03 December 2007
China, the biggest buyer of Sudan's oil and also a leading seller of weapons to Khartoum, has been accused of shielding Sudan -- blamed for fanning the violence in Darfur -- from international sanctions.
"Our position is clear: the Chinese are not here for peace and they must leave immediately", Abdelaziz al-Nour Asher, commander of the Justice and Equality Movement, told reporters by telephone one day after Chinese engineers arrived in Darfur.
"Otherwise, we will consider the Chinese soldiers as part of the government forces and we will act accordingly", said Asher, who is also a brother of JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim.
The 135 Chinese arrived as part of the vanguard of a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping mission set to take over from poorly equipped African troops next year. A total of 315 Chinese engineers are expected in Darfur by next month.
"China is complicit in the genocide being carried out in Darfur and the Chinese are here to protect their oil interests in Kordofan", a region to the east of Darfur where the JEM recently carried out an attack on an oil installation.
In the attack, JEM rebels kidnapped five oil workers from the facility run by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, a consortium involving China's CNPC, India's ONGC, Malaysia's Petronas and the state-owned Sudapet.
"China is the biggest weapon supplier to the Sudanese regime and the weapons that we have captured in large quantities prove this. China supports Khartoum at the United Nations and its presence in Darfur can be considered an attempt to colonize our region", Asher declared.
The UN said the Chinese engineers would build roads and bridges, dig wells, and deploy a medical team.
The 26,000-strong hybrid force is due to begin peacekeeping operations in Darfur next year, tasked with ending nearly five years of bloodshed.
The force of mainly Africans will replace an under-funded and ill-equipped 7,000-strong African Union force that has served since 2004.
Speaking to reporters by telephone from Juba, the capital of semi-autonomous South Sudan, a spokesman for 10 Darfur rebel factions from the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) also threatened the Chinese.
"Sending any international troops to Darfur without our agreement will complicate the security situation in the region", said Issam al-Haj.
"The Chinese arrival in Darfur is part of the agenda of the [main ruling] National Congress party. It is not to protect civilians. We consider them forces supporting the government troops and for us they will not be immune", he said.
The JEM warned it would attack foreign oil companies and target Chinese firms in particular because they supply weapons to Khartoum, before the abduction on October 23 in Kordofan.
Since February 2003, more than 200,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease in Darfur region, while 2.2 million others have been left homeless.
The Sudanese government, while objecting to troops from Nepal, Scandinavia and Thailand, has welcomed the Chinese mission to Darfur.
'AU/UN must be more active as Darfur deteriorates'
The conflict in Darfur has changed radically and for the worse, a research group has warned, urging African and UN officials to devise a more proactive strategy to bring peace.
"The Darfur conflict has changed radically in the past year and not for the better", said the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) in a new report on Darfur, where conflict has raged for nearly five years.
"It has mutated, the parties have splintered and the confrontations have multiplied", it said, even if there are many fewer deaths than in 2003-04.
"Violence is again increasing, access for humanitarian agencies is decreasing, international peacekeeping is not yet effective and a political settlement remains far off.
"The strategy the African Union/UN mediation has been following cannot cope with this new reality and needs to be revised," said the report, issued on November 26.
The ICG said that peace talks, which broke down rapidly in Libya last month, should be used to broaden participation -- given that the most important rebel groups did not attend -- and address all the conflict's root causes.
The group said a joint AU-UN peacekeeping mission, scheduled to take over from 7,000 poorly equipped AU troops operating in an area the size of France since 2004, was unlikely to be fully operational until well into next year.
The Khartoum government insists that the joint force be largely African and has objected to Nepalese, Scandinavian and Thai soldiers amid US accusations that Sudan is dragging its feet to obstruct the force's deployment.
"When it is on the ground, UNAMID must build upon lessons learned from its predecessor, including to be more pro-active in protecting civilians and responding to cease-fire violations.
"Its leadership should also engage actively in the peace talks so as to ensure coherence between what is agreed and its capabilities.
"The international community must give it more support than it gave the AMIS [African Union Mission in Sudan], including strong responses, with sanctions as necessary, to further non-compliance by any party, as well as to actions that obstruct the peace process or violate international humanitarian law".
Core issues such as land tenure and use, including grazing rights, and the role and reform of local government and administrative structures, must be negotiated if any final peace accord is to gain wide support, the report said.
The 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement -- signed by the Sudanese government and only one major rebel group -- was a "failure", said the ICG, charging that its limited number of signatories had hurt the peace process.
The Sudan Liberation Army/Movement of Minni Minawi, in particular, had been responsible for attacks on civilians, humanitarians, the AU mission and some of the violence in the internally displaced person (IDP) camps, the ICG charged.
It accused Sudan's main ruling party of wanting chaos in Darfur to hamstring opposition, of resettling key allies and defying the UN Security Council by absorbing Arab militias into the security apparatus rather than disarming them.
The ICG said IDP camps, which house up to 2.2 million people, are increasingly violent, that Khartoum is trying to force people to return to unsafe areas and that the conflict has started to spill over to the oil rich Kordofan area.
