds the EU presidency.

More than 200,000 people are believed to have died and some 2.5 million have been driven from their homes into squalid camps since simmering ethnic conflict erupted into revolt in 2003.

Among the documents to be considered by the monitoring team will be a report by a mission of inquiry submitted to the Council earlier this month accusing Khartoum of "orchestrating and participating" in systematic violations of humanitarian law.

Khartoum, which rejects charges by the United States and others of genocide in Darfur, blames rebel groups which have refused to sign a 2006 peace deal for continuing abuses.

It is resisting Western calls for a U.N. peacekeeping force to be deployed in support of 7,000 under-financed monitors from the African Union who have been unable to stem the violence.

"This is the strongest statement that the Council has yet made on Darfur and the strongest it has made on any situation outside the Middle East," said one Western diplomat.

"It talks about violations and that means the Sudanese state, because in human rights law only states can commit violations," the diplomat added.

U.N. reports on Darfur have blamed Arab militias, which they say are armed and backed by Khartoum, for some of the worst atrocities, including mass rape and murder.

The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) has summoned a junior government minister and a Darfur militia leader to answer war crimes charges in a first step toward bringing to trial those deemed responsible.

Human rights activists had seen Darfur as a test of the effectiveness of the Geneva-based Council, set up last year to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission.

Although they make an exception for Israel, which is routinely pilloried, a majority of the developing country-dominated Council usually opposes condemning individual states for violations.

Amnesty International welcomed the decision on Darfur, although it criticized the Council's failure to denounce the role of the Sudanese government and its allies in the abuses.

"This resolution marks a major turning point," it said. "African delegations are saying to Sudan 'enough is enough'."

CAR/Darfur: Thousands Flee After Raid by French Troops

From The Independent

A raid by French paratroops on rebels in the Central African Republic (CAR) destroyed a town and forced 2,000 civilians to flee into neighbouring Darfur.

Details of the three-day operation - the extent of which had been kept secret by the French army chief of staff - were obtained by The Independent after a United Nations emergency mission travelled to Birao, which is on the Sudan border.

"We found a ghost town," said Toby Lanzer, UN humanitarian affairs co-ordinator for CAR. "It was like Grozny or parts of Mogadishu. Seventy per cent of buildings were burnt and only about 600 civilians were left. They were in a dazed state. They have nothing.

"We urgently need to carry out aerial reconnaissance to find out where the rest of the population has gone. We have traced 2,000 to camps in Darfur. That people should choose to flee into Darfur gives a measure of how terrified they must have been."

France has a defence agreement with CAR and practically runs the country's army. It has previously argued that its operations are aimed at preventing the spread of the Darfur crisis.

But the Birao operation, which began on 4 March, seems to have been order-ed to evacuate 18 French soldiers stationed in the town since December.

Mirage F1 jets bombed rebel pick-up trucks and dozens of paratroops were airdropped into the combat zone.

The French soldiers who were in the town had been supporting CAR troops in ousting the Union des Forces Démocratiques pour le Rassemblement (UFDR), a rebel group believed to draw fighters from CAR, Chad and Sudan.

Mr Lanzer said: "It was France's first major airborne para drop into a war zone since 19 May 1978, when the Foreign Legion jumped on Kolwezi, Zaire, to free European hostages from rebel hands."

He added that 150 French troops had remained at the site.

It is not suggested that the elite French troops burnt Birao to the ground. but given the pattern of conflict in the region, it is likely that much of the torching of homes, schools and a hospital was carried out by CAR soldiers who could not have recaptured the town without the help of the French.

Mr Lanzer did not wish to speculate. "It is not helpful to play the blame game. Our mission is humanitarian and it is urgent. We need to trace the thousands of civilians who have disappeared, and save lives."

Chad: Ten of Thousands Lack Food

From Reuters

Tens of thousands of displaced people are running out of food in strife-torn eastern Chad as rising violence spilling across the border from Darfur forces more people from their homes, the WFP said on Friday.

The U.N. food agency said it had planned to feed 50,000 Chadians in the parched scrubland region but ethnic conflict has displaced an additional 80,000 people who need urgent assistance.

They require an additional 7,500 metric tonnes of food at a cost of $7.5 million. The agency faces a race against time as food must be delivered before the rainy season starts in June, making roads impassable.

"This is not a sustainable situation," said WFP Chad Country Director Felix Bamezon. "Life in eastern Chad has always been precarious, but now tens of thousands of Chadians are being pushed to the breaking point."

"There is simply not enough food to go around."

The WFP already feeds 225,000 Sudanese refugees in 12 camps in eastern Chad and more than 45,000 Central African refugees in four camps in the south.

In addition, the 130,000 internally displaced Chadians are living in makeshift shelters on the outskirts of villages, a recent survey said. Many are living in ramshackle straw shelters and nearly a fifth do not have a roof over their heads.

Adding to the threat of food shortages, displaced people in eastern Chad also face violence from marauding Arab militia spilling across the border from Darfur, and fighting from long-running rebellions in both Chad and western Sudan.

Darfur: Sudan to Discuss UN Force in "Breakthrough"

From Reuters

Sudan has agreed to review the overall package the United Nations has proposed for easing the violence in Darfur, the minister of state for foreign affairs said on Friday.

Ali Karti said an agreement announced at an Arab summit in Saudi Arabia marked "progress" because Sudan was now open to discussion on U.N. Security Council resolution 1706 authorising the deployment of U.N. troops to the troubled Darfur region, where African Union (AU) troops have had little impact.

