JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press
- African envoys sought support Wednesday from Russia and China for ways of letting Sudan’s president dodge a global court prosecutor’s Darfur war crimes charges.
“The search for justice should not jeopardize the other priorities in Sudan,” South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo said.
Also Wednesday, gunmen in Darfur shot and killed another United Nations-African Union peacekeeper, just as the Security Council voted to condemn the killing of seven Darfur peacekeepers a week ago as a possible war crime.
The latest attack killed a Nigerian company commander in Forobaranga in West Darfur while he was on patrol not far from a U.N.-A.U. peacekeeping camp, U.N. officials said.
Sudan, South Africa and China expressed concern that indicting Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir could further damage the peace process, diplomats said. Some Western diplomats and U.N. officials also say they fear an arrest warrant against Bashir could unleash reprisals against the peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID.
But to many, that process already is withering and the mission has no peace to keep.
“There is no peace agreement. The peace process has been stalled for the last few months,” British Ambassador John Sawers said. “There’s an urgent need for renewed effort on the peace process side.”
International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges Monday against al-Bashir related to a campaign of extermination the U.N. says has claimed 300,000 lives and driven 2.5 million people from their homes. Moreno-Ocampo, based at The Hague, Netherlands, said survivors are preyed upon by government-backed janjaweed Arab militia and regular troops. It could take judges months to rule on whether to issue an arrest warrant.
Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed said some African diplomats were discussing with China and Russia ways of persuading the 15-nation council, which asked the court in 2005 to investigate the Darfur crisis, to block Moreno-Ocampo’s work for a year. Neither China’s nor Russia’s diplomats commented publicly Wednesday.
Last week seven U.N.-A.U. peacekeepers were killed and at least another 19 wounded in Darfur during an ambush by about 200 gunmen on horseback and in SUVs.
The council on Wednesday condemned the July 8 attack as “premeditated, deliberate and intended to inflict casualties,” and said attacks on U.N. peacekeepers “can constitute war crimes.”
Fighting erupted in Darfur in 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination.
Along with less-than-adequate cooperation from the Sudanese government, the U.S. and other governments haven’t provided the peacekeeping force with needed attack and transport helicopters. The purpose of the force is more to protect civilians and ensure access for humanitarian workers than to keep any peace.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council in a report that he is “deeply disappointed” by the situation, but he still set the ambitious goal of doubling the number of peacekeeping troops to 80 percent of its authorized strength by year’s end.
As of June there were 11,359 personnel in Darfur — two-thirds of them soldiers — as part of the peacekeeping mission, which is authorized to have 26,000 troops, police, civilians and other personnel, Ban reported.
With the U.N.-A.U. peacekeeping mission’s mandate set to expire at the end of this month, the council debated Wednesday extending the Darfur mission for another year. Such an extension is expected to be granted two weeks from now.
