China to Send Troops to Darfur, Meet Critics

WASHINGTON - China will send more than 300 engineering troops to Sudan's troubled Darfur region next month to build infrastructure for U.N. peacekeepers, China's special envoy for Darfur said on Thursday.

Envoy Liu Guijin also told reporters he had met with U.S. lawmakers who have criticized China's support for Sudan's government and on Friday would hold talks with the non-governmental Save Darfur Coalition that has pressured Beijing to change its policies.

"We are going to send a multi-functional engineering unit comprising 315 Chinese troops to the Darfur region and their responsibilities are mainly road construction, bridge construction and well-drilling," Liu said in Washington.

The troops would deploy in early October, ahead of the expected deployment of 26,000 U.N. and African Union troops and police approved by the Security Council in July, he said.

China would also donate more than $10 million in humanitarian aid for Darfur, while Chinese firms involved in business in the African country also planned to give millions of dollars in aid, Liu said.

International experts estimate some 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes during 4-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur. Sudan puts the death toll from the conflict at just 9,000.

Liu, a veteran Africa hand who has served as China's ambassador to Zimbabwe and South Africa, took the Darfur envoy post created in May amid criticism from rights activists who accused China of selling Khartoum arms used in Darfur and of watering down U.N. Security Council resolutions against Sudan.

At a news conference at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, he reiterated Security Council veto-holding China's opposition to sanctions on Sudan and repeated his government's dismissal of efforts to use the 2008 Beijing Olympics as leverage on Darfur as "ridiculous."

But Liu said he was "very open" to meeting China's critics to discuss the Darfur situation and Chinese activities in Sudan, which he said were misunderstood and unfairly criticized in the West.

"Western countries and Western oil companies for years have carried out oil exploration in the most oil-rich regions in the world," he said.

"In other words, you have eaten all the meat and only left us with some soup, which is in the most difficult regions of the world, and simply because we sip a little bit of the soup we are severely condemned," Liu quipped. "Is that fair?"