Sudan's Bashir says if the international community insists on UN peacekeepers in Darfur, then Sudan has to choose confrontation

Oct 3 2006 Xinhua report via ST - Sudan's president says no ceasefire with new Darfur rebel group. Excerpt:

"We do not have a ceasefire with the NRF, which was formed after the signing of Darfur Peace Agreement," Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir told a Ramadan breakfast party organized by Sudanese Copt Church Monday evening, according to the report.

He said that the rebel group was set up in order to disrupt the peace agreement by attacking the forces of Minni Menawi, the leader of a former rebel faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement who signed the peace agreement with the government on May 5.

This statement is considered as an official recognition of the last month government attacks on Darfur rebel positions.

Al-Bashir reiterated his government's refusal of the UN Security Council resolution 1706, which calls for the deployment of international peacekeeping forces in Darfur.

"If the international society insists on the UN peacekeepers deployment in Darfur, then the country has to choose confrontation," the Sudanese president said.

Note, Sudan's president has said all along, his word is final.

Darfur activists' priority is UN peacekeepers - Alex de Waal says putting UN troops on the ground would "inflame the situation"

Oct 4 2006 Christian Science Monitor report - Student activists rise again - this time for Darfur. Excerpt:

"The grass-roots people have really kept the issue alive and forced the hand of the governments," says Alex de Waal, a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, who has been advising the African Union on Darfur. He says the UN Security Council's decision in March 2005 to refer Darfur war crimes cases to the International Criminal Court and the US move two years ago to label the conflict "genocide" would not have happened without advocates' pressure.

Activists' priority: UN peacekeepers

As the situation has worsened, activists have pushed for change. Most advocates want UN peacekeepers sent to Darfur.

"I think [grass-roots efforts] have made [Darfur] almost a top-tier issue for the Bush administration," says John Prendergast, a senior adviser of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "There's no question [President] Bush feels political pressure to respond."

Mr. Bush said Monday the UN should send peacekeepers without delay.

One reason the Darfur movement has succeeded - where many similar international efforts have failed - is the US move to label the crisis genocide. "The comparison of Darfur to [the 1994 genocide in] Rwanda is what has been most potent here," says Eric Reeves, a Darfur analyst and Smith College professor.

While appearances by celebrities like George Clooney have been crucial, grass-roots efforts have made the difference - especially those of young people, he adds. "A lot of students now really only know Rwanda as historical event, and there is a resolve that this will not happen on their watch.... You have to go back to apartheid-era South Africa to find [a movement] this powerful for an issue that doesn't involve US blood or treasure."

STAND, the student antigenocide group, is an example. Since April, it has grown from seven to 55 chapters. When Ms. Cato brought Paul Rusesabagina, the Rwandan whose story inspired the movie "Hotel Rwanda," to her campus last Wednesday, he packed the 750-seat auditorium with an overflow audience of at least 1,200 people. "We're young, idealistic, and we're horrified that genocide can go on in this world," Cato explains.

Still, activists face an uphill battle. The Sudanese government has rejected a Security Council resolution passed last month that calls for 22,000 UN troops to replace the underfunded 7,000-member African Union force.

Conflicting priorities for US

The US also has reasons not to push the Khartoum-based government too hard, observers say. Sudan has helped the US penetrate terror networks it might never have been able to on its own. Also, the US does not want to provoke further instability, says Mr. de Waal. Putting UN troops on the ground would "inflame the situation," he says.

Many ideas to solve Darfur's crisis -- Moussa

Oct 3 2006 Cairo Kuna:

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa stressed on Tuesday that there are "many" proposed ideas to solve the conflict in Darfur, saying the solution must not be regarding security only.

Speaking to Sout Al-Arab (Voice of the Arabs) radio via phone from Khartoum, Moussa said solving the conflict needs rebuilding the region and achieving reconciliation.

He pointed out that he met, during his current visit to Khartoum, with Sudanese officials and the UN delegate to Sudan, stressing that the talks concentrated on how to defuse the crisis in a way that assures achieving security and stability in the region.

Meanwhile, Moussa emphasized in an interview published in Cairo on Tuesday that the situation in Darfur is still disturbing, saying he believes there are "opportunities" to reach an agreement that will satisfy the Sudanese government and will allow the UN and the African Union (AU) to work together.

Prior to leaving Cairo to Sudan on Monday, Moussa called Arab countries to financially fund the AU forces in Darfur, as agreed upon in the last Arab summit.

