More than 130 Chinese engineers arrived in Sudan's war-torn Darfur on Saturday as part of the vanguard for a joint African Union (AU)-UN peacekeeping mission to be in place next year, a UN spokesman said.
But the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel group said it would not allow the engineers onto land held by its forces. It accused Beijing of stoking the crisis by supporting Khartoum.
"They are not welcome ... They can never come into our area," JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim said.
PHOTO: AP
"We oppose them coming because China is not interested in human rights. It is just interested in Sudan's resources. We are calling on them to quit Sudan, especially the petroleum areas," he said.
China has advised Sudan to cooperate with UN efforts to resolve the crisis but remains its largest arms supplier, with sales increasing 25-fold between 2002 and 2005. Total trade rose 124 percent in the first half of this year compared to last year.
JEM attacked a Chinese oil installation last month in the central Sudanese region of Kordofan, but Ibrahim declined to comment on whether it would target the engineers.
"I am not saying I will attack them. I will not say I will not attack them. What I am saying is that they are taking our oil for blood," he said.
"China has so far only offered US$1 million for displaced Darfur people. Meanwhile they are sucking a million barrels of oil out of Sudan every day. We do not welcome them," Ibrahim said.
The rebels have said they would welcome peacekeepers from any country but China. But Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Friday insisted China and Pakistan were the only non-African countries he would accept.
The widely read Sudan Tribune Web site on Saturday said the Chinese units were also opposed by Darfur's displaced people.
Hussein Abusharati, spokesman for Darfur Internationally Displaced People, told the Paris-based site that he rejected Beijing's involvement because "genocide and robbery are taking place in Darfur since 2003 thanks to Chinese weapons."
UN spokesman Ali Hamati said the Chinese engineers and medical officers arrived in Nyala at 10:30am wearing the blue berets and scarves of UN peacekeepers, the first of a 315-strong contingent promised by Beijing.
They will build bridges and roads and dig wells to prepare the ground for the 26,000 peacekeepers due from January onwards.
The hybrid force is supposed to replace a beleaguered 7,000 strong troop of AU peacekeepers which is trying to maintain security in Darfur, roughly the size of France.
Ten AU peacekeepers were killed during a raid on their base in the eastern Darfur town of Haskanita in September. Ibrahim later blamed a breakaway faction of JEM for the attack.
Since February 2003, more than 200,000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease in western Sudan's Darfur region, while 2.2 million others have been left homeless.
China, which is the biggest buyer of Sudan's oil, has been accused of shielding Khartoum -- accused of fanning the violence in Darfur -- from international sanctions.
The Sudanese government, while objecting to troops from Nepal, Scandinavia and Thailand, has welcomed the Chinese mission to Darfur.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
YELLOW SHIRTS: Many protesters were associated with pro-royalist groups that had previously supported the ouster of Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin, in 2006 Protesters rallied on Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced more than 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok’s Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and voiced their backing of the country’s army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, although
MOGAMI-CLASS FRIGATES: The deal is a ‘big step toward elevating national security cooperation with Australia, which is our special strategic partner,’ a Japanese official said Australia is to upgrade its navy with 11 Mogami-class frigates built by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said yesterday. Billed as Japan’s biggest defense export deal since World War II, Australia is to pay US$6 billion over the next 10 years to acquire the fleet of stealth frigates. Australia is in the midst of a major military restructure, bolstering its navy with long-range firepower in an effort to deter China. It is striving to expand its fleet of major warships from 11 to 26 over the next decade. “This is clearly the biggest defense-industry agreement that has ever
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
RSS