"This is a breakthrough because we have agreed to sit down and discuss the mandates in 1706," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"We are open to sitting down and discussing the overall package in Darfur, not just U.N. troops but everything," Karti added, saying the review would include a "heavy support package" such as planes.

The resolution calls for 22,500 U.N. troops and police officers to support the 7,000-member AU force in Sudan.

The African force has been unable to stop the violence that has left an estimated 200,000 people dead and forced 2.5 million from their homes since rebels took up arms against the government in 2003.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir Bashir has rejected the U.N. resolution as an attempt to restore colonial rule, but has welcomed the world body's support for the ill-equipped AU force.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said at an Arab summit in Riyadh on Thursday that Sudan has agreed to allow U.N. logistical support to help the AU mission.

He called it "a breakthrough that never happened before" and expressed hope it would lead to an immediate solution to the humanitarian tragedy in western Sudan.

The announcement came after Bashir met U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Arab League chief Amr Moussa, Saudi King Abdullah and Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, who heads an East African body, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development.

A senior Bush administration official expressed scepticism about Thursday's announcement and said Washington would wait to see whether Khartoum had indeed reversed course.

Washington says a genocide has taken place in Darfur through government support for marauding nomadic militia groups, a charge Khartoum denies.

Before the Saudi announcement, U.S. officials from the State, Defense, Treasury and other departments had told Reuters that Washington would "tighten the screws" on Sudan with fresh measures, likely within days.

That would include a further limit on dollar transactions, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Karti, a member of Bashir's ruling National Congress Party, dismissed the U.S. plan.

"Sanctions are not new. They have been using sanctions as a weapon for years. They will not change anything and we will just go on. It is just unfortunate that instead of being positive at a time when we are trying to reach a comprehensive peace they are talking about negative steps," he said.

"This will only hurt our efforts."

Only one of three rebel groups signed a peace agreement with the Sudanese government last year. U.N. officials say only a comprehensive political deal can end Darfur's suffering.

The United States also aims to pressure Bashir militarily by helping rebuild forces of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army, which was at war with the north until a 2005 peace deal.

Karti said he was baffled by the plan and warned the United States would meet stiff opposition from all Sudanese.

"This is very strange. If you look at the south not one bullet is being fired and now the Americans are threatening to rebuild the army in the south," he said.

"This would threaten to destabilise the country and unite all of Sudan against the Americans -- the government, all the rebel groups in Darfur and the south."

Salva Kiir, the ex-rebel turned vice president, has said attacks in southern Sudan by militias allied with the country's ruling party will jeopardise the 2005 north-south peace deal.

Darfur: Rebels Won't Collect Dead Until Prisoners Released

From AFP

Members of the only Darfur rebel group to have signed a peace deal on Thursday refused to collect their dead following a Kharoum shootout with police until those detained in the clash were released.

The shaky peace agreement in Sudan's wartorn western region of Darfur was struck a blow on Saturday when a gunfight broke out between members of the Sudan Liberation Movement and police in Khartoum, resulting in 11 deaths.

"We are not going to collect the bodies of our martyrs from the mortuary until our detainees are released," said SLM spokesman Tayeb Khamis.

Some 90 members of the movement were arrested in the aftermath of the bloody clashes in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman and while dozens were released, 32 remain in custody.

Khamis said authorities had until the end of Thursday to release the remaining detainees, while a joint government-SLM committee was working on freeing them and agreeing on measures to prevent a reoccurence of clashes.

Darfur: Activists Train for More Effective Protesting

From VOA

As widespread violence continues in Darfur, so do efforts to combat it. In the United States and in countries around the world, groups of people often gather at Sudanese embassies and other locations to demonstrate support for the people of Darfur.

In Washington, DC recently, a training session focused on teaching participants how to solicit support from high ranking US politicians and other decision-makers influential in making foreign policy. Voice of America’s Cole Mallard was there and files this report.

Some twenty activists for Darfur gathered at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Washington. They came to learn the most effective way to get their point across to Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir and to the world at large. One of the speakers, Mohamed Yahya, is from Darfur. Yahya is the founder and executive director of “Damanga,” a coalition working to restore human rights and ethnic communities in Darfur. He says, “We educate the people of the United States of America and elsewhere, individuals, communities, organizations, synagogues, and even mosques and churches --all faith based. We educate them and we try to get them involved so as to work together to accomplish this mission.”

Yahya says in the last two years alone, Damanga has substantially increased awareness of the Darfur crisis: “We covered almost 40 states around the United States…and we reached over 100 organizations and over 150 universities, and schools and colleges. Also we founded the SaveDarfur Coalition, which right now includes or represents over 160 different organizations.”

The leader of Damanga says his advocacy group has been successful in helping over 20,000 refugees from Darfur get protection, resettlement, asylum, and citizenship in European countries, the United States, Canada and Australia

Yvonne Paretsky co-chairs an advocacy committee within another group of activists, the Darfur Interfaith Network. Her expertise as an independent consultant is in reaching officials in embassies, consulates and UN missions as part of the “I Act/Darfur” campaign -- designed to pressure government officials in the United States and throughout the international community to take steps toward protecting and resettling refugees from Darfur. She says, “My role is to move people to act, and to give them the tools to act with, to give people an incentive…to remind them of either their moral directive to protect life or the political correctness of intervening on behalf of the victims, or the financial benefit of pulling out from operations that fund weapons and forces, used to harm non-combatant civilians.”