Darfuris find refuge with SPLM in Kauda, central Sudan

Oct 2 2006 AFP report [via ST] re IDP camp in Kauda, central Sudan, a stronghold of the SPLM.

SPLM warns against sabotage of CPA

The deputy secretary general of SPLM Yasir Arman said there are those who seek to use Darfur crisis to sabotage South Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). He invited Sudan's political leadership to act with wisdom, saying statements on the CPA cancellation will lead to more confrontations in the country.

Ibrahim Ahmed Omar, the deputy chairman of the ruling National Congress Party threatened last week to cancel the CPA if the UN troops intervene in Darfur with the SPLM support. Full story Sudan Tribune 3 Oct 2006.

We must mobilise pressure and fear to save Darfur (Tom Lantos)

Tom Lantos, author of an opinion piece published by the FT 26 Sep 2006 [hat tip POTP] is the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee and the founding co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. Excerpt from the piece:

"I will continue to push for the immediate deployment of Nato assets as part of a transitional operation to stop the atrocities while the UN forces are deployed. If Khartoum persists in pursuing genocide, I support military action to neutralise those military forces employed by Sudan to attack civilians or to inhibit peacekeepers from their deployment."

Yee Haw! You and whose army Mr Lantos?

Sudan's Bashir seems open to idea of strengthening AMIS with more support from the UN

Oct 3 2006 Reuters report - AU will not abandon Darfur - AU chairman - excerpt:

The African Union will not abandon Darfur but it needs more international support if it is to continue its peacekeeping mission, the AU commission chairman said in a meeting with European Union leaders on Monday.

"Under no circumstance can we leave Darfur without peacekeeping forces. But we know we must strengthen our forces," AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare told a news briefing at the group's headquarters in Addis Ababa.

The chairmen of both the AU Commission and the European Commission vowed to work with the government of Sudan to find an acceptable formula for maintaining troops in Darfur.

"We want to avoid the Rwanda syndrome where the international community goes out and does not fulfil its responsibility," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, referring to the 1994 genocide.

"In the current situation, the African Union cannot assume completely the job if it does not have an important contribution from the U.N.," Michel told reporters.

Talks in Addis Ababa followed a 24-hour visit by the EU group to Sudan to try to break the impasse over peacekeepers.

Faced with a stalemate over peacekeepers, aid officials and diplomats have begun discussing an option called AU-Plus. This would involve an extended AU Darfur mission, augmented by U.N. support, with greater policing power for African troops.

During talks with the EU envoys on Saturday evening in Khartoum, Bashir seemed open to the idea of strengthening the AU mission with more support from the United Nations, the head of the EU in Sudan, Kent Degerfelt, told Reuters.

"It would not be troops but logistical and financial support," Degerfelt said.

Konare and Michel said they still supported a transfer to the United Nations but admitted that could not happen as long as Khartoum rejected the plan.

They stressed that the international community needed to reassure the Sudanese government that there was no hidden agenda, and that one way to do so was to put more pressure on rebels who had not signed the Darfur peace agreement.

The EU is the biggest contributor to the AU mission in Darfur, giving 242 million euro ($307 million) since it was launched.

Asked whether the EU would continue to fund the AU forces if it needed to extend its mission, Barroso said he was confident it would be possible.

Theatre in London aims for debate on Darfur

Oct 2 2006 BBC:

A north London theatre is to stage seven plays which it hopes will be "a forum for debate" about the conflict in Darfur. The season at the Tricycle in Kilburn will also feature panel discussions. The project was inspired by a BBC interview where actress Mia Farrow called for greater action after 2m people were displaced from their homes. Director Charlotte Westenra said she hoped to "get people talking and encourage them to find out more".

THE TRICYCLE'S DARFUR PLAYS

Michael Bhim - Distant Violence
Amy Evans - Many Men's Wives
Jennifer Farmer - Words Word Words
Carlo Gebler - Silhouette
Juliet Gilkes - Bilad al-Sudan
Lynn Nottage - Give, Again?
Winsome Pinnock - IDP

The work of writers such as Michael Bhim, Juliet Gilkes and Lynn Nottage will be seen at the theatre from 24 to 28 October.

I hope Daniel Davies is able to attend and report on it. Daniel lives in North London and blogs at D-squared Digest and Crooked Timber.

