U.N. renews Darfur peacekeeping mandate

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council renewed the mandate for peacekeepers in Darfur on Thursday in a resolution that Washington criticized for raising concerns about moves to indict Sudan's president for genocide.

Most Western powers accepted wording that makes clear the council would be willing to discuss freezing any International Criminal Court indictment of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide in the interest of peace in Darfur.

Of the 15 council members, 14 voted for the resolution. Washington rejected the section on the ICC and abstained.

Five years of war have brought humanitarian disaster to the western Sudanese region, and Darfur campaigners accuse the world of failing to provide helicopters and other badly needed support for the struggling peacekeeping mission there.

Washington backed the basic point of the resolution to extend the mission through July 2009, but criticized a key paragraph in the British-drafted text added to accommodate African concerns about the ICC.

"The United States abstained from the vote because language added to the resolution would send the wrong signal to Sudanese President Bashir and undermine efforts to bring him and others to justice," said U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, who repeatedly referred to the "genocide" in Darfur.

The U.S. delegation did not veto the resolution, which would have left the peacekeeping mission in a legal vacuum.

But council members had wanted a unanimous vote to show undivided support for peacekeepers in the line of fire in Darfur.