Westerners ‘want to plunder Sudan’s oil and gold’

SUDANESE President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said yesterday that Western nations were exploiting the Darfur conflict to gain control of resources like oil and gold in the arid region.

Sudan is under intense international pressure to rein in Arab militias accused of looting and burning African farming villages and to provide security for those displaced in the fighting in the remote area bordering Chad.

If not, the UN Security Council says Khartoum could face unspecified sanctions.

“There is an agenda to seek for petrol and gold in the region,” al-Bashir told a women’s union meeting convened on Darfur in Khartoum yesterday.

“This highlife that they (the West) enjoy now is a result of the theft of the colonies and their riches and peoples,” he said, with a specific reference to Britain.

Sudan’s two main oil fields are in the south, although Khartoum is hopeful of more oil discoveries in Africa’s largest country.

Rebels from the troubled western region yesterday said they would attend peace talks in Nigeria at the end of the month to try to end a conflict that has displaced more than a million people.

“We thought we could have been sufficiently consulted before fixing the date in particular but nevertheless we will go,” said Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) spokesman Ali Trayo from Asmara.

The African Union on Sunday proposed an August 23 date.

Bahar Idriss Abu Garda, Secretary-General of JEM, the other main rebel group, said from Darfur they would go to the talks, although the date could be problematic.

“Yes, we are going to the talks, but we have some remarks about the time they decided because we have a conference in Germany at the same time,” he said. “Because of that we want to postpone the time.”

The SLA also said the date gave them little time to organise and inform their movement commanders scattered throughout Darfur, a remote area the size of France.

The SLA and JEM launched a revolt in February last year accusing Khartoum of neglect and of arming the Arab militias known as Janjaweed to drive African farmers from their lands.

Sudan denies the charge saying the Janjaweed, a term derived from the Arabic for devils on horseback, are outlaws. The UN says the conflict has triggered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with about 200,000 refugees in neighbouring Chad.

Abu Garda also said the rebels had agreed with the World Food Programme (WFP) to give the UN body access to rebel-held areas in Darfur to distribute food.

“Our delegation in Asmara headed by our president and also the SLA agreed ... and we will commit ourselves to execute this. In our whole area the WFP are free to come and see the people,” he said, adding they would be afforded full protection.