Read Daniel's Strange bedfellows. Excerpt:

If one takes seriously the fact that Darfur is facing immediate humanitarian crisis, then the only priority at the moment has to be to get some sort of peacekeeping force in there which is sufficient to allow the aid agencies to work. The Sudanese government definitely ought to let UNMIS in, and their attempt to run out the clock on AMIS definitely ought to count against them (in hell if not in the ICC, as I have said before). I frankly consider the UN's behaviour with respect to AMIS to be absolutely scandalous and would vastly rather see a credible African mission being funded, but this does not look politically possible at present, so UNMIS it is, although not at the expense of war.

The relentless urge to action rather than inaction

British economist Daniel Davies has a blog entry at Crooked Timber on The relentless urge to action rather than inaction - and writes this gem of a line:

As I've said repeatedly with respect to Darfur, it's the height of irresponsibility to demand "action" without saying what that action might be, or to provide some kind of sensible assessment of its likely consequences.

I wish the Eric Reeves' of this world would read that line and remember the last part of it when they call for "non-consensual intervention."

UN's Pronk: We need mature diplomacy and a package of give and take - Darfur needs a peacekeeping force that can stay many years

UN SRSG Jan Pronk Weblog Oct 1 2006 - excerpt:

Military presence is required to keep a cease fire and to protect the people against attacks from all sides. Peace keeping by military has to go hand in hand with political efforts to tackle the root causes of the conflict. That may take years and for that reason we need a peace keeping force that can stay many years.

We need mature diplomacy. We may even need to negotiate a package, whether we like it or not, consisting of give and take: Sudan could be offered, for instance, the lifting of trade sanctions, debt relief, the normalization of diplomatic relations (all due since the signing of the Nairobi peace agreement between North and South) and cooperation in the field of security.

In my statement [to the UN Security Council] I argued that, in order to break through the stalemate, all parties should get off the present collision course. We cannot afford to lose time anymore. We lost already too much time this year.

Note, Mr Pronk reveals that in meetings Sudan's President Bashir is polite, rather soft spoken, but firm, leaving no room for doubt but in his public appearances he is eloquent, using harsh language and statements that incite the people.

Who in Sudan benefits from Western sanctions and disinvestment campaigns?

This caught my eye - a line from an opinion piece [via ST 2 Oct 2006] by Magoub El-Tigani, a member of the Sudanese Writers' Union:

President al-Bashir emphasized his government "would find the support it needs from trade with non-Western nations."

It seems to me, sanctions and disinvestment campaigns are counter productive if they force Sudan to trade with non-Western nations and unscrupulous operators.

Oct 1 2006 Observer report by Conal Walsh - Stop investing in Sudan's genocide, MPs tell firms [via POTP] Excerpt:

British exports to Sudan were worth GBP 140m last year - up more than 50 per cent on the figure for 2004. Shell, one of a few western companies involved in Sudan's fledgling oil industry, declined to comment on the call for disinvestment.

Minnawi helped create the violence and suffering in Darfur and may be the only one able to end it?

Excerpt from Rolling Stone report by Dinaw Mengestu in Chad, 21 Sep 2006. [Note, it says Minnawi accuses the Chadian government, "which until recently was one of the SLA's biggest supporters, of sending troops into Darfur to attack his forces."]

If anyone embodies the conflicting nature of the war in Darfur, it's Minnawi. A poor village boy turned revolutionary, he is emblematic of any of the hundreds of men who have tried to lead a crumbling army into power in Africa, using violence and intimidation to simultaneously free and destroy their countries.

Born in 1969, Minnawi taught grade school until 2001, when he became one of eighteen rebels in the newly formed Darfur Liberation Army, the precursor to the SLA. For two decades the Sudanese government had failed to provide even the most basic assistance to Darfur's black African tribes and had stood by passively as thousands were slaughtered at the hands of Arab militias. In 2003, Minnawi and the SLA issued a manifesto calling for a "united democratic Sudan," one that would grant equal rights and protection to all of its citizens, regardless of race.

The rebellion grew quickly, but by 2005, as rumors swirled that Minnawi was planning to kill the group's first president, Abdelwahid al-Nur, the SLA had split into two factions. One faction remained loyal to Minnawi, who is from the Zaghawa tribe, the other to al-Nur, who is from the larger Fur tribe. That split left Minnawi with more territory and soldiers than any other rebel leader, while at the same time dividing Darfur along ethnic lines, setting the stage for an inter-rebel war.

