New Delhi
19 September 2006
The world body believes India can play a crucial role by leveraging its traditional links with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's Government to lean on him to welcome a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.
"India has a special influential relationship with Sudan. [President] Bashir has himself
boasted of good links with India. India has profited from making investments in Sudan,
[so] you need to help us (UN) more actively to avoid meltdown in Darfur. I like to see a
more front row diplomatic exercise by India," UN Under-Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland told this newspaper via telephone from New York.
Mr Egeland said media reports have quoted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir as
saying on the sidelines of the recently concluded Non Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit
at Havana in Cuba that his country enjoyed strong trading links with countries like India,
Pakistan, China and Malaysia, suggesting that he was not particularly worried about
adverse international reaction.
"I make a strong appeal to India [because] Darfur is now really facing a moment of truth.
In Darfur, more than three million people are in acute need of assistance and we cannot
anymore protect them or provide as we should ... the situation is totally untenable
because of infighting among the groups and military operations," he observed as the
international community presses for deployment of a 20,000 UN peacekeeping force to
supplement or supplant the 7,000 African Union force.
"India is the largest democracy, it is a generous troop contributing country. India has to
be in the front row of diplomatic effort to convince parties in Sudan that [the world] cannot
tolerate another collapse. I hope India will make efforts to convince and influence the
Khartoum Government," Mr Egeland observed. "Western powers," he added as an
afterthought, "have limited influence and the UN needs to see a much more active
diplomacy leading to results [in Darfur]."
"Come October, there can be two possible scenarios. One, AMIS (African Mission in
Sudan) is extended and the African Union force is transformed into a UN force with
soldiers from Asia including India. Two, AMIS leaves to make a bad situation
catastrophic. Do the main trade partners of Sudan like India need a catastrophe?
Therefore an immediate high-level urgent action is needed now," he said, and suggested
India to send "envoys to Khartoum soon".
Mr Egeland said there has been an "active discussion" with India as a troop contributing
country and deployment of Indian peacekeeping troops in Darfur "will be very good".
"Our only hope is a general agreement on an effective UN force on ground because
African Union force, in spite of all efforts, has not been able to protect civilians or
stabilise the security situation. Large parts of Darfur are no-go areas," he added.
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