Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Friday rejected a United Nations peace force for Darfur and said he would not grant visas to UN rights monitors who want to visit the strife-torn region. | Bashir said an international force in Darfur would remain under the aegis of the African Union and that the UN would be confined to a "technical and logistics role". |
He also said that the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, led by Nobel peace laureate and anti-landmines campaigner Jody Williams, would not be allowed to travel to Darfur because its members were biased. "There are members of that delegation who in our view are not impartial, therefore it is difficult to say that they will be honest and reflect reality," Bashir told a news conference on the final day of an Africa-France summit.
The two-day gathering in the Riviera resort of Cannes has been dominated by concerns over the conflict in Darfur, where at least 200 000 people have been killed and more than 2,5-million displaced in fighting since 2003.