The peace agreement was supposed to bring calm to Darfur, but instead it has brought even more violence. Minnawi was the only rebel leader to sign the treaty, a move that further split the rebellion into warring factions.

"The first rule of thumb in almost every profession is 'do no harm,'" says John Prendergast, a senior analyst who studies Africa for the International Crisis Group. "I think the mediators of the peace agreement potentially made things worse by securing a deal with only one rebel faction and leaving the other two outside the tent."

Calling him a traitor, Minnawi's former allies began attacking his forces. In response, the SLA has killed and tortured hundreds of people in Northern Darfur believed to be sympathetic to the other rebels. According to Amnesty International, Minnawi's forces went on a four-day rampage in July, raping thirty-nine women and killing seventy-two people in the village of Korma. Even those in Darfur who once supported Minnawi now refer to his SLA as "janjaweed 2."

Some of the rebels have taken to forcibly recruiting refugees from the camps in Chad and pressing them into battle - with the assistance of the Chadian government. In March, one faction of the SLA kidnapped 4,700 boys from Bredjing and Treguine and herded them into trucks with whips and clubs. Suleyman Abdeulaye, who lives in Bredjing, had left the camp to walk to the nearby market when a group of rebels ordered him to get in their truck.

"They said, 'If you don't get in the truck we will beat you,'" Abdeulaye told me. "They had guns and knives. Twenty-seven people were already in the truck." After staying overnight at a Chadian military base, Abdeulaye says, the rebels drove the boys to the Darfur border. There, for the next twelve days, they were forced to march for hours at a time in the blazing heat. "We are going to fight against the janjaweed," the rebels told them. "We are going to kill them, take their guns and then bring those guns for you. Then we will go back together to fight them."

Abdeulaye managed to escape and return to Bredjing, but he remains terrified. "We don't feel safe here," he says. "But I can't go anywhere else. All I want is a moment of peace without fighting."

I had come to Chad on my way to Darfur, where I hoped to meet Minnawi face to face. For years, his forces have been the only thing separating tens of thousands of Darfurians from the janjaweed. Until the peace treaty, most photographs of him showed him behind the wheel of a jeep, surrounded on all sides by armed men with their heads and faces wrapped in cloth. Now, photos tend to show him dressed in a suit, shaking hands with Sudanese officials or President Bush. Minnawi finds himself trapped between the good intentions and unfulfilled promises of the West, and the unrelenting violence of the Sudanese military and his former allies who feel betrayed by his move toward peace. He helped create the violence and suffering in Darfur, and, in the end, he may be the only one able to end it.

One night, outside one of the refugee camps, I dial the number of a satellite phone given to me by one of Minnawi's supporters. The rebel leader answers. He is exceedingly, almost excessively polite, while at the same time evasive and paranoid. There is a strong wind blowing, and I picture him standing in the wind-swept desert, his phone pointed eastward into the sky.

I ask Minnawi if he will be returning to Chad. He accuses its government, which until recently was one of the SLA's biggest supporters, of sending troops into Darfur to attack his forces.

"No," Minnawi says. "I will not be going back to Chad anytime soon."

The conversation is brief. "I am in Northern Darfur," he finally tells me. "If you come to Darfur, I think we will meet."

(This is an excerpt from the September 21st issue of "Rolling Stone" magazine, on sale September 8 2006.)

[via An Unforgivable Hell on Earth blog]

Fast for Darfur 5 Oct 2006

On October 5, students and notable fasters such as Don Cheadle, Nicholas Kristof, members of the cast of "The West Wing" and more in STAND's DarfurFast pledge to give up one luxury item for the day and donate the money they would have spent toward civilian protection in Darfur. [via timetoprotect.org via Darfur Alert]



Another new site: Florida Darfur Coalition

UPDATE: God bless American activisit Jay McGinley and his new blog DARFUR Dying for Heroes.

Sudanese SLA member Abulgasem Ahmed Abulgasem arrested at home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Unsourced report at Darfur Daily News 2 Oct 2006:

Abulgasem Ahmad Abulgasem, a political opponent of the Sudanese government, prominent figure in Abuja Peace Negotiations and member of a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army, was arrested by the Saudi Arabian security forces on 26 September at his home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he lived for 28 years.

The reason for his arrest is unclear but is believed to be connected to a speech in which he criticized the Sudanese government at the Sudanese Embassy prior to his arrest.