Paretsky says anyone can take simple actions and she can show anyone the way, beginning with “…how to write letters and op. ed. [opinion-editorial] pieces, how to support divestment legislation, how to participate in vigils and marches, how to lobby Congress, how to make donations, how to visit embassies, how to sign petitions, how to teach others to act.”

Another speaker with lobbying expertise shared tips on effective ways to approach the media on the importance of increasing public awareness. Brooke Menschel is the assistant legislative director of the American Jewish Committee, or AJC, an organization that promotes democracy and diversity. She said the AJC has a vital interest in sharing its expertise.

“From our own history we understand the cost of the passage of time and the importance of public outrage. Since 2003 the widespread human rights abuses, including torture and rape, have become commonplace throughout the Darfur region of Sudan, and the world can’t continue to stand idly by as the violence against innocent Darfuries – men, women, children – continues.”

Darfur: He's Still Kilgour of Darfur

From Embassy

He's technically retired, but former MP David Kilgour is just as busy now as he was when he was in the House of Commons. Even his wife thinks so, he tells me over lunch at the Parliament Pub last week.

In 2005, Mr. Kilgour retired after 26 years in Parliament. During his tenure in the House, he acquired a reputation for being a politician with an independent streak. He started out as a Progressive Conservative, crossed the floor to the Liberal side, then later dumped the Grits to sit as an independent when former Prime Minister Paul Martin refused to commit to more aid for Sudan's Darfur region. While some political commentators have called his moves unwise, one thing stands out about Mr. Kilgour–if it's a case involving human rights, he's ready to stand up and be counted among those who care.

That was the situation in the House of Commons in May 2005 when Mr. Kilgour became an unlikely power broker when a confidence vote in the House rested on his support for the minority Liberal government of the day. He refused to side with the government, which narrowly survived because of the Speaker's vote.

On exiting parliament, Mr. Kilgour embraced the cause of the Falun Gong. Last July, he co-authored a report detailing how the Chinese government harvests the organs of imprisoned Falun Gong members. The report generated a lot of interest around the world, with Mr. Kilgour traveling to 30 capitals to explain to governments the plight of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

But if you think the moniker "Kilgour of Darfur" is no longer appropriate, he is quick to assert that he hasn't abandoned the desolate region, and adds that the high profile he gave to the Darfur cause when he was an MP is still very much alive in the House of Commons as MPs Irwin Cotler and Maurice Vellacott are quite active on the Darfur issue, as is Senator Roméo Dallaire. Plus, says Mr. Kilgour, he still gets 10 emails every day on Darfur. He recently attended a mock genocide trial in New York that found Sudanese President Omar Hassan El Bashir guilty of genocide.

"If anyone looks at my website, it's just full of stuff on Darfur," he says.

I point out that while the Darfur cause may still be alive in Parliament, no other MP has measured up to him because the government nearly collapsed of his vote.

Genocide: Planned House Vote on Armenian Massacre Angers Turks

From the New York Times

A planned vote in Congress that would classify the widespread killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish government early in the 20th century as genocide is threatening to make bilateral relations unusually tense.

The speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, backs the resolution and at first wanted a vote in April. But under Turkish pressure, Bush administration figures have lobbied for the Democrats in charge of Congress to drop the measure.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sent strong letters of protest to her and to Representative Tom Lantos, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which has not set a date for the vote. “That has had an impact,” said Lynne Weil, a Lantos spokeswoman, referring to the letters. Copies were also sent to Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader.

Turkey vehemently denies the genocide, in which 1.5 million Armenians died during a period of several years, beginning in 1915. It contends that the deaths occurred in the chaos of war, as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and that many Turks were also killed when Armenians sided with Russian forces in the hope of claiming territory in eastern Turkey.

But many Armenians have sought acknowledgment from nations around the world that the deaths amounted to systematic genocide at Ottoman hands. So far, parliaments of more than 15 countries have agreed. France and Switzerland went further and called for criminal charges against those who deny it.

A vote in Congress would be purely symbolic, but Turks have warned that it would be felt as a bitter slap, and could cause enormous public pressure on the government in Ankara to chill its cooperation with Washington, which has strong military ties to Turkey, a NATO member.

In an effort to highlight Turkey’s opposition to a Congressional resolution, many high-ranking Turkish officials have visited Washington in recent months. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, one of them, says that the damage would be very deep if the resolution passed.

“It is only natural that the Turkish public who closely follow the issue would also react to this strongly,” Mr. Gul said in a telephone interview this week. “As the elected government of democratic Turkey, we would not be able to remain indifferent. However, I am confident that common sense would prevail at the Congress.”

In Turkey on Thursday, the government held an opening ceremony for a museum in a restored Armenian church near the city of Van in eastern Turkey that dates from the year 941 and is considered one of the most precious symbols of the Armenian presence in Anatolia. The renovation was undertaken as a major step to mend ties with Armenians.

Mr. Gates and Ms. Rice, in joint letters, spoke sympathetically of “the horrendous suffering that ethnic Armenians endured” and called for more study of the events. But they also noted that when the French National Assembly voted last year, the Turkish military responded by deciding to “cut all contacts with the French military and terminated defense contracts under negotiation.”

The letters, dated March 7, are posted at foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/

A similar reaction now by the Turkish government, the letters warned, “could harm American troops in the field” and constrain the American military in any number of ways.

