Sudan agrees to UN peacekeepers
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Monday, 16 April 2007, 12:21 GMT 13:21 UK
Sudan agrees to UN peacekeepers
The African Union force is struggling to halt the violence.
More than 3,000 United Nations troops will be allowed into Darfur, according to Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol.
The apparent change of heart comes after months of international pressure, but there is no UN confirmation so far.
Mr Akol told a news conference that Sudan has now fully accepted the second phase of a UN plan to support 7,000 struggling African Union troops there.
Under the plan, UN attack helicopters and armoured personnel carriers will also be deployed to help AU forces.
The four-year Darfur conflict between rebels and pro-government Arab militia has seen more than 200,000 deaths and at least 2.4 million displaced.
UN DARFUR PLAN
Map of Darfur, western Sudan
Phase 1 - UN financial backing for AU mission
Phase 2 - UN sends logistical and military support
Phase 3 - UN takes joint command of hybrid force
A spokesman for the foreign ministry told the BBC that Sudan's acceptance had been passed on to African Union Chairman Alpha Omar Konare.
Mr Konare is currently in New York to brief UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council.
UN officials said they were aware of the Sudanese announcement, but had not yet been told anything officially.
Outrage
Earlier, British aid agency Oxfam launched an appeal for humanitarian aid for the Darfur region of Sudan and east Chad.
Photo: Don McCullin/Oxfam
In pictures: Darfur refugee crisis
Oxfam says it needs £5m ($10m) to help displaced people in the region who continue to flee from violence.
"This is the greatest concentration of human suffering in the world and an outrage that affronts the world's moral values," Penny Lawrence, Oxfam's international director said after a tour of Darfur.
The international aid agency is currently providing clean water, health and sanitation services to more than 500,000 people in Darfur and eastern Chad.
"Nearly 1 million people are not getting any aid at all and in some areas the aid efforts is under threat due to increasing insecurity," an Oxfam statement said.
Visiting US official John Negroponte had also warned Sudan of isolation if it fails to stop harassment of humanitarian workers and rejects the deployment of UN peacekeepers in the war-torn region.
"The denial of visas and harassment of aid workers has created the impression that the government of Sudan is engaged in a deliberate campaign of intimidation," he said at the end of his tour of Sudan.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6559897.stm
Interesting. Let's see who will contribute for the rest of the 3000 troops. -
CHINA? most people do not realise that China and Russia are sitting on the Security council as permernent members. haven't seen much peacekeepers from them.
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China is one of the biggerest investor in Sudan for its "oil" i am surprise they are not taking the keen interest in political stablilities in Sudan. sick isn't!!! is about money!!!Originally posted by beavan:CHINA? most people do not realise that China and Russia are sitting on the Security council as permernent members. haven't seen much peacekeepers from them. -
HasnÂ’t anyone seen last SaturdayÂ’s Strait Times LIFE? It carried a report saying actually Hollywood played a critical role in pressing Chinese authority to persuade Sudanese Government of accepting the UN peacekeepers. It seems the decision has arrived right after the Chinese envoy traveled to Sudan:
Beijing yields - somewhat - to Hollywood pressure on Darfur
By Helene Cooper
Published: April 13, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/13/news/darfur.php
WASHINGTON: For the past two years, China has protected the Sudanese government as the United States and Britain have pushed for United Nations Security Council sanctions against Sudan for the violence in Darfur.
But in the past week, strange things have happened. A senior Chinese official, Zhai Jun, traveled to Sudan to push the Sudanese government to accept a UN peacekeeping force. Zhai even went all the way to Darfur and toured three refugee camps - a rare event for a high-ranking official from China, which has extensive business and oil ties to Sudan and generally avoids telling other countries how to conduct internal affairs.
Why? Credit goes to Hollywood - in particular, to the actress Mia Farrow and the filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
Just when it seemed safe to buy a plane ticket to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games, nongovernmental organizations and other groups appear to have scored a surprising success in an effort to link the Olympics, which the Chinese government holds very dear, to the killings in Darfur, which, until recently, Beijing had not seemed too concerned about.
Farrow, a UN good-will ambassador, has played a crucial role, starting a campaign last month to label the Games in Beijing the "Genocide Olympics" and calling on corporate sponsors and even on Spielberg, who is an artistic adviser to China for the Games, to exhort China publicly to do something about Darfur.
In a March 28 opinion article in The Wall Street Journal, Farrow warned Spielberg that he could "go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games," a reference to a German filmmaker who made Nazi propaganda films.
Four days later, Spielberg sent a letter to President Hu Jintao of China, condemning the killings in Darfur and asking Beijing to use its influence in the region "to bring an end to the human suffering there," according to Spielberg's spokesman, Marvin Levy.
China soon sent Zhai to Darfur, a turnaround that served as a classic study of how a pressure campaign, aimed to strike in a vulnerable spot at a vulnerable time, could accomplish what years of diplomacy could not.
Groups focusing on many issues, including Tibet and human rights, have called for boycotts of the Games next year.
But none of those issues have packed the punch of Darfur, where at least 200,000 people - some say as many as 400,000 - mostly non-Arab men, women and children, have died, and 2.5 million have been displaced, as government-backed Arab militias called the janjaweed have attacked the local population.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has repeatedly refused American, African and European demands that he allow a UN peacekeeping force to supplement an underequipped and besieged African Union force of 7,000 soldiers which has been trying, with dwindling success, to restore order in Darfur.
