KHARTOUM - Sudanese President Omar Al Beshir said his country could assume peacekeeping operations in war-torn Darfur, state media reported on Monday in a fresh rebuff of the UN’s deployment plan. Sudan “is prepared to undertake the peacekeeping process in Darfur if the AU abandons or relinquishes the mandate it was granted by the government,” Omdurman Radio quoted Beshir as telling a cabinet meeting on Sunday.| 'cause it's worked so well so far ... |
The foreign ministry on Monday summoned the UN’s top envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk, or his deputy, to explain under what circumstances a Darfur rebel leader was allegedly transported on a UN flight over the weekend. Suleiman Jammus, a member of a dissident faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), was taken Saturday from the main Darfur town of El-Fasher to South Kordofan state on a UN helicopter flight, the foreign ministry said. “It was clear that the act was planned to take place behind the back of the Sudanese authorities,” a statement issued late Saturday said.
Jammus belongs to the wing of the SLM that opposes the fragile peace agreement signed between Minni MinawiÂ’s SLM faction and Khartoum in Nigeria last month.
The foreign ministry said it had suspended all UN operations in Darfur until further notice, except those of the two largest agencies in the region -- the World Food Programme and the UN childrenÂ’s fund UNICEF. UN offices in Khartoum did not confirm the incident and refused to comment on the governmentÂ’s reaction.
On Sunday, up to 5,000 demonstrators -- mainly from the ruling National Congress PartyÂ’s student and youth organisations --
After completing a mission aimed at mustering support from the authorities for a UN deployment, the UN’s undersecretary general for peacekeeping operations Jean-Marie Guehenno reported no breakthrough. “The response we had was not the one that we would have liked to hear,” he said last week in a briefing during which he enumerated the ideas he submitted to the government during his consultations.
Beshir has repeatedly warned he will turn Darfur into “a graveyard” for Western troops, accusing the West of seeking to ”recolonise Sudan”.
| And the feckless Y'urp-peons in charge at the U.N. believe him, of course. |