West Trying to Help Sudan?

US says Africans must do more in Darfur


By Sue Pleming

African nations, including Sudan itself, must do more to end the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region, said a top U.S. official before leaving on Tuesday for talks to push African and European leaders to act faster.

"No one party can do it alone -- Africans must play a key role, the Government of National Unity in Sudan must assume responsibility, and the U.N. must be active as well," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said in a statement.

Zoellick was headed for Brussels and Paris for meetings with top Sudanese officials, leaders of the African Union, NATO and the European Union.

African Union troops are struggling to keep the peace in Sudan's western Darfur region, and while the United Nations has started contingency planning for a takeover from African forces, the United States is impatient at how long it is taking to reorganize that mission.
"We believe that, to the maximum extent possible, the AU forces in Darfur should be incorporated into the U.N. mission in which Africans should play a key leadership role," said Zoellick.

U.S. efforts to push through a resolution in the U.N. Security Council on Darfur failed last month, mainly as the African Union had not yet requested a U.N. force and because some officials in Khartoum said they opposed the move.

On Friday, AU foreign ministers are expected to vote to invite the United Nations to take over the mission, a week later than originally expected.

BIG PUSH

"I hope to push for progress on Sudan with key European and African leaders this week in Brussels and Paris," Zoellick said.

About 7,000 African Union troops are monitoring a shaky ceasefire in Darfur, where 2 million people have been driven from their homes by a campaign of rape, killing and looting, called genocide by Washington.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Darfur in three years of fighting between government-backed Arab militias and non-Arab rebels.

The United Nations has asked the United States and other countries with big militaries to provide tactical air support in Darfur. Most troops on the ground are expected to come from Africa and Asia and the United States reiterated on Tuesday it was premature to talk about U.S. forces going to Darfur.

Aid groups urged world leaders not to allow lengthy debates over who should be in charge of a Darfur mission to delay action, pointing out that a U.N. force would likely not be in place until 2007.

International relief organization Oxfam said the immediate priority should be on saving lives and the solution was to boost AU forces and give them a broader mandate to protect civilians.
In New York, a delegation of seven U.S. lawmakers led by House of Representatives Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California met with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to, in Pelosi's words, "bring a sense of the urgency we saw there" following a congressional visit to Darfur two weeks ago.

Democratic Rep. Donald Payne (news, bio, voting record) of New Jersey said the lawmakers wanted African Union leaders to agree to a transformation of the AU force into a stronger and better equipped U.N. peacekeeping mission.


Well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd