Dafur: Canada threatens Sudan

This will really scare the pants off Khartoum:

Ottawa warns Sudan to keep vow on Darfur force

Will consider imposing sanctions if troops aren't allowed to deploy

Now the brutal truth in a National Post editorial:

On the weekend, following an international conference in Paris on the Darfur crisis, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the world cannot "continue to sit by" while thousands more are killed and millions displaced from the troubled Sudanese region. She called on the world's powers to "redouble" their efforts to end the genocide there.

[...]

Since the Western powers are unwilling to invade Darfur, or even to send in a peacemaking force without the approval of the Sudanese government [that would effectively be an invasion too - MC], they need the co-operation of the Khartoum regime or the intervention of the African Union (AU) to bring relative peace. But the Sudanese government was not invited to the Paris talks and the AU boycotted them because it has been adamant since the crisis began that no non-African nations should intervene.

[...]

...There is already an agreement on an international peacekeeping force in place between Khartoum and the UN. It was worked out nearly two months ago.

However, both sides now blame the other for the fact it has not been implemented. And there is no end in sight to the impasse.

The West could pressure China -- Sudan's strongest ally -- to stop sheltering it at the UN Security Council. China has used the threat of its veto at the UN to deflect stronger measures against Sudan because it has oil China wants.

But Ms. Rice's own State Department is reluctant to force China's hand on Darfur because what it really wants is China's influence with the North Koreans to stop Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program -- a direct security threat to the U.S., unlike Darfur.

We are not advocating a Western-led invasion of Darfur. But short of military intervention, all the summits and high-sounding promises in the world probably cannot do anything to end the massacre. And since the G8 leaders stated plainly at their meeting in Germany earlier this month, "we underline that there is no military solution to the conflict in Darfur," there are few options of real substance left...

Mark C.

Posted by markc at June 27, 2007 06:09 PM