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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS