Security Council again seeks Darfur intervention government still resists

UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and members of the U.N. Security Council took turns Monday demanding swift intervention to ease the mounting humanitarian crisis in Darfur, but the Sudanese government again resisted a U.N. peacekeeping force.\nThe morning-long council meeting was intended to renew pressure on Sudan to allow the U.N. to take over an African Union peacekeeping force that has been unable to stop the violence in the western Darfur region. But Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir says the switch would violate the country's sovereignty and has warned that his army would fight any U.N. forces sent to Darfur.\nSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that she told Sudan on Monday there is no chance of improved relations with the United States if it flouts the world's demand for U.N. peacekeepers in Sudan's western province of Darfur.\nRice, who is in Canada to thank the U.S. ally for helping stranded American air passengers during the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, said she delivered the stern message to Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol at a meeting in Washington.\n"I delivered the strongest possible message in the strongest possible terms to the Sudanese government that any hope for bettering relations between the United States and Sudan rests on Sudan's cooperation with the United Nations Security Council resolution," she said.\nRice said Akol carried a letter to President Bush and "brought hope for better relations between the United States and Sudan, and I told him in no uncertain terms that wasn't on the agenda unless Sudan acted responsibly."\nSecurity Council officials said they were encouraged by the fact that a Sudanese representative actually attended Monday's meeting, a change from previous gatherings that Sudan had boycotted.\nYasir Abdelsalam, a senior Sudanese official at the U.N., accused the council of choosing "the path of confrontation" by adopting a resolution last month meant to speed the transfer of authority over the peacekeepers to the U.N. Yet he also said the government was ready to talk, something that diplomats said they believed was a good sign.\n"Sudan will always be ready for dialogue ... and we will open the doors wide to cooperation without conditions, without any limitations," Abdelsalam said.\nThe resolution passed last month acknowledged that peacekeepers could not enter Sudan without the government's consent, something that member governments have been working for months to achieve. More than 200,000 people have died from war and starvation in Darfur, and Annan said 1.9 million have been displaced.\nAnnan said plenty of blame for Darfur's current plight rested with the Sudanese government, demanding that it halt an offensive launched Aug. 28 to flush out rebel strongholds in Darfur and warning it would suffer "opprobrium and disgrace" if it does not.\n"The consequences of the government's current attitude -- yet more death and suffering, perhaps on a catastrophic scale -- will be felt first and foremost by the people of Darfur," Annan said. "But the government itself will also suffer, if it fails in its sacred responsibility to protect its own people."\nThe World Food Program said Monday that violence has prevented food aid from reaching some 355,000 people in northern Darfur for the past three months and expressed fears the humanitarian situation could worsen when African peacekeepers' mandate expires at the end of September.\nThe African Union's Peace and Security Council will meet on Sept. 18 in New York, just before this year's General Assembly meeting, to discuss breaking the deadlock in Darfur.\nAmbassadors including Tanzania's Augustine Mahiga joined the call for Sudan to stop its attacks in Darfur.\n"In our view a military solution to the current situation can only add misery and suffering to the people and complicate the already fragile political and security situation in Darfur," Mahiga said.\nThe U.N. wants to take control of peacekeeping in Sudan because the 7,000-strong African Union force is understaffed and starved of cash and has been unable to halt the violence in Darfur.\nHowever, Sudan has said it would expel the African Union peacekeepers if they insist on transferring their mission to the United Nations after an AU mandate expires at the end of the month.\nSpeaking at an event outside the U.N., U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said he believed the council would learn within the next month or so whether Sudan will allow United Nations peacekeepers into Darfur. He said he was not prepared to press the Security Council any further and shame Sudan's allies China and Russia into backing a tougher resolution.\n"Our effort at the moment ... is to get the U.N. in control so that we can do something for the people on the ground because if we fail to do that, there's just no describing what the consequences will be for them, for them, the innocent victims of Darfur," Bolton said.