Sudan blames Israel and Jews for many of its woes

UNITED NATIONS - Sudan's president said on Tuesday his country would never allow United Nations peacekeepers into Darfur and charged that the West wanted to dismember his country in order to help Israel.

"It is very clear there is a plan to redraw the region," especially after the invasion of Iraq, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told a news conference on the sidelines of a ministerial UN General Assembly session.

"The main purpose is the security of Israel. Any state in the region should be weakened, dismembered in order to protect the Israelis, to guarantee the Israeli security," he said.

Asked about Sunday's rallies Darfur peace rallies from Rwanda to San Francisco, Bashir said they were "invariably organised by Zionist Jewish organisations".

Bashir said he supported a continued presence of an African Union force in Darfur, which wants the United Nations to take over its operation of 7000 soldiers and monitors.

While his government welcomed outside advisers and logistical support to the AU force, Bashir reject "boots on the ground" from outside Africa, even if under AU control as UN officials had suggested.

Sudan has rejected a UN Security Council resolution adopted on Aug. 31 authorising up to 22,500 troops and police to replace the cash-strapped and ill-equipped AU troops.

The Sudanese president spoke several hours after President George W Bush challenged world leaders to move quickly to get peacekeepers into Darfur, saying lives are at stake as well as the credibility of the United Nations.

"If the Sudanese government does not approve the peacekeeping force quickly, the UN must act," Bush said.

Addressing himself to the people of Darfur, he added: "Your lives and the credibility of the United Nations is at stake."

But Bashir said: "We want the African Union to remain in Darfur until peace is re-established in Sudan," adding: "We in the Sudan totally reject (its) transformation of into a UN force."

Several speakers including Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, hinted at UN intervention without the consent of Khartoum.

She called on the Security Council to act to restore peace "security and stability" to Darfur. But UN officials have said no country has volunteered to shoot its way in.

Bashir noted that the UN resolution also called for help to train police and an independent judiciary, which only help enforce suspicion of the council's motives.

"We are a state, we have our institutions, our institutions have not collapsed," Bashir said, speaking in Arabic, translated into choppy English.

Years of fighting in Sudan's west have forced more than 2 million people to flee their homes for overcrowded refugee camps with little prospect of returning to the life they once knew.

Non-Arab tribes took up arms against the government in February 2003 to protest alleged neglect and deprivation.

In turn Sudan, unleashed and armed Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, who murdered and raped civilians. In recent months, factions of rebel groups and bandits have done the same.

UN and humanitarian groups estimate some 200,000 people have died from the conflict, hunger and disease. But Bashir said humanitarian groups exaggerated the crisis.

Bashir said the United Nations should punish those who started the conflict rather than Khartoum, which had to send in soldiers, a position Arab nations have echoed.

- REUTERS