Mr. Gates chose a meeting of the American-Turkish Council in Washington, a business group that promotes American-Turkish cooperation on trade, security and cultural matters, to make a major policy speech on Tuesday. Not only did he describe Turkey as an ally that “I have long believed to be undervalued and underappreciated,” but he made a point of arguing against the genocide resolution.

“Our two nations should oppose measures and rhetoric that needlessly and destructively antagonize each other,” Mr. Gates said Tuesday.

Daniel Fried, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, warned in testimony to Congress in mid-March that Turkish wrath could be so strong that Turkey might bar American access to Incirlik Air Base, in eastern Turkey, through which 74 percent of United States military air cargo destined for Iraq passes.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry also chided the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday for supporting a resolution that would condemn the killing in January of Hrant Dink, an editor who was a voice for ethnic Armenians in Turkey.

Asked about the warnings from the two administration officials, Representative Adam Schiff of California, a lead sponsor of the House resolution, said, “I don’t see how we can have the moral authority that we need to condemn the genocide going on in Darfur, if we’re unwilling to recognize other genocides that have taken place.”

Similar Congressional votes have been deferred in the past after intense lobbying. But with strong support for the resolution from Ms. Pelosi, and lingering resentment in Congress over Turkey’s refusal to let United States forces use Turkish soil for the invasion of Iraq, the bill’s prospects may have grown.

“It has 183 sponsors,” said Elizabeth Chouldjian of the Armenian National Committee of America. “It is very likely that if it came up for a vote right now, it would pass.”

Darfur: Sudan Says New U.S. Measures Will Backfire

From Reuters

U.S. plans to impose tough new measures against Sudan to force it to change course on Darfur will only threaten humanitarian agreements Khartoum has signed with the United Nations and fuel violence in the region, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.

U.S. officials said Washington aimed to "tighten the screws" on Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and have him accept an international force in the western province.

"This will have negative repercussions. It will threaten agreements that we have reached with the United Nations and the African Union," said foreign ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadig.

Sudan, which has been accused of hindering humanitarian work in Darfur, signed a deal with the United Nations on Wednesday on giving aid groups more access to victims of the conflict in the region. It reiterated a pledge made in 2004 to take "fast track" measures such as quicker visas for aid workers.

Bashir has allowed African Union forces in Darfur but has refused to let U.N. troops in, saying that would amount to "foreign occupation."

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ali Karti made clear that he did not sign the humanitarian deal with the United Nations because of international pressure, signaling that Khartoum had no intention of bowing to the demands of the United States and other Western powers.

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.

Khartoum denies the genocide allegations.

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," 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."

Darfur: US to Unveil New Sanctions

From 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 Jan. 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.

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," 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.

Darfur: Bashir Say No U.N. Troops

From the AP

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon tried to persuade Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to accept U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur on Wednesday, hours after al-Bashir flatly rejected the deployment.

Ban met with the Sudanese president for more than three hours in late-night talks joined by Saudi King Abdullah and Arab League chief Amr Moussa on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Riyadh, the Saudi state news agency said.

Ban is seeking Arab help in winning al-Bashir's acceptance of a U.N. force to assist African Union peacekeepers who have been unable to halt the violence in the war-torn region.

In a small sign of cooperation, Sudan and the United Nations signed an agreement in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to ease humanitarian access to Darfur's refugees.

But in a speech earlier in the day at the Arab summit, al-Bashir underlined his objections to a 20,000-strong combined U.N.-AU peacekeeping force, saying the United Nations should only provide financial and technical help to African peacekeepers already on the ground.

Al-Bashir slammed U.N. resolutions calling for U.N. troop deployment in Darfur as "a violation for Sudan's sovereignty" and said they "provoke the conflict in Darfur, instead of finding a solution for it."

Chad: Refugee Crisis Becoming "Intolerable Burden"/Displaced Want UN Protection

From the AP

The new U.N. humanitarian chief warned Tuesday that refugees fleeing the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan could become an "intolerable burden" on the resources of neighboring Chad.

The violence in Darfur has been increasingly spreading from the region into Chad, with nomads raiding villages and clashes erupting between ethnic groups. Chad and Sudan have accused each other of supporting rebels groups involved in the attacks.

More than 2 million people live in refugee camps scattered over the vast arid region, while another 230,000 now live in refugee camps on the Chadian side of the border. Among those are 140,000 Chadians who lost their homes when their villages were destroyed.

"The camps could become an intolerable burden" on eastern Chad‘s scarce natural resources, he said. "We need to have an integrated approach to the whole region."

Aid workers in eastern Chad said they were coping with the refugees from Sudan, but they were more worried about the increasing numbers of Chadian ones.

Chadian authorities, who provide protection to the refugee camps and often share a common ethnic background with people fleeing Darfur, said they hoped Holmes‘ visit would help raise awareness to the crisis their region is facing.

From Reuters

Chadian civilians displaced by violence in the east appealed for United Nations military protection on Wednesday, but a top U.N. official said political solutions were needed to make peacekeeping effective.

Attacks in eastern Chad by armed raiders and inter-ethnic conflict between Arabs and non-Arabs have killed several hundred people in recent months and forced 120,000 from their homes.

"There is no security and we live in constant fear," Abderamane Adam Issa, a displaced villager living in a camp at Gouroukoum near Goz Beida in southeastern Chad, told Reuters during a visit by U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes.

