British diplomat: US and UK must end "megaphone" diplomacy on Darfur

[Eugene]

US and UK must end "megaphone" diplomacy on Darfur
29 Sep 2006 08:17:57 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Britain and the United States must stop making
threats over the crisis in Sudan's vast Darfur region because the government
in Khartoum knows they can't back them up with action, a leading British
diplomat said on Friday.

Mark Malloch Brown, Britain's outgoing United Nations' deputy secretary
general, told the Independent newspaper London and Washington were isolated
in their stance and they needed to tone down the rhetoric and build an
international consensus.

"The megaphone diplomacy coming out of Washington and London: 'you damn
well are going to let the U.N. deploy and if you don't beware the consequences'
isn't plausible," he said in an interview published on Friday.

"So Tony Blair and George Bush need to get beyond this posturing and
grandstanding.

"The Sudanese know we don't have troops to go in against a hostile Khartoum
government; if Sudan opposes us there's no peace to keep anyway; you're
in there to fight a war," he added. "It's just not a credible threat."

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Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L29812446.htm