US Readies Darfur Sanctions Vote at UN This Week 

By Reuters
April 24, 2006
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-sudan-darfur-sanctions.html

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States plans a U.N. Security Council vote on Tuesday that would impose sanctions on four Sudanese for abuses in Darfur, despite opposition from Russia and China that could kill the measure, council members said.
To ease the concerns of African nations, the council expects to approve at the same time a Tanzanian-drafted statement supporting the African Union's peace talks between the Khartoum government and two rebel groups, held in Abuja, Nigeria.
But the resolution, which would impose a travel ban and a freeze on financial assets on the four Sudanese, the first sanctions by the council on participants in the Darfur conflict, may be thwarted by Russia and China, who contend the resolution could interfere in the peace process.
``As a general principle, we always have difficulty with sanctions, whether it is in this case or other cases,'' China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said last week. ``We believe that the resolution like this might harden the positions of some of the parties to the negotiations.''
China has oil interests in Sudan and supplies weapons to the Khartoum government. But Wang said, ``This story has always been played up, but I think we have to be constructive as far as Sudan is concerned.''
Supporting Russia and China is Qatar, the only Arab member of the 15-nation council.
The Security Council approved a resolution in March 2005, calling for the sanctions on individuals who defy peace efforts, violate human rights or conduct military overflights in Darfur. Russia, China and Islamic nations abstained.
The new resolution, drafted by the United States, is co-sponsored by Britain, Argentina, Denmark, France, Japan, Peru and Slovakia. A resolution needs a minimum of nine votes and no veto from its five permanent members for adoption. 
SANCTIONS WILL BE HARD TO ENFORCE
The Darfur conflict erupted in 2003 when mostly non-Arab tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated government of neglect.
Khartoum retaliated by arming mainly Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, who began a campaign of murder, rape, arson and plunder that drove more than 2 million villagers into squalid camps in Darfur and in neighboring Chad. Khartoum denies responsibility.
The four Sudanese men targeted for sanctions include a Sudanese government official, a pro-government militia member and two rebel leaders. None are involved in the Abuja peace talks. Britain had proposed a longer list but the United States whittled down the roster.
The sanctions resolution will be hard to enforce and at a minimum stigmatizes those on the list, which U.S. Ambassador John Bolton says calls a preliminary roster.
The four are: Maj.-Gen. Gaffar Mohamed El-Haassan, the former Sudan Air Force commander for the western military region, which includes Darfur; Sheikh Musa Hilal, chief of the Jalul Tribe in North Darfur and a pro-Sudan government or Janjaweed paramilitary leader; Adam Yacub Shant, a rebel Sudanese Liberation Army Commander; and Gabril Abdul Kareem Badri, whose name has also been spelled Badi, a field commander of the rebel National Movement for Reform and Development.
Despite the escalating conflict, the United Nations has not gotten Sudan's consent for a peacekeeping mission that would absorb the current under-financed African Union force of 7,000 in Darfur by the end of the year.
On Sunday, Osama bin Laden in an audiotape broadcast, denounced a so-called Western-backed U.N. peacekeeping force, which is already in southern Sudan.
He accused the United States of exploiting difference between Sudanese tribes ``all in preparation to send crusader troops to occupy the region and steal its oil'' through ``its international tool such as the United Nations.''