Sudanese March Against UN Peacekeepers and U.S. Troops

Tens of thousands of Sudanese people marched through Khartoum yesterday in a sign of protest against plans to deploy United Nations peacekeepers in conflict-torn Darfur, demanding the expulsion of the top UN and U.S. envoys in the country. 30,000 people marched to the offices of the United Nations, threatening to fight any U.N. force deployed in Darfur.

The crowd shouted out slogans such as "Death to invaders" or "Our country will be their graveyard," while waving their weapons in the air. The Sudanese government sustained the protests with an official warning that violence will grow stronger if African Union peacekeepers will be replaced by U.N. troops.

Talks in which officials from the European Union, the United States, the African Union and the Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha took part were held in Brussels in order to clarify the direction of Darfur's peace negotiations.

Robert Zoellick, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, said:
"We hope that the Sudanese government will not resist. We hope that the Sudanese government will recognize how this is in its interest to end the violence," adding that the bigger peace force Washington and the E.U. want in Darfur has to coincide with gaining peace between Darfur rebels and the Sudanese government.

Fatahi Khalil, the secretary-general of the Popular Organization for the Defense of the Homeland and the Faith, stated: "We know the Americans and the British are too scared to send troops to Sudan after what has happened to them in Afghanistan and in Iraq, but even if they send pure Muslim or Arab troops we will consider them invaders and will fight them."