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| Africa Horn |
| Sudanese tribal leaders call for jihad if non-AU force enters Darfur |
| 2006-06-10 |
| Tribal leaders on Friday rejected the possibility of U.N. peacekeepers replacing African Union forces in Darfur, with one chief threatening a "holy war" if non-African troops deployed to the Sudanese region. Their concerns emerged as U.N. Security Council members met with Sudanese government and tribal leaders, relief workers and about 15 representatives of displaced people living in volatile camps surrounding this northern Darfur town. The council steered clear of the camps because of security concerns sparked by opposition to a Darfur peace agreement that the government and main rebel group signed May 5. Earlier this week in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, President Omar Hassan Bashir told the council his government would proceed with talks on replacing African Union peacekeepers with a U.N. force, but he refused to give the plan an immediate green light. That reluctance was echoed by tribal and youth leaders invited to meet the council in Darfur, the vast western region ravaged by an ethnic conflict that some, including the Bush administration, have called a genocide. Fighting has left an estimated 100,000 to 450,000 people dead and an additional 2 million homeless. Mowadh Jalaladin, a representative of the Barty tribe , said handing over to a U.N. force "would inaugurate foreign occupation and intervention" and remind Sudanese of their colonial past, echoing earlier government rhetoric that has fanned anti-U.N. sentiment. Jalaladin said his tribe had about 250,000 members. On Friday, the al-Jazeera satellite television network broadcast a videotape by the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which he said the Security Council's visit to Sudan was "to prepare to occupy and divide it." If a U.N. force comes to Darfur, Jalaladin said, "we are declaring jihad against it. . . . It means death. It means defending Sudan and Islam." "The root causes of the Darfur conflict are the doing of the Jewish organizations who financed this armed rebellion," Jalaladin said. "We don't want the Security Council to be an instrument of the ugly undertakings of the United States of America." Decades of low-level clashes in Darfur over land and water erupted in early 2003 when African rebel groups rose up against the Arab-led government, which responded by unleashing ethnic Arab militias known as janjaweed, who have been accused of atrocities. The government denies backing the janjaweed but agreed under the May 5 truce to disarm and disband them. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 Yep, Joe. The Commie OWGs will have to |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2006-06-10 10:52 |
| #2 Its a dileeeeeeemmma > COMMIE OWG RULE vs GLOBAL MUSLIM RULE, post-Amerikka of course. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-06-10 00:56 |
| #1 Looks like any potens post-2008 DEM POTUS just got his = her first geopol "problem"??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-06-10 00:54 |