The American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, criticized Secretary-General Annan yesterday for employing double standards over sending U.N. troops to the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur.Mr. Bolton said that while Mr. Annan has publicly chided Washington for leadership shortcomings on Darfur, he has not encouraged Africans and Arabs to do more, and has failed to push his own U.N. underlings hard enough.
Mr. Bolton signaled America's sense of urgency on Darfur when he elevated the issue to the top of the Security Council's agenda on assuming the council's presidency for the month of February. Just three days into the presidency, Mr. Bolton encouraged the council to issue a statement calling for the replacement of the 7,500-troop-strong African Union force in Darfur with a much larger force under the U.N. umbrella, which would be augmented and strengthened with a mandate allowing intervention to stop atrocities in the region.
Mr. Annan has publicly chided the West, including America, saying the force should include support, military assets, and even troops from the developed world. Mr. Bolton sent a letter to Mr. Annan, offering Washington's help in planning the mission. A week after arriving in New York, however, four American military planners have met only once with U.N. peacekeeping officials.
At the Security Council, American ideas for establishing the force, which is opposed by the Sudanese government, met with resistance from Khartoum's allies from African and Arab countries.
"It would be helpful, I think, if the secretary-general, in addition to prodding the U.S., could also be out there talking to the African Union and the Arab League, and in fact, even talking to his own peacekeepers about the importance of moving ahead," Mr. Bolton told reporters yesterday.
"It's important that whatever is being said rhetorically" by Mr. Annan, Mr. Bolton added, "should be matched by what the Secretariat planners are doing."
Hundreds of thousands have been killed in Darfur over the last few years, in what only America so far has described as genocide. Mr. Annan's representative in Sudan, Jan Pronk, recently said that to stop the killings, rapes, and abuse, and to create an environment that would allow millions of Darfur villagers to return home from refugee camps in Sudan and Chad, a well trained force of 22,000 troops, supported by helicopters and other aircraft, should be deployed.
However, a top Turtle Bay peacekeeping official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The New York Sun it would take his department nine months to compose such a force. American officials said that when a peacekeeping force was needed for Liberia, U.N. officials also told them it would take many months, but after being prodded to set up the force in 90 days, they were able to do so.
Last week, President Bush said NATO could help to set up the force. In New York a second meeting is planned between U.N. officials and American military planners, according to U.N. spokesmen.
"They're here ready to go, and we think other nations are prepared to augment the planning force," Mr. Bolton said yesterday. "We recognize that the secretary-general needs help. That's why we brought these very experienced, very knowledgeable people up here, so we wouldn't lose any time."
Mr. Annan yesterday declined to respond, but his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, countered by saying that "the planning process is moving full steam ahead."
| We hae the caterers and the meeting rooms booked for MONTHS of meetings. How's that for planning, huh? |
The Sudan regime, however, argues that non-African troops would infringe on its sovereignty. "Sudan rejects replacement of the African Union forces with United Nations forces, "Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha told a visiting delegation of 11 American legislators, led by House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat of California, on Sunday, according to the Associated Press.
As a result, Khartoum's African and Arab allies in Turtle Bay have resisted ideas for a council resolution that Mr. Bolton circulated last week among the 15 council members.
"African and Arab members of the Security Council on Friday said we should wait until the African Union decision on March 3," Mr. Bolton said. "I said no, we're not going to wait for that. We're going to go ahead and circulate these elements of the resolution" in order to pass it before the end of the month.