Russia opposes sanctions on Sudan, eyes arms sales

[seemslikeadream]

Russia opposes sanctions on Sudan, eyes arms sales
20 Sep 2004 15:01:02 GMT

MOSCOW, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Russia defended on Monday its decision not to back a U.N. resolution that threatens Sudan with sanctions if it does not halt violence in the Darfur region, and said it hoped to increase arms exports to the African state.

The Foreign Ministry said Russia had abstained in Saturday's U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution on Sudan because the threat of oil sanctions was not the best way to ensure peace in Darfur, in southwestern Sudan.

The Council adopted the resolution, which also called for an international probe into abuses including genocide, although China, Pakistan and Algeria joined Russia in abstaining.

"We think that the threat of sanctions contained in the resolution with regard to Sudan is not the best way at all to motivate Khartoum to fulfil its obligations to the U.N.," a ministry statement said.
"In order to solve complex crises, the international community has at its disposal diplomatic instruments that have demonstrated their effectiveness."

Russia has been criticised for supplying warplanes to Sudan, where Arab militias are attacking African villagers in the Darfur region and displaced villagers say government aircraft have bombed their homes.
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Discover U.S. finger prints in Darfur!
8/23/2004 9:20:00 AM GMT

Bush administration claims it’s on a mission to root out terrorism all over the world, yet it provides the Chadian military with both trainings and armaments to keep groups linked to al-Qaeda active in the Sudan troubled region, Darfur.

Last month, former Chadian ambassador to the United States, Ahmat H. Soubiane, criticized Chad's President Idris Deby, a new member of the Bush administration's so-called 'global war on terrorism', at a seminar sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. Questioning Deby's plans to amend the Chadian constitution so he can become President for life, Soubiane, in an open letter to the people of Chad, urged the ruling party in Chad to reject Deby's plans.

Reacting to Soubiane's letter, Deby recalled him as ambassador to the United States in February, however, Soubiane remains in Washington under de facto political asylum.

In October 2003, with the beginning of pumping of oil from Chad through the new Chad-Cameron pipeline, a project backed by a consortium consisting of Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, Petronas of Malaysia, Halliburton, and the World Bank, Deby adopted the policy of oil cronyism of Equatorial Guinea's dictator Teodoro Obiang. Although Deby is from the north of Chad, tradition is that the prime minister is from the south and vice versa. However, in June 2003, Deby appointed his inexperienced nephew as Prime Minister and in January 2004 appointed his brother-in-law to head Chad's Central African Bank and, by default, president of the 9-member Chadian Revenue Management Oversight Committee, which oversees how the oil revenues, which are deposited in an escrow account in a London bank, are spent. Deby's family are members of the northern Zaghawa tribe, which represents one percent of Chad's population.

http://english.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/conspiracy_theory/fullstory.asp?id=156