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| Africa: Horn | |
| Sudanese FM tells international community to stay out of Darfur | |
| 2004-08-24 | |
| The international community should cease interfering in the Darfur crisis in Sudan, the country's foreign minister told the French newspaper Le Figaro in an interview published Tuesday, as peace talks organised by the African Union made some progress. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail also challenged UN estimates of the number of people killed in the 18-month conflict, and accused the United States of deliberately blocking the search for a solution. "The international community must stop intervening in our country," Osman Ismail said in the interview. He said what had started as a long-running tribal conflict had "degenerated after multiple foreign interventions." He said many of Sudan's rebel movements had received training in Eritrea and other African states that had a "strategic alliance" with the United States dating from the time of president Bill Clinton's administration. Now, "some NGOs (non-governmental organisations), some circles in the United States", particularly the state-run USAID cooperation agency, have been trying to stop a peace accord for a seperate rebellion in southern Sudan, he said. The US Congress' recent vote to declare the conflict in Darfur, in western Sudan, a "genocide" was, he added, a result of "both parties looking to seduce the Afro-American vote in the next presidential election." I wish the 'Afro-American' community cared enough about Sudan to let it effect their vote.
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| Posted by:TS(vice girl) |
| #1 "And we have asked the militia over which we have influence to stop fighting." I wonder what he defines that to be ... |
| Posted by: Edward Yee 2004-08-25 12:49:57 AM |