U.S. To Push NATO On Darfur Role

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to push NATO allies this week to accept a more robust role for the alliance helping African peacekeepers to end political and ethnic strife in Sudan's Darfur region.

Darfur is expected to be a major topic at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers Thursday and Friday in the Bulgarian capital, along with the dangers facing allied troops as they expand their mission in Afghanistan and the intensifying nuclear standoff between Iran and the West.

This comes the same week that the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on four men accused of atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region, the first time it has moved to punish those responsible for three years of conflict that has left 180,000 dead. It also comes a few days in advance of demonstrations in the United States planned for Sunday.

"Major U.S. demonstrations are set to support the African Union peace talks this weekend, and to take the Sudanese government and rebel leaders to task for the tragedy that has been unfolding in western Sudan for three years," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk, who added that the talks are "complicated by the targeting of U.N. forces by the newly-released bin Laden tape and the fact that some perceive the battle as an African-vs.-Arab conflict."

Iran was not on NATO's official agenda, but is expected to dominate an informal dinner Thursday evening where ministers representing the 32 nations of NATO and the European Union are scheduled to hold free-ranging talks on world affairs.

On Wednesday, Rice said that Washington was concerned about Iranian threats to share the nuclear technology it is developing with other countries.

Rice was in Turkey on a weeklong trip to Europe that started in Greece. Early Wednesday, she departed Turkey for a surprise visit to Iraq. She was expected to visit Sofia, Bulgaria, after the Iraq visit, the U.S. Embassy said.

Rice was likely to seek common ground with allies before Friday's U.N. Security Council deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or material for warheads.

Western officials have warned Tehran that failure to comply could lead to sanctions, but they faced opposition from permanent Security Council members China and Russia. It was unclear what the next steps of the U.S. and European allies will be. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is due to join the NATO talks on Friday.

The Sofia meeting is also expected to discuss proposals for NATO to develop closer ties other democracies including Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea to coordinate political positions and peacekeeping operations.

The ministers will also review efforts by Ukraine, Georgia, Croatia, Albania and Macedonia to join the alliance. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Tuesday said NATO leaders would "send a signal" on the countries' membership aspirations at a summit in November, but a final decision was unlikely before 2008.

On Darfur, Washington has been urging NATO to step up its support for African Union peacekeepers, which so far has been limited to airlift and a small training mission for AU commanders.

The 6,000-strong AU force has failed to halt political and ethnic violence, which has killed more than 180,000 people and driven more than 3 million from their homes.

The United States wants NATO to provide the Africans with logistics, communications, transport, planning, intelligence and expanded training — including an unspecified number of instructors and other experts on the ground in Sudan.

NATO has offered to do more, but several allies fear sending significant numbers of Europeans and North Americans could inflame regional sensitivities — particularly if the mainly Muslim Sudanese government opposes a NATO deployment.

Osama bin Laden accused the United States, in a tape aired Sunday, of igniting strife in Darfur "to pave the way for sending Crusader forces to occupy the region and steal its oil under the pretext of peacekeeping. It is a continuing Crusader-Zionist war against Muslims."

Any final decision on NATO's role is expected to come only after complex negotiations involving the Sudanese government, United Nations, African Union and the 26 NATO members.

The meeting comes as the U.N. children's fund announced that malnutrition is on the rise again in Darfur, where more fighting and less money are eroding progress.

"We need to raise the alarm bell," said Ted Chaiban, head of UNICEF's mission to Sudan. "We're losing ground. We need to stop this deterioration.

"We are seeing the beginning of what could be a reverse of the positive trend of 2005."

Fighting between the government, its allies and the rebel movements, infighting among rebel factions jockeying for position and territory, as well as general banditry — individuals hijacking trucks, looting food, supplies and equipment — have forced a new wave of people from their homes, Chaiban said.

Unrest is also preventing access to roughly a third of all those people who have been forced from their homes but remain within Sudan, and are therefore not officially classified as refugees because they have not fled across an international border.

"And there is the added element of lack of funding despite the fact this is seen and said to be a top priority for most donors," said Chaiban, who said UNICEF has received only $15 million of the $89 million it appealed for in Darfur for 2006.

An additional 200,000 people have fled their homes to escape the violence over the last three months alone, putting the number of internally displaced people in Darfur at over 2 million, he said. Another 200,000 refugees are in Chad.

"In any other place that would have been front page news," Chaiban said. "In Darfur, because there were already 1.85 million displaced people and because we've been at it for three years, it doesn't register on the Richter scale."

After huge humanitarian efforts decreased the rate of global acute malnutrition from 21.8 percent in 2004 to 11.9 percent in 2005, the number has risen again to 15 percent in South Darfur, he said.

"It's starting to creep up again," Chaiban said. "We're seeing some trends that we have to watch and make sure don't confirm themselves."

UNICEF only has enough funds to sustain operations until early June.

"That means real activities that help real children are not continued," Chaiban said.

UNICEF has already cut back or suspended funding for education, maternal and child nutrition, primary health care, and extending water systems to rural communities.

"What is clearly needed is a force on the ground that has the person power, the mandate and the logistical back up to be able to make a difference," Chaiban concluded.

Fighting in Darfur began in February 2003 when rebels from ethnic African tribes took up arms, complaining of discrimination and oppression by Sudan's Arab-dominated government. The government is accused of unleashing Arab tribal militia known as the Janjaweed against civilians in a campaign of murder, rape and arson.

Over 180,000 people have died in the conflict. Some three million have been driven from their homes.

More than 100,000 Sudanese children under 5 died last year from malaria, diarrhea and acute respiratory infections, UNICEF said.

Tuesday, African Union mediators presented their first comprehensive draft agreement to the warring Darfur parties, whose representatives have been engaged in peace negotiations in Nigeria. The African Union has set Sunday as a deadline for an agreement. Seven previous rounds of talks have failed to stem the fighting.