Washington's threat of sanctions against Sudan over the Darfur crisis is part of a U.S. conspiracy aimed at destroying the government in Khartoum as it did in Iraq and Somalia, a senior Sudanese official said.
"Sudan is not afraid of the threat of sanctions by the United States, which is using the crisis in Darfur to weaken and destroy the government of Sudan in a similar fashion in which they devastated Iraq and Somalia," said Angelo Beda, Deputy Speaker of Sudan's parliament. Beda, speaking at a news conference in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa late on Monday, was referring to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and U.S. support of a Somalia peace operation that ended in humiliation in 1993. The U.N. Security Council gave Sudan 30 days to disarm and prosecute Arab Janjaweed militia accused of killing, raping and driving villagers from their land in an 18-month conflict or face unspecified, unenforceable, and widely-ignored sanctions. The deadline expired on August 30.
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