Issa is among 12,000 civilians who occupy flimsy straw shelters dotted across a dust-swept valley.

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Local community leaders at Gouroukoum camp said the government in N'Djamena was not doing enough to protect them from armed Arab raiders on horseback, known as Janjaweed, who kill and rape civilians and loot and burn their villages.

"I would like to see the blue berets arrive," one such leader, Seid Ibrahim Mustafa, said after talks with Holmes.

The displaced civilians said they wanted U.N. peacekeeping troops to act as a barrier against the raids.

"If the Chadian government refuses to send a force we will be killed. It's that simple," Issa said, adding he and many others would flee to other countries if violence did not end.

Chad accuses neighbour Sudan of backing and promoting the attacks as part of a regional destabilisation strategy aimed at expanding its brand of Islamic rule into black Africa.

Khartoum denies this but is refusing to allow the U.N to deploy peacekeeping soldiers in Darfur.

Holmes, who had also visited Sudan, said political solutions to the interlocking conflicts in Darfur and Chad were essential to halt the bloodshed there.

"If a force could be put in place ... this is a good thing, but to have a force which is effective there must be a peace to maintain. This is a little bit missing on both sides of the border," he said.

The displaced villagers at the camp said they did not feel safe even there.

Gesturing towards the barren mountains which surround the valley, a man who only gave his first name, Ismail, said: "The Janjaweed are raping women, just a few kilometres (miles) away on the other side of the mountains".

Local leaders said that while non-Arab communities had suffered the brunt of Janjaweed attacks, Chadian Arabs were also fleeing persecution because people suspected them of collaborating with the raids.

"It's a complicated conflict," Holmes said.

He said the Chadian government ought to be doing more to protect the civilians and refugees in the east.

"It should be the government that provides the security but the reality is that they can't and they aren't," Holmes said.

Chad: Clan Feuds Creating Tinderbox of Conflict

From Reuters

Tit-for-tat killings between feuding rival ethnic clans are making Chad's eastern Dar Tama region a tinderbox of violence in a nation already racked by rebellion and cross-border raids from Sudan.

In December, a rebel leader from the Tama tribe rejoined the government side in a propaganda coup for President Idriss Deby, whose forces are battling multiple insurgencies in the desolate east bordering Sudan's violence-torn Darfur region.

But instead of bringing peace, the deal, which led to Tama rebel Mahamat Nour being named Chad's defense minister earlier this month, has stoked a historical feud between the Tamas and the Zaghawa clan to which Deby belongs.

Since December, dozens of people have been killed in attacks on villages around Dar Tama's key town, Guereda, in which homes are looted and sometimes destroyed and women are raped, analysts and foreign visitors to the region say.

Such is the mutual hatred between the clans, that some victims are being mutilated. Several of the Zaghawas killed are reported to have had their eyes gouged out.

"Dar Tama is Tama heartland," said Ahmat Mahamat Hassan, a political analyst at Abeche University in eastern Chad.

"But when Deby took power 16 years ago the Zaghawa occupied this land. They took control and behaved very violently towards the Tama, who were brutalised for many years."

"Now that Nour has rallied and the Tama are in control again, they are exacting revenge," Hassan told Reuters.

"It's the most dangerous area of Chad," one diplomat, who asked not to be named, said.

The situation in Dar Tama mirrors the intertwined ethnic conflicts that underpin the violence in east Chad and in Darfur, where tens of thousands of people have been killed in a war since 2003 between local rebels and Sudanese government forces.

Arab Janjaweed raiders from Darfur have also been marauding over the border into eastern Chad, slaying and looting.

While a precise toll from the Dar Tama feud is difficult to establish, observers say up to 70 Zaghawas and dozens of Tamas are believed to have been killed in recent months.

"It's tit-for-tat killings," said a foreign expert who has studied the ethnic violence in eastern Chad.

Darfur: Latest Pledge Raises "Partial" Hopes

From Reuters

The Khartoum government's latest promise of better cooperation with aid groups struggling in war-ravaged Darfur has eased the anxieties of the top U.N. humanitarian official in Sudan.

But an already overwhelmed Manuel da Silva warned of more crises ahead without a comprehensive political deal, including tribal fighting that is exacting a heavy death toll and complicating efforts to end the suffering.

The Sudanese government, which has been accused of hindering aid work in Darfur, signed an agreement with the U.N. on Wednesday, reiterating a promise made three years ago to take "fast track" measures to remove bureaucratic obstacles obstructing the world's biggest humanitarian effort.

Da Silva, Sudan's U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said he was encouraged because Khartoum spelled out what actions it would take.

"It is very specific, there is no vague language. I can give examples, it says 48 hours to issue visas. Stop, all over. On stay permits, for example, stay permits for the whole period of the moratorium (on free access), instead of every three months that we have today that is always a nightmare," he told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

Explaining his concerns in the sprawling United Nations building in Khartoum, Da Silva said the deal could bring "partial" relief from troubles plaguing the Darfur relief effort, which requires more than 13,000 aid workers.

"It doesn't deal with other issues that are very important for our operation, like for example, security issues. Of course the situation in Darfur is still very dire when it comes to security issues," he said.

WHO IS WHO?

Aside from bureaucratic hurdles, aid groups face attacks by militias and rebels, as well as bandits who thrive on Darfur's chaos. Many workers have pulled out of areas in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

"We don't know who is who anymore," said Da Silva.

