Saturday, September 11, 2004

US POSITIVE DRAFT WILL BE ADOPTED AFTER SOME AMENDMENTS: UNSC members object to Darfur resolution

Sorry this post is another quick filing of notes for future reference. Need more time to read and sift through a list of online reports. Still no commentary here yet in this new blog. Not had a chance to insert links in sidebar here. Or develop style. Current posts here, for the moment, are part of an information gathering exercise.

Past four months of online reports and press cuttings to sort out. My new blogs are a way of quickly separating the reports into a five more stacks, sticking them into the electronic equivalent of a plastic sleeve, labelled with yellow post-it.

Titles of posts here at Sudan Watch, Congo Watch and Uganda Watch are serving as post-it notes, links within each post are the press clippings.

As time goes on, each post will be updated and added to with notes that I find when I start working on sifting through my drafts email folder. At the moment, it contains almost 344 "drafts". Seems everything I drag in from the Internet, ends up in my email drafts folder. The folder is littered with draft posts, abandoned posts, future posts, reports, notes and ideas.

Perhaps I need to take an extended blogging break to sort, sift, bin and tidy -- plus tweak template of main blog and change my other blogs into the same design.
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US positive draft will be adopted after some amendments

Here is a September 11, 2004, report UNSC members object to Darfur resolution that I've edited concerning latest on UN security council and draft of new US resolution

Several UN Security Council members objected on Thursday to a US draft resolution that threatens oil sanctions against Sudan but they supported a large African Union force in the country’s Darfur region.

US Ambassador John Danforth expects the draft to be adopted, perhaps next week and with some revisions. He said support for a large African Union monitoring mission in Darfur, expected to reach 3,000, was crucial to observe and stop abuses by its very presence in the country. “I am very encouraged by the meeting,” Danforth said. “The importance of getting an outside presence into Darfur to monitor the situation is something that is impossible to overstate.”

China threatened to use its veto power against the resolution if changes were not made to the text, objecting mainly to the specific sanctions threats. “The draft as it stands right now will not be acceptable, “ Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters.

A minimum of nine votes and no veto is needed for adoption in the 15-member council.

The resolution, which calls for an expanded African force, threatens punitive measures “in the petroleum sector” as well as against individual Sudanese officials if atrocities continue or Khartoum does not cooperate with the monitors. But it does not give a deadline.

Pakistan strongly opposed the text, including the sanctions threat as well as a provision calling for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to set up an inquiry that would determine if genocide had taken place. Russia and Angola also raised concerns. Germany and Britain were strong supporters of the text. Chile, Benin, Romania, France and Spain made positive comments. France questioned the need for sanctions threats at this time.

Danforth said sanctions needed to stay in the text because Sudan would not respond if there was no pressure and might delay or “stiff” the African Union force. “The possibility of sanctions must be out there,” he said. “Tens of thousands of people have been killed, people have been gang raped.” He said the Sudanese military was “complicit” in the attacks. “It’s got to stop.”

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