Annan faults Sudan government for Darfur killings
Source: Reuters
By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, Dec 7 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Sudan's government on Thursday it may have to answer "individually and collectively" for failing to protect the people of Darfur from killings, rape and destruction. Annan has been trying to get Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to accept a "hybrid" U.N.-African Union force in Darfur where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million people driven out of their homes in fighting among rebels, pro-government militia and Sudanese forces. "I think the responsibility to protect the citizens is the responsibility of the government in Khartoum," Annan told reporters. "The government patently has not been able to do that, given all the difficulties we see in Darfur -- the killings, the rape, the destruction." He said the international community had offered help but the government refused by rejecting U.N. peacekeepers. "In time they may have to answer collectively and individually for what is happening in Darfur," Annan said. "I think we should be clear where the failure lies, where the difficulties, lie." Annan said Bashir attended a recent African Union summit in Abuja, Nigeria, that approved the hybrid force to beef up the African Union that is fielding some 7,000 underfunded African troops in Darfur. But he said, "Obviously, the proof of the pudding is going to be in the eating, and we are going to come up with concrete steps which we will press the Sudanese on." Bashir wrote Annan a letter last week the secretary-general called "a bit ambiguous." U.N. officials said the Sudanese president wanted a tripartite commission to approve any troops coming into Darfur, which in effect gives Khartoum a veto. Annan said the Security Council would probably pick up the cost only "if it is confident that we will be able to put on the ground a workable, effective force, that will bring some measure of security." Bashir has rejected any U.N. troops in Darfur but said they could help the African Union with command and control and logistics. He views Security Council interference as a Western colonial plot, particularly since Arab nations have been nearly silent in criticizing his government. The Security Council, led by the United States and Britain, authorized up to 22,500 troops and police for Darfur, providing Sudan agreed. China, Russia and Qatar abstained. But recently, China told Khartoum to accept U.N. offers. Asked if he considered the war in Darfur a failure of the United Nations, Annan said, "You often talk of the U.N. as the secretariat but there are many U.N.'s," a reference to nations in the Security Council and the General Assembly.
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