"I think we need to have a political solution in Darfur that is inclusive that brings everybody to the table. By having that political solution we will get improved security."

Recent clashes between the only Darfur rebel group to sign last year's peace agreement with the government and Sudanese security forces that killed at least 10 people suggest that won't be easy. The bloodshed was triggered by a traffic accident in the capital.

The former rebels have warned the peace pact could collapse if the government does not meet its demands in negotiations aimed at easing tensions after the fighting.

Experts estimate that 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million fled their homes since the conflict flared in 2003 when rebel groups took up arms against the government, accusing it of neglect. Khartoum says 9,000 people have died.

Darfuris say government-backed militias have killed, raped and pillaged in their villages. Khartoum says it has no ties to the militias and calls them outlaws.

U.N. officials say tribal bloodshed is now killing more people than fighting between Sudanese forces and rebels. Hundreds of people have died in the past few months.

The conflict has poured weapons into Darfur and eroded the authority of the local government, which acted as mediators between tribes, who number over 70, and are taking sides in the fighting.

Da Silva said traditional mechanisms of resolving tribal conflicts such as compensation are vanishing. Disputes which killed a few people have been replaced by heavy casualties.

"Now there are Kalashnikovs. There are heavy machine guns. There are RPGs. The father of a lady (in a dispute) goes to the other one and if he has an RPG he fires it and kills 20 people," said Da Silva.

A special U.N. unit dedicated to monitoring tribal developments has been established.

"It is very important that this tribal conflict does not get out of hand. Most of these recent clashes are between tribes that used to be neutral in this conflict," said Da Silva.

"The only solution is a comprehensive agreement that all ethnic groups in Darfur feel like they are a part of. It is urgent. We are running out of time."

Darfur: Arabs and U.N. Chief Press Sudan’s Leader

From the New York Times

The president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, came under pressure Thursday from Arab leaders to end the crisis in Darfur.

Mr. Bashir spent an hour and a half in a meeting on Wednesday afternoon with the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and a two-hour session with him lasting into Thursday morning that included King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia; Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League; and Alpha Oumar Konaré, chairman of the African Union.

“I think we made progress where there had been an impasse,” Mr. Ban said. “The king’s intervention very much supported my position.”

A United Nations official with experience in the region said: “These Arab discussions on Darfur are significant. There was a time when it was very difficult to raise the subject, but that’s no longer the case.”

In a speech to the opening session of the League of Arab States summit meeting, the usually defiant Mr. Bashir sounded a defensive note in trying to justify Sudan’s continuing resistance to the dispatch of United Nations peacekeepers to Darfur.

“We assure you that we do not wish to have a confrontation with the international community,” he said.

He continued, however, to argue that the Security Council resolution calling for a joint African Union-United Nations force in his country posed “a violation of Sudan’s sovereignty and a submission by Sudan to outside custodianship.”

He also contended that outsiders would stir up more violence rather than reduce it.

[edit]

The United Nations official, who said he was not authorized to discuss closed-door meetings publicly, reported that the meeting’s participants made significant headway in formulating ways to end attacks on aid workers and to help those now cut off from assistance.

The talks also focused on the need to persuade dissident rebel groups to sign on to a cease-fire agreed to last year. Where they had less success, the official said, was in speeding the deployment of the joint peacekeeping force.

Mr. Bashir has argued that without full participation by all groups, he cannot fulfill a three-stage plan he agreed to last November that would send 3,000 United Nations military, police and civilian personnel along with logistical assistance to help the 7,000-member African Union force now on the ground and lead to an eventual 22,000-strong African Union-United Nations force.

Security Council ambassadors have predicted that the delay caused by Mr. Bashir’s resistance could put off the arrival of needed troops until next year.

Darfur: China Blasts Efforts to Link Olympics to Genocide

From the AP

China on Thursday blasted separate calls by a French politician and Mia Farrow to use the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games to pressure Beijing into doing more to stop the crisis in Sudan‘s Darfur region.

"It is a totally misguided approach for people to link the Darfur issue with the Games and try to tip the balance in their favor in order to enhance their own reputation," he said at a regular press briefing.

An editorial by Farrow published in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday called on corporate sponsors of the Beijing Games to pressure China to do more to help stop the bloodshed in Darfur.

"There is now one thing that China may hold more dear than their unfettered access to Sudanese oil: their successful staging of the 2008 Summer Olympics ," said the editorial by the 62-year-old actress and U.N. goodwill ambassador.

Qin said he was not aware of who Farrow was and had not read the editorial.

Qin said he believed people who tried to link the Games with Darfur were unclear about China‘s policy on Sudan. He said China hopes "efforts by the international community could improve the humanitarian situation in Darfur and that the region could realize a lasting peace and stability."

A permanent member of the U.N. Security Council U.N. Security Council, China has come under increasing international pressure to use its influence over Khartoum to resolve the conflict, which erupted in 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of neglect.

"We are confident that we will hold a successful and high quality Olympic Games in Beijing," Qin said.

Darfur: The 'Genocide Olympics'

An op-ed by Ronan and Mia Farrow in The Wall Street Journal

"One World, One Dream" is China's slogan for its 2008 Olympics. But there is one nightmare that China shouldn't be allowed to sweep under the rug. That nightmare is Darfur, where more than 400,000 people have been killed and more than two-and-a-half million driven from flaming villages by the Chinese-backed government of Sudan.

