US senators call for UN sanctions against Khartoum
Wednesday, March 9, 2005 at 05:36AM
TheSpook
Two US senators called for the United
Nations to place "hefty" sanctions on the Sudan government to end the
"genocide" taking place in Sudan's Darfur region. In a bill submitted
to the US Senate, Republican Sam Brownback and Democrat Jon Corzine
called for the US government to press the UN Security Council to set
international sanctions against Khartoum. They also called for US
President George W. Bush to name a special envoy to deal with the Sudan
situation. Some 70,000 people have died and 1.6 million have been
displaced in Darfur during the last two years, largely at the hands of
the Khartoum-supported Janjaweed militia. "The UN should vote to
immediately levy hefty and serious economic and diplomatic sanctions
against the government of Sudan, the government-sponsored Janjaweed,
and any businesses or companies complicit through their government
connections," said Brownback. "We must insist upon an arms embargo
against the government of Sudan, travel restrictions on Sudanese
government officials, and a freeze on the assets of companies
controlled by the ruling party that do business abroad," he said. In
February Washington proposed new targeted UN sanctions for Sudan in
what it called a bid to get all sides in the conflict to end the
bloodshed. Earlier Wednesday, a Sudanese foreign ministry official
expressed "astonishment" over the US proposal, while a senior Sudanese
security official accused the US embassy in Khartoum of carrying out
"hostile activities" against the country. Last year Brownback and
Corzine pushed through the Senate a resolution that labelled the
conflict in Darfur "genocide", while the UN continues to avoid the term
in dealing with Sudan. [more]