Albright lobbies against Sudan for Security Council seat

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has been lobbying other UN members to back US efforts to bar Sudan from representing Africa on the UN Security Council. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, citing UN reports that Khartoum had bombed areas in the country where UN relief operations are based, described the African nation an “unsuitable candidate”, according to an AP report on Wednesday. The report said that in addition to Britain, France, Kuwait and others, Albright had raised the issue of Sudan’s unsuitability with the foreign ministers of several African countries. The Organisation of African Unity as a rule picks an African country to take up a rotating seat on the council for the following year, with the General Assembly customarily approving the choice of the regional group. The report added, however, that Egypt, one of the countries Albright had approached, favoured Sudan’s candidacy. According to the report, an estimated two million people had been killed as a result of fighting, starvation and disease during the 17 years of the war waged by the Khartoum government against the south. Sudan was regarded by State Department officials as having one of Africa’s worst human rights records, it added.