That so many corporate sponsors want the world to look away from that atrocity during the games is bad enough. But equally disappointing is the decision of artists like director Steven Spielberg -- who quietly visited China this month as he prepares to help stage the Olympic ceremonies -- to sanitize Beijing's image. Is Mr. Spielberg, who in 1994 founded the Shoah Foundation to record the testimony of survivors of the holocaust, aware that China is bankrolling Darfur's genocide?

China is pouring billions of dollars into Sudan. Beijing purchases an overwhelming majority of Sudan's annual oil exports and state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. -- an official partner of the upcoming Olympic Games -- owns the largest shares in each of Sudan's two major oil consortia. The Sudanese government uses as much as 80% of proceeds from those sales to fund its brutal Janjaweed proxy militia and purchase their instruments of destruction: bombers, assault helicopters, armored vehicles and small arms, most of them of Chinese manufacture. Airstrips constructed and operated by the Chinese have been used to launch bombing campaigns on villages. And China has used its veto power on the U.N. Security Council to repeatedly obstruct efforts by the U.S. and the U.K. to introduce peacekeepers to curtail the slaughter.

As one of the few players whose support is indispensable to Sudan, China has the power to, at the very least, insist that Khartoum accept a robust international peacekeeping force to protect defenseless civilians in Darfur. Beijing is uniquely positioned to put a stop to the slaughter, yet they have so far been unabashed in their refusal to do so.

But there is now one thing that China may hold more dear than their unfettered access to Sudanese oil: their successful staging of the 2008 Summer Olympics. That desire may provide a lone point of leverage with a country that has otherwise been impervious to all criticism.

Whether that opportunity goes unexploited lies in the hands of the high-profile supporters of these Olympic Games. Corporate sponsors like Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, General Electric and McDonalds, and key collaborators like Mr. Spielberg, should be put on notice. For there is another slogan afoot, one that is fast becoming viral amongst advocacy groups; rather than "One World, One Dream," people are beginning to speak of the coming "Genocide Olympics."

Does Mr. Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games? Do the various television sponsors around the world want to share in that shame? Because they will. Unless, of course, all of them add their singularly well-positioned voices to the growing calls for Chinese action to end the slaughter in Darfur.

Imagine if such calls were to succeed in pushing the Chinese government to use its leverage over Sudan to protect civilians in Darfur. The 2008 Beijing Olympics really could become an occasion for pride and celebration, a truly international honoring of the authentic spirit of "one world" and "one dream."

Darfur: Refugee Crisis Threatens to Overwhelm Chad

From the AP

Chadian officials expressed concern Tuesday at the growing number of refugees fleeing the conflict in neighboring Sudan, which the U.N. humanitarian chief feared could become an intolerable burden on the country.

John Holmes visited this eastern Chad town on the second leg of a 10-day trip to the region, one week after the new U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs visited Darfur and South Sudan -- part of an effort to improve the bitter conditions under which aid workers have to operate.

"The camps could become an intolerable burden" on eastern Chad's scarce natural resources, Holmes said.

Violence has increasingly been spreading from Darfur into Chad. Nomads are raiding villages, there are intricate ethnic clashes and both the Chadian and the Sudanese governments have been trading accusations that they support each other's rebels groups.

"But one big difference between here and Sudan is that at least here authorities are very cooperative," with the international aid effort, Holmes said after meeting Touka Ramadan Kore, the governor of this eastern Chad region. "Their humanitarian needs are so big that they are happy to have us in the country."

More than 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur during four years of fighting between local rebels, the Sudanese army and their allied janjaweed militias. More than 2 million live in refugee camps scattered over the vast arid region, while another 230,000 now live in refugee camps on the Chadian side of the border.

But janjaweed raids and fighting by rebels along the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border has also spread the crisis into Chad itself, and about 140,000 Chadians moved to the refugee camps after their villages were destroyed.

Holmes said he was aware there were situations where refugee camps offered better living conditions than surrounding villages, which was creating tensions.

"We need to have an integrated approach to the whole region," said Holmes. One of the things he talked about with local authorities was how to ensure natural resources such as water and firewood, along with international aid, were fairly shared by local villagers and refugees.

Aid workers in eastern Chad said they felt they were managing to cope with the refugees from Sudan, but were now more worried with the increasing number of Chadian ones.

"The trend is not going down, because insecurity is still increasing," Kingsley Amanin, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordinator in Abeche, said of the internally displaced. "It's worrying because we simply don't have the resources to help them right now."

Chadian authorities, who provide protection to the refugee camps and often share a common ethnic background with people fleeing from Darfur, said they hoped Holmes' visit would help raise awareness to the crisis their region is facing.

"Our relations with the U.N. is very good," said Guede Borgou, the chief of staff for eastern Chad's governor. He said he hoped Holmes' visit would further boost cooperation. "It comes at a time when we really need it," he said.

The Sudanese army bombed a border zone with Chad earlier this month and aid workers fear the flow of refugees will only increase.

The Security Council has made plans to deploy 11,000 U.N. peacekeepers along the border to protect refugees, but Chad's President Idriss Deby has seemed uncertain about his recent approval for a military component to the mission.

Holmes said his brief did not include discussions on the peacekeeping mission, but said that "deploying a force along the border is a priority" and hoped it would occur soon.

Darfur: Blair Pushing for No-Fly Zone

From The Guardian

Tony Blair is pushing the United Nations to declare a no-fly zone over Darfur, enforced if necessary by the bombing of Sudanese military airfields used for raids on the province, the Guardian has learned.

