Posted on 03/20/2006 1:29:38 PM PST by tallhappy
By C. Bryson Hull
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Letting non-African troops into Sudan's troubled Darfur region risks creating turmoil like that seen after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Sudan's president said on Monday.
Despite the widespread view that an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force had done little to quell violence in Darfur, President Omar al-Bashir argued it was doing its job well and needed no outside help.
Sudan has rejected a push for a United Nations-led peacekeeping force in Darfur until it signs a peace agreement with rebel groups it is fighting there. AU-led peace talks are underway in Abuja, Nigeria.
"We have witnessed what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and learned lessons that shouldn't be repeated on the African continent," Bashir told a one-day regional summit in Nairobi.
The AU has been under international pressure to hand over its duties to a better-equipped U.N. force. The 7,000-strong AU mission, monitoring a shaky ceasefire, is badly stretched and was at risk of running out of money by the end of March.
Earlier this month, the AU extended its Darfur mission until September 30, to buy time to break the impasse over transferring peacekeeping duties to the U.N.
Sudan is accused by U.N. and U.S. officials of arming marauding Arab militia, who have raped, killed and driven into squalid camps some 2 million villagers. Sudan denies this.
Bashir said the AU mission's work was a "success for Africa" and proof the continent could work out its problems without foreign intervention.
"We will spare no effort to create the conducive atmosphere for the African Union mission to carry out its task until we reach a negotiated comprehensive peaceful settlement in Darfur in the very near future," he said.
Rights groups, and some AU field commanders, have accused Sudan of hampering the AU mission by throwing up logistical roadblocks.
Sudan did accept a U.N. force in a separate two-decade civil war in the south -- after a peace agreement was reached.
This fellow seems to be aware this is part of the war on Islamofascism and is saying the al Qaead/terrorist network is ready to be active there if their power over Sudan is threatened.
Oh, doesn't HE have some High & Mighty Dreams with some Lofty Ambitions...
And hey, you can really trust him. (Reminds me of Al Capone..."Nice country you got here...shame if anything should happen to it."
They mean "letting in EFFECTIVE troops"
yep
General Bashir is part of a vicious cabal of riverain Arabs who run the Sudan and don't give a damn about the Sudan's periphery. Under these gangsters who pass themselves off as Islamists, more than 2 million southern Sudanese have died in a civil war. Now, hundreds of thousands are displaced in Darfur as the Khartoum government favors (and arms) the Arab tribes in the hope they will eliminate the Muslims from African tribes. Ah, Islam. The religion of peace.
"General Bashir" is part of a vicious cabal of riverain Arabs.
He was promoted, he's "Field Marshall" Bashir. Geeze, he must have commanded many field armies to become that? Hopefully we'll never have to come up against him on a battlefield, I shudder at the thought. (Yeah Right!)
make way for Über field marshal Koffi Annan!
Perhaps he thought he deserved it for remote controlling the Janjaweed?
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