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Bush slaps new sanctions on Sudan, seeks UN action
By Olivier Knox
AFP
WASHINGTON
Petroleumworld.com 05 30 07US President George W. Bush on Tuesday tightened US sanctions on Sudan over "genocide" in Darfur and pushed for a tough new UN Security Council resolution to punish the government in Khartoum.
" The people of Darfur are crying out for help, and they deserve it," he said. "I promise this to the people of Darfur: The United States will not avert our eyes from a crisis that challenges the conscience of the world."
China, a veto-wielding permanent council member and one of Sudan's main allies, criticized the sanctions even before Bush unveiled them. But Britain welcomed the plan, while France proposed a humanitarian corridor through neighboring Chad to get aid to Darfur.
The violence there has left at least 200,000 people dead and forced more than two million people from their homes, according to the United Nations. Sudan disputes those estimates, saying 9,000 people have died.
Bush, speaking at the White House, accused Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir of using military forces and government-aligned militias to attack rebels and civilians in the violence-wracked region and blocking peace-making efforts.
" For too long the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder and rape of innocent civilians," Bush said.
" My administration has called these actions by their rightful name, genocide. The world has a responsibility to help put an end to it," he said.
In Khartoum, presidential adviser Mazjub al-Khalifa told reporters said that the decision "highlights the hostile intentions and points to the fact that the United States does not want peace in Darfur."
The goal of the sanctions is to force Sudan to allow the full deployment of a UN peacekeeping force; disarm the Janjaweed militias; and let humanitarian aid reach the region, which is roughly the size of France, US officials say.
Bush said he had directed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to seek a new UN resolution broadening economic sanctions on Sudan's leaders, expand an arms embargo on Sudan, and bar Sudanese military flights over Darfur.
The stricter sanctions will bar another 31 companies, including oil exporters, from US trade and financial dealings, and take aim at two top Sudanese government officials, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
The two officials were identified as Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs -- who has been accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague -- and Awad Ibn Auf, head of Sudan's military intelligence and security.
The assets of Khalil Ibrahim, the leader of a rebel group that has refused to back the Darfur peace deal, would also be blocked, it said.
China, which supplies arms to Sudan and buys more than half of its oil output, opposed the move.
Liu Guijin, Beijing's special representative on Darfur, said the sanctions would "only make achieving a solution more complicated" but stopped short of saying China would use its veto power to block a new UN resolution.
China also faced pressure from European nations over Darfur.
French foreign ministry spokesman said it was open to ramping up UN sanctions.
Britain came out in support of the new US sanctions.
" Darfur has shown what has been done and what still needs to be done," British Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters on board his plane shortly before taking off for Libya, his first stop on a three-nation trip to Africa.
State Department number two John Negroponte later urged Washington's European allies to "impose financial sanctions that match our own, either through European Union mechanisms or bilaterally."
Meanwhile, Africa Action issued a statement calling for even more international action.
" President Bush's tightened sanctions come late in the game," said Africa Action executive director Nii Akuetteh.
" The president must take other actions, and economic sanctions are but one tool.
The US must now work in concert with its international partners to make sure that a strong and effective force actually deploys."
The violence erupted in the western Sudanese region in 2003 when Khartoum enlisted the Janjaweed Arab militia to help put down an ethnic minority rebellion.
The Sudanese government has repeatedly rejected plans to deploy UN troops alongside the African peacekeepers in a joint force numbering some 23,000 soldiers.
AFP 29 1723 GMT 05 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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