Sudan's government is increasingly fearful that the incoming US administration will resort to military intervention to end the six-year-old crisis in Darfur that has killed up to 200,000 people and left 2.7 million homeless, diplomatic sources in Khartoum say.

"There is a great need for us to sound the alarm again about Darfur," Hillary Clinton, who was endorsed as secretary of state yesterday, told the US Senate this week. "It is a terrible humanitarian crisis compounded by a corrupt and very cruel regime in Khartoum."

Clinton said the Obama administration, which takes office on Tuesday, was examining a wide range of options, including direct intervention in support of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force, known as Unamid, which has struggled to make an impact after beginning operations last year.

"We have spoken about other options, no-fly zones, other sanctions and sanctuaries, looking to deploy the Unamid force to try to protect the refugees but also to repel the militias," Clinton said. "There is a lot under consideration." Clinton has previously asserted that the US has a "moral duty" to help Darfurian civilians.

The US accuses Khartoum's leadership of committing genocide in Darfur. Washington has eschewed direct military involvement since the crisis erupted in 2003, despite growing pressure to act from Sudanese insurgents, exiles, and evangelical Christian groups.

But in a surprise move last week, President George Bush ordered the Pentagon to begin an immediate airlift of vehicles and equipment for the peacekeeping force.

Alain LeRoy, head of UN peacekeeping operations, told the Security Council last month that violence in Darfur was intensifying and stepped-up international involvement was urgently required to avoid a descent into "mayhem".

Influential US-based pressure groups such as the Save Darfur Coalition and Enough are meanwhile demanding that US president-elect Barack Obama act swiftly to fulfil campaign pledges to take more robust action.

"I will make ending the genocide in Darfur a priority from day one," Obama said in April. He has also previously backed a toughening of sanctions and said the US might help enforce a no-fly zone.

"Obama is the [ruling] National Congress party's worst nightmare," said a diplomat in Khartoum. "They wanted [John] McCain and the Republicans to win. They thought they were pragmatists. They think the Democrats are ideologues. They haven't forgotten it was the Democrats who bombed them."

That was a reference to a retaliatory US cruise missile attack on a suspect pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum in 1998, ordered by President Bill Clinton after al-Qaida attacked US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Sudan provided a base for the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, from 1991 until he moved to Afghanistan in 1996.

A source in Khartoum said Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, was especially alarmed by Obama's selection of Susan Rice, a former Clinton national security council adviser on Africa, as a cabinet member and US ambassador to the UN.

Rice has spoken passionately in the past of the need for US or Nato air strikes, or a naval blockade of Sudan's oil exports, to halt the violence in Darfur.

Referring to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, she said: "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."

Bashir felt only "fear and loathing" for Rice and had told aides: "I don't want to see her face here," the source said.

Khartoum's concerns about American intervention extend to southern Sudan, fuelled by reports, denied by the US, that Washington is arming the separatist Sudan People's Liberation Army.

The SPLA is the military wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement with which the north fought a 30-year civil war. Salva Kiir, the SPLM leader and Bashir's likely rival in elections due later this year, received red carpet treatment by Bush at the White House last week.

"The government knows the US does not arm the SPLA. They're already heavily armed," a Khartoum-based diplomat said. "But the US does train them. It helps with logistics, planning, and so on. And they (the SPLA) do need air defence. Whether to provide air defence to the south will be a key question for the Obama administration."

Much of this story seems badly sourced but what do you think of the overriding issue? Should the US pursue military intervention in Darfur?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/15/sudan-unamid-obama

4 Play:

Much of this story seems badly sourced but what do you think of the overriding issue? Should the US pursue military intervention in Darfur?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/15/sudan-unamid-obama

No. Waste of resources, waste of valuable American lives, waste of goodwill . . . let the arab world solve the problem of Darfur themselves. I wonder if Ban Ki Moon is "outraged" about Darfur yet though.

Na wa o, I never finish phrasing my question, come submit post. . . . . .how do I change it?

4 Play:

Na wa o, I never finish phrasing my question, come submit post. . . . . .how do I change it?

click the "modify" button on the right hand corner of your post.

davidylan:

No. Waste of resources, waste of valuable American lives, waste of goodwill . . . let the arab world solve the problem of Darfur themselves. I wonder if Ban Ki Moon is "outraged" about Darfur yet though.

They can repeat the Kosovo air campaign: stick to airstrikes, particularly targetted at the 'Arab' Khartoum sponsored militias. That way, loss of US lives will be minimal, if any.

