U.S. envoy slams UN peacekeepers over south Sudan
By Louis Charbonneau
June 17, 2008
Reuters 
Original Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/africaCrisis/idUSN17403358

UNITED NATIONS, June 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. special envoy for Sudan accused U.N. peacekeepers on Tuesday of failing to protect residents of a disputed oil-rich town in southern Sudan during deadly clashes last month.

The violence in Sudan's Abyei region straddling the border of northern and semi-autonomous southern Sudan killed dozens and forced some 50,000 people from their homes.

Speaking at an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council, U.S. special envoy for Sudan Richard Williamson made it clear that he felt the United Nations mission in Sudan (UNMIS) had not lived up its responsibilities.

We pay a billion dollars a year for UNMIS and they didn't leave their garrison while 52,000 lives were shattered and nearly a hundred people perished, Williamson told council diplomats and representatives from activist groups.

U.N. peacekeepers and UNMIS staff in their garrison were as close as 25 feet (7.6 metres) away, he said. Sudanese homes were burned to the ground and looting took place, despite the fact that UNMIS has a mission ... to intervene to protect innocent people.

He also reiterated his view that the United Nations has been too slow in deploying troops to Sudan's western Darfur region, where international experts believe 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million left homeless by five years of conflict.

Williamson repeated the U.S. description of Darfur as genocide in slow motion. Khartoum rejects this view and says 10,000 people have died in Darfur.

Khartoum, which has the right to approve which countries' troops get deployed in Darfur, insists on most of the troops being from African countries. This is one of the reasons only 9,000 out of a planned 26,000 U.N.-African Union peacekeepers (UNAMID) are on the ground in Darfur.

Among the activists who came to the meeting to voice their concerns about the situation in Darfur was U.S. actress Mia Farrow, head of Dream for Darfur.

In the written text of her comments to the council, Farrow accused the council of putting too little pressure on Sudan.

How long will you continue to allow the government of Sudan to manipulate this body? Did Adolf Hitler get to choose which troops should be deployed to end his genocide?

Williamson responded to the criticisms of the council by saying that a sanctions committee was considering the possibility of imposing more sanctions on Khartoum.

Farrow told reporters later that more pressure should be put on Sudan's close ally and trading partner China, which is a permanent veto-wielding member of the Security Council.

Georgette Gagnon, acting head of the Africa division at Human Rights Watch, told reporters after the meeting that the council's inaction had allowed Khartoum to continue to kill, loot and rape with impunity for too long in Darfur.

Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem dismissed Williamson's comments as proof that the U.S. government's policy on Sudan was bankrupt and said Williamson, a Republican, was trying to make Darfur a U.S. campaign issue.

Speaking to Reuters from Khartoum, he also dismissed Farrow as an aging actress ... who has no glamour.

She wants to use Darfur as a platform for keeping the fame and lights and attention on her, he said. (Editing by Eric Walsh)