Blair: Sudan focus

The prime minister has called on the government of Sudan to do more to end the crisis in Darfur.

Tony Blair began his trip to Africa on Wednesday with a focus on the humanitarian disaster in Sudan.

With government-armed militias having sparked a massive refugee crisis in recent months, he called on the Khartoum administration to take responsibility for the starvation and homelessness.

He also called for more African Union troops to be allowed to take part in peacekeeping and for more to be done to deliver aid to the frontline.

"It's important that people in Darfur realise that the international community is determined to ensure that when we talk with the government of Sudan it realises it has to take on these responsibilities," he said.

"The rebel forces likewise recognise they have responsibilities in this situation and the international focus will not go away while this situation remains outstanding."

Blair did not visit Darfur as time pressures meant he wanted to focus on lobbying President Omar Ahmed al-Bashir and his deputy, Ali Osman Mohammed Taha directly.

"We know what the situation in Darfur is. The important thing is that something is done about it at government level," the Number 10 spokesman said.

International development secretary Hilary Benn, who is accompanying Blair on the trip, said a political solution was required, as well as increased aid.

"The prime minister's visit here today is part of the process of continuing to put strong international pressure on the government of Sudan to do the things they need to do in order to improve security," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"There is also a message for the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudanese Liberation Army: they too have to be part of the solution and they must enter negotiations in good faith with the government of Sudan because it is only a political agreement that, in the end, will bring this to a halt and make it possible for people to go home," he added.

But ahead of the trip Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell called on the government to consider sanctions against the Sudanese authorities.

"The recently agreed deployment of 3,500 African Union troops for monitoring simply won't be enough to deal with the unfolding catastrophe," he said.
 
"Thousands more troops are needed, and they should be given an express UN mandate to use force to protect civilians.
 
"Aid agencies report that there has been no improvement in Darfur over the last 12 months. Unless there is concrete progress in the next few days, the British government should initiate limited sanctions against Sudan."

And at the Conservative conference, Alan Duncan condemned Tony Blair for using his trip to Sudan "to pose" whilst failing to say that the situation in Darfur was genocide.

Ethiopia

Blair arrives in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa later today, along with Benn, Treasury chief secretary Paul Boateng and Live Aid founder Bob Geldof, for the opening of a three day meeting of his Commission for Africa.

He will deliver a speech and hold a press conference in the Capital during the trip, highlighting his desire for "African solutions" to the continent's problems with trade, governance and disease.

However he is also under fire from campaigners to return Ethiopian sacred objects and ancient artefacts looted by British troops more than a century ago which are now in British museums and royal palaces.

Academic Richard Pankhurst, recently honoured by the Queen, called on the prime minister to act to clear up a dark episode in colonial history.

"Blair was not guilty of looting the treasures but he is guilty of not returning them," he said.

"If the American troops in the recent war in Iraq had started looting mosques and taking things the world would have been outraged," he added.