More than 100,000 people staged a state-organized protest against a UN Security Council resolution giving Sudan 30 days to stop Arab militia violence in the western region of Darfur or face economic and diplomatic penalties.
Protesters also warned on Wednesday that Sudan could become a battlefield like Afghanistan or Iraq if foreign military forces enter this African country to try to end the 17-month Darfur conflict, which has killed 30,000 people, forced a million from their homes and left an estimated 2.2 million in urgent need of food, medicine and other basics.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"Targeting Sudan means you will fall into a third swamp, after Afghanistan and Iraq," said a senior member of the ruling party, Mohammed Ali Abdullah, in comments directed at US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"There are lions here in Sudan who would like to confront the Americans," he said.
Although no Western government has threatened to invade Sudan, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has mentioned the possibility of such intervention since it became clear the Khartoum government was failing to curb the violence in Darfur. France has deployed a small force along Chad's border with Darfur to stop Arab militia from crossing over.
In Ethiopia on Wednesday, the African Union said it would send a peacekeeping mission of 1,600 to 1,800 troops to Darfur to speed up humanitarian aid and counter the repeated violations of an April 8 cease-fire deal between the Sudanese government and two rebel groups.
It was unclear when the force would be sent.
In New York, Annan said he was sending a team led by the UN military adviser to Ethiopia on Wednesday to work with the African Union on the restructuring of the force and its needs.
The expanded force "would protect the monitors, it will protect the regroupment camps for the rebels and the groups that are going to be disarmed, and its mere presence on the ground would also have a positive impact and dissuade further attacks," Annan said.
He also said Wednesday's Khartoum demonstrations "are not unexpected," saying governments sometimes use demonstrations to "pressure" the world body and "send a message to the international community."
When Annan was asked by a reporter whether the Sudanese Government is ready to cooperate with the international community, he replied, "I think the Sudanese government has got the message. I have a representative on the ground. You also have to understand that it is a complex society, and some of the statements you hear are not necessarily for you or me, but for people on the ground."
On Friday, the UN Security Council passed a resolution giving Sudan 30 days to curb pro-government Arab militias blamed for the violence in Darfur or face penalties.
Annan has said he expects Sudan to cooperate with the resolution, but warned of consequences if Khartoum does not.
In a July 29 statement, Annan accused Sudanese "government security personnel" of threatening displaced people and expressed grave concern about "reports of continuing intimidation, threats and attacks against refugees."
Wednesday's protesters, many chanting "No to America and its followers," delivered a memorandum to the UN envoy's office in Khartoum demanding Annan retract his "misleading" remarks about the Darfur situation or resign.
"You, as the secretary general of the United Nations, hold all the responsibility for escalating the crisis in Darfur as your remarks formed the basis of the misleading, antagonistic Western propaganda against Sudan," the memorandum said in Arabic.
The UN and international aid organizations accuse the pro-government Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, of waging a brutal campaign to drive Sudanese citizens of African origin out of Darfur, which borders Chad.
The ruling National Congress party's secretary-general, Ibrahim Ahmed Omar, led the demonstrators from the UN offices to the presidential palace in Khartoum's Martyrs' Square, where he accused foreign nations of threatening Sudan in a bid to gain access to the country's natural resources.
"They will return empty-handed ... [because] we used to be Mujahedeen and we are still Mujahedeen," Omar told the protesters, who included people holding banners threatening holy war and students wearing military uniforms.
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
RSS