President Omar Hassan al-Bashir today accused Western nations of interfering in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region to try to exploit the country's gold and oil resources.
Speaking at a women's union meeting on Darfur in Khartoum today, President Bashir said there was "an agenda to seek for petrol and gold in the region.
"This highlife that they [the West] enjoy now is a result of the theft of the colonies and their riches and peoples," he added with specific reference to Britain, which granted Sudan independence in 1956.
Sudan is under intense international pressure to rein in Arab militias, accused of looting and burning African farming villages, and provide security for more than one million people displaced by the fighting in the remote area bordering Chad.
If not, the UN Security Council in a July 30th resolution says Khartoum could face unspecified sanctions. There has also been talk of possible foreign troop intervention in Darfur.