According to our source, Abulgasim was already deported on Saudi Arabia Airlines flight 453 from Jeddah to Kartoum, at 18:50 local time. His life is at imminent risk of torture and unfair trial if not at great danger of being sentenced to death.

More from Darfur Alert and Amnesty International Alert: Action needed to release Mr. Abu al-Ghassem.

Letter from JEM/NRF to UN SRSG Jan Pronk

On Friday Sep 29, 2006 Sudan's insurgent group JEM attacked and mortar bombed SLA-Minnawi forces near Greida, South Darfur - 40 killed.

The day before, JEM Leader Khalil Ibrahim, co-founder of NRF, published the following letter to Jan Pronk, UN special representative to Sudan, dated Thursday Sep 28 [via Sudan.net]

Dear Sir;

Thank you very much for your letter dated September 22nd 06. We respond to your Excellency with Ramadan greetings; greetings of piety, charity, peace and reflection. As an honour to the holy month of Ramadan, we are pleased to respond positively to your appeal and dedicate this festive month for peace and tranquillity for our people in Darfur. We seek this opportunity to reconfirm to you that our forces on the ground are clearly instructed all through not to act except in situations of self-defence and that instruction will be closely watched during the holy month. We hope that our adversaries will behave likewise.

As for your call to use this month for dialogue for peace, it is our conviction that the problem of Darfur is essentially political and can at best be resolved through peaceful negotiations. Military confrontation has never been our first choice and we look forward to dropping the gun out of the politics of Sudan all together. We are ready for a call from your office for resumption of peaceful settlement of Darfur conflict, any time, any where. The people of Darfur have suffered too much. They cannot wait any longer.

Sincerely yours;
[signed]
Dr. Khalil Ibrahim Mohamed
Chairman JEM
Co-founder of NRF

Good guys or what?

Mills joins Aegis Trust's Darfur campaign

Heather Mills is in negotiations with Aegis Trust to become a patron and even visit Sudan. A spokesman for Aegis confirms, "Ms Mills is very supportive of our Darfur campaign and wants to help push that on. She is lending her profile to the campaign. We are in dialogue with her." [via contactmusic.com]

Privatization of peacekeeping raises concerns

Oct 2 2006 World Peace Herald - Privatization of peacekeeping raises concerns:

Shortly after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell visited Darfur in 2004, Blackwater put together a proposal to go in there and stop the two sides from killing each other, Mr. Pelton said.

"The problem is, if you look at the presentation, it includes not only men with guns. They're offering helicopter gunships, a fighter bomber that has the capacity to drop cluster bombs and [satellite-guided weapons], armored vehicles. You say: "Wait a minute? That's a lot of offensive force. What does that have to do with peacekeeping?"

AU needs more UN support for Darfur - EU aid chief

Oct 2 2006 Reuters report by Ingrid Melander - excerpt:

The African Union needs increased United Nations support if it is to continue its peacekeeping operation in Darfur, European Commission aid chief Louis Michel said on Monday.

"In the current situation, the African Union cannot assume completely the job if it does not have an important contribution from the U.N.," Michel told reporters at the AU headquarters.

Let's hope such talk leads to the compromise of an "African Union Plus" that aid workers in Darfur (and this blog author) say they want too.

Sudan's JEM insurgents shell SLA-Minnawi forces nr Greida, S Darfur - 40 killed

Oct 2 2006 Guardian report by Jonathan Steele in Nyala, Sudan - Rebel groups kill 40 in Darfur - Foreign aid workers forced to abandon refugee camp:

Fierce clashes between rival African groups in south Darfur have left up to 40 people dead and prompted most foreign aid workers to abandon Greida, one of the world's largest camps for displaced people.

Fighters loyal to the Justice and Equality Movement, one of two rebel groups which refused to sign an internationally-brokered peace deal in May, used mortars and heavy machines to attack men from a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army which did accept the deal.

"Exchanges of fire lasted for three to four hours. It was only a mile from the town. It happened on Friday", the Guardian was told by an official from one of several aid agencies which withdrew from Greida to Nyala, the regional capital, at the weekend. They include Oxfam, Save the Children, and Merlin. Only the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has its own helicopters, has stayed in Greida to care for an estimated 130,000 homeless people who live in a vast camp beside the town.

The fighting appears to be the worst incident in Darfur since the peace deal was signed in May. Clashes in April sent 90,000 people fleeing to the camp but did not cause so many casualties.

