By Clarence Fernandez

LANGKAWI, Malaysia, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Zambia appealed on Tuesday for all nations to contribute troops for a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, saying time was running out for innocent people there.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes during more than four years of rape, murder, disease and looting in Darfur, violence that the United States calls genocide.

European governments are reluctant to use the term, which Khartoum rejects. Sudan puts the death toll at 9,000. A week after the United Nations Security Council approved the deployment of 26,000 peacekeeping troops and police to stem the bloodshed, Zambian Foreign Minister Mundia Sikatana urged immediate deployment of the peacekeepers.

"That's a problem for the entire planet," Sikatana told Reuters in an interview. "Otherwise it is getting too late. Innocent people are being bombed."

Sikatana was among a group of African, Asian and Caribbean leaders meeting on the Malaysian tourist island of Langkawi to discuss measures to fight poverty.

He said international participation was necessary in a peacekeeping force for Darfur because African nations by themselves did not have the resources to muster sufficient troops for such a mission.

"We don't have the means," Sikatana added. "Immediately Africa has no capacity to deal with the situation in Darfur. Who are we to stop the whole world contributing?"

Asked how soon he felt forces should be deployed, he said, "Immediately," adding that he hoped a force could be put in place within a month's time.

"We are going to the U.N. this coming September," he said. "I hope that by that time the United Nations forces will be in place."

INTERNATIONAL MEDIATORS

The region appeared to take a step closer to peace this week after international mediators said Darfur rebel factions meeting in Tanzania agreed a common negotiating position and wanted final peace talks with the Sudanese government within months.

Since a 2006 peace deal signed by only one rebel faction, insurgents have split into more than a dozen groups with myriad demands.

Conflict has gripped the remote western region of Sudan since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003, accusing the central government of neglecting Darfur. Khartoum mobilised mostly Arab militias to quell the revolt. Zambia already has peacekeepers in Darfur, as part of an African Union force, Sikatana said, placing the blame for the strife squarely on the government of Sudan, saying it had resisted resolving the issue. "How can the government of Sudan, that earns so much money from oil, fail to take care of such a problem?" he said. "They have been resisting all the time."

The U.N. peacekeeping mission will absorb the 7,000 African Union troops currently in Darfur, and is expected to cost more than $2 billion in the first year. Its civilian head is from the Congo Republic, while its force commander is a Nigerian.

AlertNet news is provided by