China, the biggest buyer of Sudan's oil and also a leading seller of weapons to Khartoum, has been accused of shielding Sudan -- blamed for fanning the violence in Darfur -- from international sanctions.
"Our position is clear: the Chinese are not here for peace and they must leave immediately", Abdelaziz al-Nour Asher, commander of the Justice and Equality Movement, told reporters by telephone one day after Chinese engineers arrived in Darfur.
"Otherwise, we will consider the Chinese soldiers as part of the government forces and we will act accordingly", said Asher, who is also a brother of JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim.
The 135 Chinese arrived as part of the vanguard of a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping mission set to take over from poorly equipped African troops next year. A total of 315 Chinese engineers are expected in Darfur by next month.
"China is complicit in the genocide being carried out in Darfur and the Chinese are here to protect their oil interests in Kordofan", a region to the east of Darfur where the JEM recently carried out an attack on an oil installation.
In the attack, JEM rebels kidnapped five oil workers from the facility run by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, a consortium involving China's CNPC, India's ONGC, Malaysia's Petronas and the state-owned Sudapet.
"China is the biggest weapon supplier to the Sudanese regime and the weapons that we have captured in large quantities prove this. China supports Khartoum at the United Nations and its presence in Darfur can be considered an attempt to colonize our region", Asher declared.
The UN said the Chinese engineers would build roads and bridges, dig wells, and deploy a medical team.
The 26,000-strong hybrid force is due to begin peacekeeping operations in Darfur next year, tasked with ending nearly five years of bloodshed.
The force of mainly Africans will replace an under-funded and ill-equipped 7,000-strong African Union force that has served since 2004.
Speaking to reporters by telephone from Juba, the capital of semi-autonomous South Sudan, a spokesman for 10 Darfur rebel factions from the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) also threatened the Chinese.
"Sending any international troops to Darfur without our agreement will complicate the security situation in the region", said Issam al-Haj.
"The Chinese arrival in Darfur is part of the agenda of the [main ruling] National Congress party. It is not to protect civilians. We consider them forces supporting the government troops and for us they will not be immune", he said.
The JEM warned it would attack foreign oil companies and target Chinese firms in particular because they supply weapons to Khartoum, before the abduction on October 23 in Kordofan.
Since February 2003, more than 200,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease in Darfur region, while 2.2 million others have been left homeless.
The Sudanese government, while objecting to troops from Nepal, Scandinavia and Thailand, has welcomed the Chinese mission to Darfur.
'AU/UN must be more active as Darfur deteriorates'
The conflict in Darfur has changed radically and for the worse, a research group has warned, urging African and UN officials to devise a more proactive strategy to bring peace.
"The Darfur conflict has changed radically in the past year and not for the better", said the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) in a new report on Darfur, where conflict has raged for nearly five years.
"It has mutated, the parties have splintered and the confrontations have multiplied", it said, even if there are many fewer deaths than in 2003-04.
"Violence is again increasing, access for humanitarian agencies is decreasing, international peacekeeping is not yet effective and a political settlement remains far off.
"The strategy the African Union/UN mediation has been following cannot cope with this new reality and needs to be revised," said the report, issued on November 26.
The ICG said that peace talks, which broke down rapidly in Libya last month, should be used to broaden participation -- given that the most important rebel groups did not attend -- and address all the conflict's root causes.
The group said a joint AU-UN peacekeeping mission, scheduled to take over from 7,000 poorly equipped AU troops operating in an area the size of France since 2004, was unlikely to be fully operational until well into next year.
The Khartoum government insists that the joint force be largely African and has objected to Nepalese, Scandinavian and Thai soldiers amid US accusations that Sudan is dragging its feet to obstruct the force's deployment.
"When it is on the ground, UNAMID must build upon lessons learned from its predecessor, including to be more pro-active in protecting civilians and responding to cease-fire violations.
"Its leadership should also engage actively in the peace talks so as to ensure coherence between what is agreed and its capabilities.
"The international community must give it more support than it gave the AMIS [African Union Mission in Sudan], including strong responses, with sanctions as necessary, to further non-compliance by any party, as well as to actions that obstruct the peace process or violate international humanitarian law".
Core issues such as land tenure and use, including grazing rights, and the role and reform of local government and administrative structures, must be negotiated if any final peace accord is to gain wide support, the report said.
The 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement -- signed by the Sudanese government and only one major rebel group -- was a "failure", said the ICG, charging that its limited number of signatories had hurt the peace process.
The Sudan Liberation Army/Movement of Minni Minawi, in particular, had been responsible for attacks on civilians, humanitarians, the AU mission and some of the violence in the internally displaced person (IDP) camps, the ICG charged.
It accused Sudan's main ruling party of wanting chaos in Darfur to hamstring opposition, of resettling key allies and defying the UN Security Council by absorbing Arab militias into the security apparatus rather than disarming them.
The ICG said IDP camps, which house up to 2.2 million people, are increasingly violent, that Khartoum is trying to force people to return to unsafe areas and that the conflict has started to spill over to the oil rich Kordofan area.
© Monday Morning 2007
