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UK could send troops to Sudan 'quickly'
| Tony the Lion roars again! |
Britain could send 5,000 troops to Sudan very quickly if the government decides to intervene in the humanitarian crisis, the head of the army said yesterday. "If need be we will be able to go to Sudan," General Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of general staff, told BBC News 24's Hardtalk programme. "I suspect we could put a brigade together very quickly indeed." Pressure for intervention was growing yesterday after the US House of Representatives unanimously approved a resolution declaring that "the atrocities unfolding in Darfur ... are genocide". In defiance of complaints from Sudanese officials that their country is being treated like Iraq, members of the house urged President George Bush to seek a UN resolution threatening sanctions against those responsible and authorising a multinational force to protect displaced people and humanitarian workers.
A draft security council resolution is already swirling the drain circulating at the UN headquarters in New York. The UN estimates that the 15-month conflict between Arab nomads and black African farmers has killed at least 30,000 people and displaced more than 1 million. Although Sudan has promised to protect displaced civilians and disarm the Arab Janjaweed militias after they've finished the job they were given to do, western diplomats say it has not done anything enough - particularly in terms of reining-in the militias. The hope in Washington and London is that sight of the draft resolution will persuade Khartoum to comply, rather than dig its heels in, but officials say they will press ahead with a vote if they feel the pressure is not working. The UN has been reluctant to use the word "genocide", which in law has a specific and rather narrow definition.
| 'cause then they'd have to act -- quelle horror! |
Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, said the terminology used was less important than fixing the problem. "Whatever you call it, it's a catastrophe," he said after trying to transplant a spine into meeting the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, on Thursday. "People are dying at an increasing rate. Right now this is a matter for the Sudanese government to handle. They have been supporting and sustaining some of these Janjaweed elements, and this has to end. Since they turned it [the violence] on, they can turn it off. We made it clear to them that there will be consequences if it is not turned off."
Posted by: Steve White 2004-07-24 |