The controversial initiative comes as a classified new report by a UN panel of experts alleges Sudan has violated UN resolutions by moving arms into Darfur, conducting overflights and disguising its military planes as UN humanitarian aircraft.

Mr Blair has been pushing for much tougher international action against Sudan since President Omar Hassan al-Bashir reneged earlier this month on last November's agreement to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur to protect civilians.

[edit]

Talks are under way in the UN security council over a package of sanctions being pushed by Britain and the US, which includes a comprehensive arms embargo and the freezing assets of Sudanese leaders implicated in the Darfur ethnic cleansing.

Speaking in Berlin on Sunday, Mr Blair described the situation in Darfur as "intolerable" and said: "We need to consider a no-fly zone to prevent the use of Sudanese air power against refugees and displaced people."

According to Downing Street, he is pushing for a no-fly zone to be passed at the same time as the new sanctions package, in the form of a 'Chapter 7' security council resolution, allowing the use of force.

"The prime minister believes we can do them together," said a Downing Street source. "There could be an agreement in the security council that there could be a no-fly zone. If the Sudanese government broke that agreement there would have to be consequences."

The imposition of a no-fly zone, of the kind employed over Iraq before the invasion, has been widely dismissed by military experts as impractical over an area as large as Darfur, which is the size of France. But the Guardian has learned that US and British officials are considering a cheaper alternative: punitive air strikes against Sudanese air force bases if Khartoum violated the no-fly zone.

The example being considered is the Ivory Coast, where the French wiped out much of the Ivorian air force while its planes and helicopters were sitting on the tarmac, in November 2004. The air strikes were in reprisal for the deaths of nine French peacekeepers in an Ivorian raid on rebel-held areas in the north.

Mr Blair's push for tough action is likely to be given a considerable boost by a new, still classified, report in New York by the UN's panel of experts on Sudan. According to an official who has seen the report, the panel found evidence that the Sudanese government was continuing to ship arms into Darfur and conduct air force operations over the province in violation of UN security council resolution 1591, passed two years ago.

The investigators also spotted an Antonov-26 aircraft painted white and parked at a military airport. "The panel noted with concern that the plane had a UN logo painted on the top of its left wing," a UN internal document said. "It was parked on the military apron next to rows of bombs."

The panel spotted another white Antonov at a military airport on March 1. The panel is "investigating the role of both aircraft in aerial bombing" of Darfur, the document said.

Downing Street has stressed that Mr Blair would prefer to act in concert with other security council members, but Sudan's defenders at the UN, led by China, are likely to resist any resolution backed by force. Asked whether the UK and the US would attempt to rally a 'coalition of the willing' against Sudan in the event of a security council impasse, a Downing Street source said: "We'd have to judge that if we failed." The initiative for such tough action is being driven by Mr Blair himself, often in the face of scepticism in the foreign office and ministry of defence.

The MoD in particular distanced itself from the idea yesterday, and said there were no plans for British forces to get involved.

"There are absolutely no plans for any UK military action at all in Sudan or the Darfur region of Sudan," a senior British defence source said yesterday, adding: "There are no plans on the radar".

But British military officials did not exclude the possibility that the US had contingency plans to strike Sudanese airfields.

Mr Blair is said by his aides to believe the ethnic cleansing to be a defining moral issue.

"It's very important [President Bashir] doesn't believe he can renege on his agreements. We can't allow the status quo to be locked in after the ethnic cleansing there," a Downing Street source said.

"The prime minister believes in a values-driven foreign policy and believes you have to evenly apply those values to have any credibility. He sees Darfur as a test of the international community's commitment to its own values."

The prospect of a no-fly zone was welcomed by the independent International Crisis Group thinktank yesterday. "The government in Khartoum is using its air force to bomb its own civilians and to resupply its troops and allied militias killing its own people. That's a pretty good reason for a no-fly zone," Andrew Stronheim, the ICG's media director, said.

Darfur: Envoy Says Sudan to Accept Peacekeepers

Whatever. We'll believe it when we see it - From the AP

Sudan's ambassador John Lueth Ukee said Tuesday that only minor issues stand in the way of his government's acceptance of a 22,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force to be deployed in the violence-plagued Darfur region.

His comment contrasted sharply with a letter that President Omar al-Bashir had sent to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon earlier this month in which he rejected a significant U.N. troop commitment to Darfur.

"We have not backed down from what we said," Ukee said, alluding to commitments the Khartoum government made in support of the deployment at two U.N. backed conference last November.

He said his optimism about Sudan's acceptance of U.N. forces was based on discussions in recent days with top officials in Khartoum.

"The ministers said there are certain things we have to agree on that should be resolved in next few days," he said, speaking at a forum sponsored by the Institute on Religion and Public Policy.

[edit]

Large scale deployment of peacekeepers, under the U.N. plan, would follow initial preparatory phases. Ukee said his government has not stood in the way of implementing these stages. But, he said, U.N. inefficiency has blocked forward movement.

"They have done nothing," he said, adding that there are no limits on the number of peacekeepers government would allow.

U.S. and U.N. officials have said that a major problem, beyond resistance from the Khartoum government, has been a shortage of peacekeepers available for duty in Darfur.

Ukee blamed anti-government rebels in Darfur for the absence of a permanent peace after four years of strife.

He said that instead of rallying in support of a single leader to negotiate peace, the rebels have fragmented into a multiplicity of groups.

"Every other night