KHARTOUM/NAIROBI, 5 August 2004 — Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Khartoum yesterday against a possible intervention by Western troops in the troubled Darfur region. The demonstration, organized by the Sudanese Trade Union Federation, brought together tens of thousands, possibly even a hundred thousand people, onto the streets of Khartoum. Among them were senior government officials, students and Muslim clergymen.
The demonstrators said they were ready to wage a holy war against any Western troops sent to Sudan and Darfur, and that Sudan would never become another Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia. One of the keynote speakers during the protest, the secretary-general of the leading National Congress party, Ibrahim Ahmed Omer, held UN chief Kofi Annan responsible for the current situation in Darfur. “All of this has happened because of Annan’s false statements on Darfur,” Omer told the mass rally.
A statement issued by a militant group calling itself Kataeeb Al-Furgan “Brigades of Righteousness” vowed to make Darfur a graveyard for Americans.
Meanwhile, the African Union said it was ready to increase its planned peacekeeping force in Darfur from 300 to almost 2,000 troops. “Rwanda and Nigeria have offered to send one battalion each (one battalion is 600-800 troops) to Darfur”, AU spokesman Adam Thiam told Deutsche Presse Agentur in Addis Ababa.
The AU Peace and Security Council is expected to approve the increase of the force before the end of this week. It will also look at broadening the mandate of the current protection force, transforming it into a fully-fledged peacekeeping force, with the right to disarm the Janjaweed militia.
“Rwanda is ready to send as many troops as necessary if asked. We are not ready to witness another genocide anywhere in the world”, Rwandan Army spokesman Patrick Karegeya told DPA.
Doubts have been raised whether a few thousand troops would be able to control the situation in Darfur, which occupies an area the size of France. “We want to send more, but for that we need the help of donors”, said Adam Thiam.
If an AU peacekeeping mission is sent to Darfur, it would be only the second ever all-African force sent to intervene in another African country’s internal conflict. Traditionally, African leaders have preferred not to meddle in the affairs of sister nations. The Khartoum government has not expressed any specific objection to an African peacekeeping mission.
Nigeria is also to send a battalion of peacekeeping troops to join the AU force in Darfur, Foreign Minister Olu Adeniji told AFP in Lagos yesterday. “We are contributing one battalion,” he said. Asked when the force would begin its mission, he replied: “That has yet to be decided, because of the issue of logistics. The AU is still working on the logistics.”
He said that the AU planned to send a three-battalion force of around 2,000 men, but did not say which other countries would contribute. A Nigerian Army battalion is usually made up of just over 770 soldiers.
Earlier, a spokesman for the African Union had said that talks were being conducted with the United States and the Netherlands about providing transport aircraft to ferry the African force into the remote war zone.
Germany and Britain have also been in talks about helping finance the mission, AU spokesman Adam Thiam said. “We are still waiting on the international community in this regard. The response is coming, slowly,” Adeniji said.
A JEM rebel leader, meanwhile, said last evening that fierce fighting has broken out between rebel groups and the Arab militia in Darfur. “Since last night (Tuesday) about 5,000 Janjaweed have been attacking our two movements in Mahadjiria and Cheeria, between Nyala and El-Fasher in the south of Darfur,” a JEM spokesman said.
Ahmat Toggo said a number of rebels had been killed or wounded, but would not be more specific. He said the fighting was still going on at Midday yesterday. “These clashes, which have been exceptionally intense, have meant that observers from the cease-fire commission based in El-Fasher have not been able to reach the front line,” said Toggo.
Last week, Egypt and Sudan agreed Egypt would reinforce the current 120-strong group of AU military observers on the ground in Darfur.
On Tuesday, Annan dismissed Sudan’s negative reaction to the UN resolution on the Darfur humanitarian crisis, saying Khartoum is “moving in the right direction” in implementing it. The resolution, passed last week, calls on Khartoum to implement commitments to resolve the crisis in Darfur, where government-backed militia have been accused of humanitarian abuses in fighting rebels, or face sanctions.
The Security Council wants to see signs of progress within 30 days. Annan said the reaction from Khartoum showed that Sudanese officials understood the resolution, which he said was “loud and clear”.
UN special envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, said yesterday that “a full solution to the conflict in 30 days is impossible. They (Khartoum) cannot control the rebels and not all of the Janjaweed”.
“They have started to act on the resolution. They have added more police in Darfur and they have stopped - as far as we know - their own military activities, such as air raids”, Pronk told the BBC.
Britain’s most senior military commander Gen. Sir Mike Jackson last week said his country would be able to send 5,000 troops to Darfur if a military intervention was decided upon. The present UN resolution, however, rules out military intervention.
More than one million people have been forced to flee their homes in Darfur since the conflict broke out last year. Nearly 200,000 have escaped across the border to Chad. UN estimates say up to 50,000 people have died as a result of the conflict.
