Sudan has no choice but to accept troops: US

WASHINGTON – Sudan will have to accept non-African troops in a UN -authorised peacekeeping force for Darfur or face the prospect of new United Nations sanctions, a senior US official said.

Although efforts will be made to ensure that Africa contributes a large percentage of the 26 000-strong mission, the continent does not have enough trained soldiers to fully staff the force and Sudan will be penalised unless it drops objections to non-African participation, Andrew Natsios, the US special envoy for Sudan, said on Tuesday. US President George W.Bush has made ending the Darfur conflict a US foreign policy priority but the United States is reluctant to provide troops itself for the force, given military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.Instead, Washington is likely to contribute logistics and transportation to the mission.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in June ordered US ambassadors to ask their host countries to contribute to the hybrid force, Natsios said.”We are going to try …to recruit from Africa, but it’s very clear from already talking to African leaders and African militaries that there are not enough African troops who are trained for peacekeeping operations to make up this force,” he told reporters in a conference call.”We are going to have to go outside of Africa.”The Sudanese government is adamantly opposed to non-Africans playing any major role in the hybrid UN-African Union operation that was authorised by the UN Security Council on July 31 and will be made up of 20 000 peacekeepers and 6 000 civilian police.Disagreements over the composition of the mission were a major reason the authorisation was delayed for months despite mounting pressure on Khartoum to accept it to help end nearly four years of internal conflict in which more than 200 000 people have died and 2,5 million have been displaced.Natsios, however, said that in finally agreeing to the mission, Khartoum had opened the door to non-African participation, although he stressed that in accordance with Sudan’s demands command of the force had been given to a senior Nigerian general.”We expect the Sudanese government to implement what they have agreed to, which is if we can’t get sufficient trained troops, we will go outside of Africa, which I have to say I expect will happen,” he said, warning of consequences if Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s government balks.”If there is an attempt to renegotiate what was negotiated already with the Sudanese government, then we will introduce a sanctions resolution before the UN,” Natsios said.- Nampa-APUS President George W.Bush has made ending the Darfur conflict a US foreign policy priority but the United States is reluctant to provide troops itself for the force, given military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.Instead, Washington is likely to contribute logistics and transportation to the mission.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in June ordered US ambassadors to ask their host countries to contribute to the hybrid force, Natsios said.”We are going to try …to recruit from Africa, but it’s very clear from already talking to African leaders and African militaries that there are not enough African troops who are trained for peacekeeping operations to make up this force,” he told reporters in a conference call.”We are going to have to go outside of Africa.”The Sudanese government is adamantly opposed to non-Africans playing any major role in the hybrid UN-African Union operation that was authorised by the UN Security Council on July 31 and will be made up of 20 000 peacekeepers and 6 000 civilian police.Disagreements over the composition of the mission were a major reason the authorisation was delayed for months despite mounting pressure on Khartoum to accept it to help end nearly four years of internal conflict in which more than 200 000 people have died and 2,5 million have been displaced.Natsios, however, said that in finally agreeing to the mission, Khartoum had opened the door to non-African participation, although he stressed that in accordance with Sudan’s demands command of the force had been given to a senior Nigerian general.”We expect the Sudanese government to implement what they have agreed to, which is if we can’t get sufficient trained troops, we will go outside of Africa, which I have to say I expect will happen,” he said, warning of consequences if Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s government balks.”If there is an attempt to renegotiate what was negotiated already with the Sudanese government, then we will introduce a sanctions resolution before the UN,” Natsios said.- Nampa-AP