"Whatever ingredient went into the decision for him to go, I'm so pleased that he went," Farrow said in a telephone interview about Zhai's trip. She called the response from Beijing "extraordinary."
In describing Spielberg's decision to write directly to the Chinese leader, the filmmaker's spokesman said that while Spielberg "certainly has been aware of the situation in Darfur," it was "only recently that he became aware of China's involvement there."
At a news conference Wednesday, Zhai called people who wanted to boycott the Games "either ignorant or ill natured." But he added that "we suggest the Sudan side show flexibility and accept" the UN peacekeepers.
In closed-door meetings, Chinese officials have said they do not want any of their Darfur overtures linked to the Olympics, American and European officials said.
In an e-mail message Thursday, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington warned anew against such linkage. "If someone wants to pin Olympic Games and Darfur issue together to raise his/her fame, he/she is playing a futile trick," the spokesman, Chu Maoming, wrote. -
and will these inept peacekeepers who are shackled by so many policies and whatnots be able to do anything?
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Ironically, Hollywood news MUST appear in the Life section, though it has done a serious political job.
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In a political twist, Chinese part is obviously done that is: persuade Sudan to accept UN peacekeepers, they wonÂ’t go one more extra yard to send their peacekeepers. Now itÂ’s up to those who initialize the UN peacekeepers to be sent there. After all, politics are politics I can bet on this. As their interests, itÂ’s rumored long ago that Chinese elite forces have already operated in Sudan to protect essential Chinese asserts. I doubt a UN peacekeeper can be effective to protect private properties.
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any idea if china will shoulder its international responsibilities that comes with the power?Originally posted by coolant:In a political twist, Chinese part is obviously done that is: persuade Sudan to accept UN peacekeepers, they wonÂ’t go one more extra yard to send their peacekeepers. Now itÂ’s up to those who initialize the UN peacekeepers to be sent there. After all, politics are politics I can bet on this. As their interests, itÂ’s rumored long ago that Chinese elite forces have already operated in Sudan to protect essential Chinese asserts. I doubt a UN peacekeeper can be effective to protect private properties. -
I think they eventually will.Originally posted by Arapahoe:any idea if china will shoulder its international responsibilities that comes with the power? -
thats the price for being a superpower. It is also kind of expected.
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why Sudan agreed to UN peacekeepers..
clicky here => Sudan disguising warplanes as UN planes
so.. they have the UN in there, and they paint their planes white, stencil UN on it, and then use them to drop bombs.. -
But only when their interest converge.Originally posted by LazerLordz:I think they eventually will. -
time for someone to threaten their oil concessions....Originally posted by Arapahoe:But only when their interest converge.
ever watched Syriana? -
i think the next War in Asia is still.....resourcesOriginally posted by LazerLordz:time for someone to threaten their oil concessions....
ever watched Syriana? -
The reason i say the next conflict is still about resources because I think. The chinese are going to face with increasing pressure on the supply of oil, Right now it is about having the foreign currency to invest and secure these pipelines. So long as the expansion continue the Communist party will feel secure about its evolution and its existence. Any disruption are view threaten of its growth and the abilities to govern its domestics needs. Its political instituion now are feed on economics Growth path.Originally posted by LazerLordz:time for someone to threaten their oil concessions....
ever watched Syriana?
It will be interesting to see how the korean and Japanese evolved with the increasing shortage of resources. -
China sends non combatant Unit to Sudan for UN peacekeeping
Chinese engineers off to Darfur
08 May 2007
China has decided to contribute an engineering unit to a UN-led peacekeeping force for SudanÂ’s violence-torn Darfur region, said a United States official on Monday, marking a critical sign of support for the UN operation from one of KhartoumÂ’s key allies.
"We have been advised that China has decided to employ an engineering unit as part of the UN-AU heavy support package in Darfur," State Department spokesperson Gonzalo Gallegos said, referring to a hybrid UN-African Union peacekeeping force.
"We view this as a positive development and we appreciate ChinaÂ’s contribution to the international effort to stop the violence there," he said.
Gallegos could not provide additional details of the Chinese deployment, other than to say it was believed to involve "hundreds" of engineers.
A US official speaking on condition of anonymity said the unit would include a couple of hundred engineers.
China buys most of SudanÂ’s oil and has been a major ally of the government of Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, who has been locked in a showdown with the UN over his refusal to comply with resolutions demanding the deployment of 20,000 UN-led peacekeepers to Darfur.
Beijing has been reluctant to back calls for tougher action against Beshir, primarily by the US and Britain, over his failure to end ethnic violence which has seen at least 200,000 people die and 2.5 million left homeless in Darfur in the past four years.
Beshir recently accepted the first two phases of the peacekeeping plan, including deployment of the so-called "heavy support" package of logistical aid that would add about 3,000 troops to an AU force of 7,000 which has failed to halt the violence.
But he has stalled on the final and most contentious stage of boosting the "hybrid" UN-AU force to its full 20,000 troop level.
Gallegos said the "real need" now is for the full deployment of the entire force.
"We look to China to use its significant leverage in Khartoum to make this happen as soon as possible," he said.
Sapa-AFP -
let see what the chinese does if their soldier are kill by their own weapon that they sold.Originally posted by coolant:China sends non combatant Unit to Sudan for UN peacekeeping