Key world leaders seek plan for Darfur

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FE Team | Published: June 26, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

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PARIS, June 25 (AP): French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged swift international action Monday toward speeding up deployment of troops in Darfur, as key world players met to try to consolidate efforts and resources for the ravaged Sudanese region.
Sudan was not invited to the one-day Paris conference, organised by a new French government that has made the four-year conflict in Darfur a top priority. The meetings come after Sudan agreed - under international pressure - to allow the deployment of a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in the region.
Sarkozy pledged an additional $13.4 million to the existing - and cash-strapped - African Union force. "Silence is killing," in Darfur, Sarkozy said in greeting participants to the conference.
"The lack of decision and the lack of action is unacceptable," he added.
He praised Sudan for agreeing to the hybrid force but insisted, "We must be firm toward belligerents who refuse to join the negotiating table."
Stepping up pressure for progress, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said Sunday night that the international community has fallen down on the job in Darfur.
"I have seen firsthand the devastation and the difficult circumstances in which people live in Darfur, and I will be very frank," Rice said after meeting Kouchner in Paris. "I do not think that the international community has really lived up to its responsibilities there."
Rice welcomed the fresh energy France's new conservative-led leadership has put to the Darfur cause. She and Sarkozy met Tuesday morning, their first face-to-face talks since Sarkozy took over last month from Jacques Chirac, who often had prickly relations with the United States.
French officials said they hope to mobilise the international community at what they called a "pivotal moment," following the Sudanese government's agreement earlier this month to allow the deployment of a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force in the region.
Details about the composition, mandate and timetable of the joint force are expected to top discussions at Monday's meetings.
More than 200,000 people have died in the Darfur region of western Sudan and 2.5 million have become refugees since 2003, when local rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan's government is accused of unleashing in response a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed - a charge Sudan denies.
The UN and Western governments had pressed Sudan for months to accept a plan for a large joint force of UN and AU peacekeepers to replace the overwhelmed 7,000-strong African force now in Darfur.
Sudan initially accepted the plan in November but then backtracked, before finally agreeing earlier this month. Rice warned Sudan's government not to renege on its agreement.
Officials from the Sudanese government in Khartoum have said Monday's conference could backfire and cause more harm than good.