[allAfrica.com] [The_Nation,_Nairobi] Tough Choices for US And UK As Dafur Crisis Persists The East African (Nairobi) NEWS August 2, 2004 Posted to the web August 3, 2004 By Kevin J. Kelley And Paul Redfern Washington & London THE UNITED States is not on the brink of military action in Sudan nor does it welcome the armed rebellion in the Darfur region, a senior US diplomat said last week. American intervention in Sudan would be considered only as a "last resort," said Charles Snyder, the second-ranking African affairs official in the State Department. The US and its allies are giving the Khartoum government more time to halt all attacks by Arab militias in Darfur and to provide full access for relief supplies, Mr Snyder told reporters at a July 27 briefing in Washington. He also denied recent charges by Sudanese officials that the US is using the crisis in Darfur as a pretext for moves to overthrow the government in Khartoum. "We have worked for over three years to bring to closure a long civil war between the north and south" in Sudan, Mr Snyder noted. "This is not the action of a government that seeks to topple another government." But if Khartoum fails to take promised actions soon, Mr Snyder said, the US will be able to make a persuasive case for allied intervention in the Darfur region. Sudanese government forces and allied militias have conducted raids inside neighbouring Chad, he noted. "It's already slopped over the borders, if you will, [so] in that sense we've got the international justification on that ground if it ever came to it," Mr Snyder said. At the same time, "we hold no brief with the rebels" fighting in Darfur, Mr Snyder declared. "Their political positions are not particularly attractive to us," he said at another point in the briefing. "We do call on the rebels to cease and desist, to stop this rebellion and honour the ceasefire which they agreed to on April 8, and we've worked with them to make them understand that that's in their best interest," Mr Snyder said. Some critics are meanwhile charging that the United States' reluctance to act military to halt massacres of civilians in Darfur stems from Washington's reliance on Khartoum's cooperation on anti-terrorism initiatives. Mr Snyder agreed that there is a positive side to US-Sudan relations "despite our great difficulties with the government of Khartoum". "We asked them to do hard things on terrorism when we engaged them initially", Mr Snyder said in reference to Sudan's rulers. "They made some serious changes in places that many people thought they wouldn't change. They did things for us when we asked them that were hard for them to do." What the US is currently asking in regard to Darfur is also hard for Khartoum to accept, Mr Snyder acknowledged. "We're asking them to restrain people that are basically political supporters of theirs." "And until we're convinced that Khartoum will not do the right thing - you know, we can't wait much longer - to go to more extreme measures just isn't warranted yet." On the humanitarian front, Mr Snyder said that enough assistance has been pledged to Darfur to "begin to reverse this tragedy." Achieving full access to the region is now the key to saving thousands of lives, he said. Other observers note, however, that most US allies have failed to commit adequate relief supplies to Darfur, where an estimated 350,000 could die of disease and starvation in the coming months. The UN "has appealed for $349 million worth of materials, but donors have come forward with a pitiful $145 million or so," The Washington Post noted in a recent editorial. "Tightfistedness from France, Japan, Italy, Spain and Germany is the main reason for the shortfall", the Post said. "For example, France has donated just over $6 million to Darfur, according to the United Nations, whereas the US has given $130 million and committed to an additional $170 million." Meanwhile, although he is reluctant to take military action, British Premier Tony Blair has asked his hard-pressed military planners to draw up a strategy to intervene in the region if necessary. General Sir Michael Jackson, the British chief of staff said that despite its commitments elsewhere, the UK would be able to send a force of 5,000 men to Darfur if the information being collated from various sources in Darfur and amongst Sudanese refugees who have crossed into Chad show clearly that genocide is taking place. In the meantime, both the UK and US governments are keen to keep up the diplomatic pressure on Kenya and Uganda's northern neighbour in the hope that international action will not be needed. It is also true that both governments fear being accused of failing to act, as they did in Rwanda and Srebrenica in Bosnia, if it is clear systematic killing is taking place. Genocide is defined in a 1948 UN convention as acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole, or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." While an African Union force is also being discussed there is clearly a deadline to the matter with the UN Security Council voting last week on a resolution warning Sudan to protect its own civilians or face sanctions within the next one month. The crisis in the region began last year when Khartoum starting arming militia groups known as the Janjaweed to suppress a rebellion in Darfur. Since then around 30,000 people are believed to have been killed and up to a million made homeless in a brutal campaign that has left hundreds of villages deserted. The British Foreign Office said last week that it would not shy away from uncomfortable solutions in Sudan, even though a declaration of genocide would invoke a legal obligation to intervene. "There are certainly some elements (to a systematic campaign of genocide)," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "There is an ethnic element to the violence, but we do not at the moment have incontrovertible proof."   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2004 The East African. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================