Bush Pledges More Aid To Darfur

President Bush called for more U.N. peacekeepers for the Darfur region of Sudan on Monday and pledged an increase in U.S. food aid. He also welcomed a proposed peace accord as "the beginnings of hope" for Darfur's poverty-stricken population.

"Darfur has a chance to begin anew," Mr. Bush said. He also said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would go to the United Nations on Tuesday to lend support for a new U.N. resolution increasing the number of peacekeepers.

The president said he was asking Congress for another $225 million in emergency food aid for Darfur, was ordering the emergency purchase of 40,000 metric tons of food and was dispatching five ships loaded with food to the region.

"America will not turn away from this tragedy," Mr. Bush said, standing alongside Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, just back from Darfur.

Bush invited other countries to also do more to help relief famine in Darfur.

The president sought to build momentum for a peace agreement reached by Sudanese authorities and Darfur's main rebel group. The deal could help end a conflict that has killed at least 180,000 people in three years and displaced some 2 million.

He praised the agreement as "a step toward peace."

"We're still far away from our ultimate goal, which is the return of millions of displaced people to their homes so they can have a life without fear," Mr. Bush added. "But we can now see a way forward."

The agreement signed Friday was between the government and the main rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army; two smaller rebel groups refused to sign.

On Saturday, the president called Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian president who hosted talks on Darfur, and Denis Sassou-Nguesso, the president of the Republic of Congo and current head of the 53-nation African Union.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan wants Sudan to grant visas to a U.N. assessment team so it can visit Darfur and start planning for a U.N. peacekeeping force to take over from the African Union troops. Sudan has refused to allow the team to visit.

"An African Union force of about 7,200 from the region has done all it can to keep order. But they're patrolling an area nearly the size of Texas and they have reached the limits of their capabilities," Mr. Bush said. "Our goal is this: We want civilians to return safely to their villages and rebuild their lives. That work has begun and completing it will require even greater effort by many nations."

He noted that the United States currently accounts for more than 85 percent of the food distributed in Sudan by a world food program. "But the situation remains dire," Mr. Bush said.

"The government of Sudan must allow all U.N. agencies to do their work without hindrance. They should remove the visa and travel restrictions that complicate relief efforts. And all sides must cease attacks on relief workers," the president said.

Meanwhile, in Darfur on Monday, the U.N. humanitarian chief hurriedly left a refugee camp when demonstrators demanding the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers attacked a translator, accusing him of supporting the feared Janjaweed militia, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

Jan Egeland cut short his visit to Kalma camp, near the city of Nyala in south Darfur, spokeswoman Dawn Blalock said. Some in a crowd of about 1,000 protesters manhandled a translator in Egeland's entourage who they suspected had previously worked for the pro-government militia blamed for widespread atrocities in Darfur, she said.

The demonstrators thought the translator had misinterpreted what they were saying to members of Egeland's entourage, Blalock said.

The translator was not injured, but colleagues put him into a van for his own safety, Blalock said in a phone call to The Associated Press.

The demonstrators then picked up sticks and broke the windows of the van and another vehicle in Egeland's convoy, which left the camp to return to Nyala.

The translator, who was not identified, is employed by Oxfam which had several staffers traveling with Egeland. The British-based NGO promptly withdrew its six staffers from Kalma camp.

"We did not evacuate," Blalock stressed. "The program was cut short because tensions were too much."

Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, had gone to Kalma to meet leaders of at least 90,000 residents of the camp as well as representatives of the NGOs. His visit came days after Sudan's government and the main rebel group in the country's western Darfur region signed a peace agreement to end fighting which has killed nearly 200,000 people since 2003.

An Associated Press reporter in the camp said Egeland was met by a huge crowd chanting pro-U.N., pro-U.S. and anti-government slogans.

The demonstrators, mostly women, shouted: "Yes to international troops!" a reference to the Western proposal for U.N. peacekeepers to be deployed in Darfur.

As the entourage was leaving the camp, they attacked a U.N. vehicle with sticks and knives, because they thought the translator had said something that did not reflect what they had said in Arabic against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. The violence prompted Egeland and his entourage to quickly leave the camp.

Until the signing of the peace accord on Friday, the Sudanese government had refused to host a large U.N. peacekeeping force take over from the relatively small African Union operation that is now operating in Darfur.

"The combined pressure of the protests, U.N., and U.S. action, supporting the African Union mediation, resulted in a peace agreement," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk.

Many hold out hope that U.N. peacekeepers can do more to stabilize Darfur than an African Union force now in Darfur. Sudan's government said Saturday that the peace accord could open the way to a U.N. force.

Aid workers have complained repeatedly that the government has prevented them from working and that fighting has made it impossible for them to help civilians.

Egeland was barred by the Sudanese government from visiting Darfur and Sudan's capital of Khartoum in April.

Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in Darfur erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 when members of the African ethnic tribes rose in revolt and demanded regional autonomy. The government is accused unleashing the Janjaweed who have been blamed for widespread killing, rape and destruction.

The government has repeatedly denied supporting the Arab militia.