In my view, the US can barely afford it, not just financially but in terms of military resources. US forces are spread too thin and the US can barely afford to sustain a new military campaign in a conflict that has no direct impact on US interests.

Ban Ki Moon is not interested in this one. I was watching the UN spokesperson bleat about Israel hitting a UN compound in Gaza and it was mentioned that the UN has loads of compounds in Gaza . . . . . . I wonder whether they have loads of such facilities in Darfur.

davidylan:

click the "modify" button on the right hand corner of your post.

Can't seem to edit the question. Anyway, it's just to give the options as ''should'' or ''should not'' . . . . it's alright as it is.

4 Play:

Can't seem to edit the question. Anyway, it's just to give the options as ''should'' or ''should not'' . . . . it's alright as it is.

look at the box for your initial post, to the top right (just above where your IP address is) is a "modify" button. click it and you can edit your post.

4 Play:

They can repeat the Kosovo air campaign: stick to airstrikes, particularly targetted at the 'Arab' Khartoum sponsored militias. That way, loss of US lives will be minimal, if any.

In my view, the US can barely afford it, not just financially but in terms of military resources. US forces are spread too thin and the US can barely afford to sustain a new military campaign in a conflict that has no direct impact on US interests.

Ban Ki Moon is not interested in this one. I was watching the UN spokesperson bleat about Israel hitting a UN compound in Gaza and it was mentioned that the UN has loads of compounds in Gaza . . . . . . I wonder whether they have loads of such facilities in Darfur.

america doesnt need another front that will simply give the arab world another excuse to bleat about the muslim world being under attack. Let them handle it themselves.

Ban Ki Moon is simply a hypocrite . . . people are dying of cholera in zimbabwe and he is busy squawking about UN compounds in Gaza.

davidylan:

No. Waste of resources, waste of valuable American lives, waste of goodwill . . . let the arab world solve the problem of Darfur themselves. I wonder if Ban Ki Moon is "outraged" about Darfur yet though.

exactly my thots,

Some of you actual think the "Arab World" cares about the Black African Darfurians?

In the near future, the "Arab Wolrd" will respond to this issue again, the same way they have now- which is nothing.

blackspade:

Some of you actual think the "Arab World" cares about the Black African Darfurians?

In the near future, the "Arab Wolrd" will respond to this issue again, the same way they have now- which is nothing.

which makes me wonder why we have so so many foolish black africans crying over the children in Gaza when the ones in Darfur are literarily starving to death before our very eyes. Now we know that the arab response to Gaza is not one of sympathy but simply because Israel is the stronger . . . are the muslims in Darfur not worthy of Osama, syria, Egypt or Iran's attention?

Where is Ban Ki Moon?

@Davidylan,

Where is Ban Ki Moon?

He is attending to the "genocide" in the Middle East.  The "humanitarian crisis" in Dafur can wait!!

@4play
Thanks for at least starting a thread on this much forgotten conflict.

@davidylan

I am collating all the references you made of the plight of Darfurians. You consistently referred to Darfur when faced with serious questions about Israels treatment of Palestinians. I knew it was a way of diverting attention.



For someone who constantly whines about Darfurians being forgotten,  Hahaha

No be you dey scream about Darfur? ROFLMAO!
You be real mumu.

sleek_p:

@4play
Thanks for at least starting a thread on this much forgotten conflict.

Shelf your hypocritical "thanks" . . . it took a non-arab supporter to remind you that there are more dead in Darfur than in the last 10yrs in Gaza and that they are also fellow muslims too?

sleek_p:

@davidylan

I am collating all the references you made of the plight of Darfurians. You consistently referred to Darfur when faced with serious questions about Israels treatment of Palestinians. I knew it was a way of diverting attention.

It was not to divert attention . . . it was simply to expose the sheer hypocrisy of those of you coming here to bawl louder than the bereaved about Gaza's children. Your crocodile tears are not out of sympathy (if not the starving kids in Darfur who also happen to be black muslims like you would have hit you harder) but because a khufa is whipping the behinds of those blood thirsy devils in Gaza.

Where are the "serious questions" i was faced with?

Where is Allah? Is he sleeping or what? Moslems should pls wake him up ASAP. His enemies are destroying his slaves.

bindex:

Where is Allah? Is he sleeping or what? Moslems should pls wake him up ASAP. His enemies are destroying his slaves.

According to his slaves here . . . he is watching.

davidylan:

According to his slaves here . . . he is watching.

He will for ever keep watching, they should go and pour water on his body. I believe he is in a very deep slumber. Allah pls wake up because your enemies are killing your slaves.