By Jonathan Steele of the UK's "Guardian" (possibly Web-only)...
(See also a transcript of the full interview.)
The Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has accused Gordon Brown of deliberately undermining the Darfur peace talks, and demanded a public apology, after the prime minister threatened new sanctions against Sudan, if the talks failed.
Mr Brown's remarks amounted to direct encouragement for Darfur's rebels to continue fighting and to boycott the negotiations that started in Libya at the weekend, Mr Bashir told the Guardian.
"We read it as encouraging these people, the movements, 'Make these talks fail, so that we will be able to punish the government of Sudan,'" he said.
The Sudanese government sent a large delegation to the talks, and announced a unilateral ceasefire on the opening day.
But Darfur's main armed groups have refused to attend the talks, which were meant to end five years of war that have left 2 million people homeless and caused up to 200,000 deaths.
Mediators from the United Nations and the African Union plan to meet the various rebel leaders in their exile headquarters outside Sudan, as well as in Darfur. They hope to prevent the talks from collapsing, as an earlier effort did last year.
In an exclusive interview in the presidential residence, the first [that] he has given any western reporter this year [sic], Mr Bashir made it clear where he thought blame for failure would lie. [Updated, on Thursday, to note that I had forgotten about, at the very least, this year's earlier interview with NBC's Ann Curry. - EJM] "It will be the responsibility of the external interventions, particularly from Britain, France, and the United States," he said.
His anger was prompted by comments that Mr Brown made to reporters in Britain on Sunday, the day after the peace talks started in Colonel Muammar Gadafy's home town of Sirte. The Libyan leader is hosting the talks, but has no role as a mediator.
"This is a critical and decisive moment for Darfur," Mr Brown said. Although he praised Sudan for announcing a ceasefire, and called on all parties to join it, he singled out the government of Sudan for possible punishment. "Of course, if parties do not come to the ceasefire, there's a possibility [that] we will impose further sanctions on the government," he said.
Michael O'Neill, Britain's special envoy on Sudan, read out an amended statement in the prime minister's name in Sirte later the same day. "We stand ready to take tough action with our partners against any party that obstructs progress including new sanctions," it said.
But Mr Bashir has chosen to treat Mr Brown's choice of words as deliberate. The Sudanese foreign ministry summoned Rosalind Marsden, the British ambassador to Khartoum, to protest.
Mr Bashir went further, by demanding a public apology. He shook his head vigorously when it was put to him that there might have been a misunderstanding.
"We very well read and understand English," he replied. "There was no misunderstanding at all. The statement was very clear."
The president listened to the questions without having them translated into Arabic, but answered through an interpreter.
He said [that] the Darfur issue would have been solved by now, if there had not been a constant pattern of external intervention, stretching back to long before Mr Brown's weekend statement.
"What we suffer here, and in Darfur in particular, and the problems in Sudan in general, are caused by these three powers, Britain, France, and the United States," he said. The three countries continually adopted resolutions at the UN to punish Sudan, he added.
Sudan has come under fire from the three countries in the UN [Security Council] for being primarily responsible for the activities of government forces and janjaweed militia in burning villages, raping women, and driving hundreds of thousands of people into camps for the displaced in 2003 and 2004.
They also accuse it of creating obstacles for the new UN/AU peace force, and for UN aid agencies and other humanitarian workers, as well as rejecting demands to punish officials suspected of crimes against humanity, or to hand them to the [International Criminal Court].
The UN has imposed some sanctions, while the US enforces its own, tougher ones.
But Mr Bashir insisted [that] the roots of the problem in Darfur lay in desertification, which left nomads and farmers struggling over diminishing natural resources.
There was also banditry. People took up arms for various reasons, including tribal disputes. But external intervention "sharpened the appetite of some of the commanders and leaders to look for positions and get part of this cake," he said.
A peacekeeping force run by the AU and the UN is due to start operating in Darfur in January. Western governments have been pressing for its 26,000 troops and police to include some non-African contingents, partly to ensure [that] it is more robust than the smaller, all-African force now deployed in Darfur. Thailand has offered 800 troops. Nepal is also offering some.
Mr Bashir told the Guardian [that] this was unnecessary. "What is required in Darfur now is eight battalions. The contribution submitted so far by African countries is sixteen battalions ... So Africa is producing 200% of our requirements ... We will never accept any forces from outside Africa, until we are convinced that Africa has failed to contribute the required forces," he declared.
A Downing Street spokesman said [that] Mark Malloch Brown, the minister for Africa, had telephoned Nafi Ali Nafi, the chief Sudanese negotiator in Libya, on Sunday [in order] to explain that the prime minister had meant to say [that] sanctions might be imposed on the Darfurian rebels, as well as on the government.
"The prime minister's written statement is on the website," the spokesman said. "It covers any omission in his earlier oral statement. We've accepted [that] there was an omission. We're aware [that] it's caused some offence."
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