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07/27/2004:

"Sudan government on alert after vowing to resist any Darfur intervention"

Agence France Presse

The Sudanese cabinet ordered a general mobilisation alert while vowing to face down any foreign intervention in the crisis in the strife-torn western Darfur region.

The hardening of the Khartoum government's position came as French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier arrived in the country and the international community continued to step up pressure on it to end a 17-month conflict between rebels and Arab government-backed Janjaweed militias that has cost up to 50,000 lives.

But US Secretary of State Colin Powell, on a visit to Cairo where Darfur was high on the agenda, said it was too soon to talk of military intervention in the crisis.

Sudanese ministers ordered the "political and strategic mobilisation of all government institutions", Agriculture Minister Majzub al-Khalifa Ahmed told reporters after an emergency cabinet meeting.

They also decided to "strongly resist all (UN Security Council) resolutions calling for despatching international forces to Darfur," said Ahmed, who is Khartoum's pointman in the bloody conflict in Darfur.

"The government will from now on harden its attitude in rejection of any foreign intervention in Darfur and will notify the international community of this position," the minister warned.

"The government will appropriately deal with any soldier who sets foot on Sudanese territory," he said. full article