In the first two and half years of the conflict in Sudan's western region so-called janjaweed militia backed by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum caused most of the killing, with villages being burnt, women raped, and livestock stolen. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced.

But the last 12 months, and particularly the period since May, have seen a spate of inter-tribal clashes. Darfur used to have three rebel groups but splits have developed within each of them, creating a bewildering series of factions and a climate of chaos. Bandits are also exploiting the lawlessness.

In north Darfur 25 aid agency vehicles have been hijacked or stolen since May, in many cases along with satellite phones. The increase in ethnic tension has put staff at risk, if they come across roadblocks thrown up by people from a different tribe. Eleven Sudanese aid workers have been killed in the last three months

Medecins sans Frontières had two cars stolen from its compound at Saraf Omra. Oxfam lost a lorry in the same area, and its Sudanese driver has not been found, prompting both organisations to withdraw from the area.

The crisis means that most displaced people in the camps have better access to food and medicine thann those who stayed in their villages. MSF left Korma, a large district centre, in August because of security concerns.

"When we came here, we deliberately decided to work outside the camps", said Kristel Eerdekens, MSF Belgium's mission head in north Darfur. "Some 20,000 people live in Korma, but not even our local staff can work there now, which means there is no doctor at all."

In Saraf Omra, with a population of 55,000, the primary health clinic is left in the hands of medical assistants. "No caesarians can be done, and no referrals to hospitals," she added.

In Kebkebiya three out of nine patients with suspected cholera recently died, partly because MSF staff have had to stop driving out to village clinics. In Jebel Marra where many children have oedema MSF has had to abandon plans to open a therapeutic feeding centre.

The World Food programme curtailed food deliveries to large parts of north Darfur this summer because of the surge in insecurity. They were resumed to the town of Malha, north-east of El Fasher, last month after the government regained control of the main road, but German Agro Action, the non-governmental organisation which runs the local distribution of food aid, has to contact rebel commanders to get clearance.

Rebel attacks have made numerous areas inaccessible. "One WFP truck was taken north of Kutum a week ago by people with National Redemption Front written on their vehicles. We negotiated, and got it and the driver back, but the food was gone," said Chris Czerwinski, the WFP's regional mission head. "Two weeks earlier the same happened with two trucks. Again it was NRF. The drivers were held for 10 days." The National Redemption Front is one of the new splinter groups which reject the peace deal.

Janjaweed militia have also set up roadblocks, where WFP drivers have been beaten and had their possessions stolen, but the trucks and food were not taken, Mr Czerwinski said.

No aid official is willing to quantify how much of the crime is done by pro-government groups and how much by rebel groups or bandits, since the raiders rarely identify their loyalties. "It would be unfair to point the finger only at the government. All parties have done their share of creating insecurity," said Ms Eerdekens.

Alpha Konare, a former president of Mali who now chairs the African Union commission, last week blamed the rebels for most of the collapse in security.

Unfortunately, this report does not make clear whether the JEM faction is part of NRF or not. Whatever, they're not interested in peace. They've admitted their aim is to overthrow Khartoum regime and, I guess, replace it with themselves. No doubt they've staged this attack to get media attention in the run up to EU's Barroso trip to Darfur with peace agenda and the historic EU-AU meeting taking place today at AU HQ in Ethiopia.

UN's Malloch Brown lauds US, UK on Darfur

Great diplomacy by UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown. Responding to UN basher Bolton's clumsy demand for an apology, he praised the UK and US for being "on the right side" in seeking to end what he called an outrage in Darfur. - Reuters via ABC 1 Oct 2006:

But he said it was clear that Sudan did not respond well to ultimatums delivered from New York, Washington, London or Brussels and a new diplomatic approach was needed to engage the Sudanese government.

Malloch Brown said a broader coalition of countries was needed to press Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to put an end to "an outrage" - including China and Arab states.

He also called for a more realistic medium-term "carrot and stick" strategy to give Sudan, a long poor country enjoying an oil boom, an interest in cooperating over Darfur while keeping a potential "choke hold" on trade and more war crimes indictments against Sudanese officials if it did not comply.

Note, Mr Malloch Brown is a Brit. I can't help wondering if he cleared his initial statement with Tony Blair to enable the US to save face, calm down and pull its horns in. Whatever, it's good to hear such sensible level heads in the UN, speaking out. Great diplomats ooze charm and smooth, clever stuff!