Bush Orders Darfur Aid; Translator Hacked To Death

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush called for more U.N. peacekeepers for the Darfur region of Sudan on Monday and pledged an increase in U.S. food aid. He also welcomed a proposed peace accord as "the beginnings of hope" for Darfur's poverty-stricken population.

"Darfur has a chance to begin anew," Bush said, adding that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would go to the United Nations on Tuesday to lend support for a new U.N. resolution increasing peacekeepers.

He said he was asking Congress for another $225 million in emergency food aid for Darfur, was ordering the emergency purchase of 40,000 metric tons of food and was dispatching five ships loaded with food to the region.

His comments came days after Sudan's government and the main rebel group in Darfur signed a peace agreement to end fighting which has killed nearly 200,000 people since 2003.

The U.S. government has officially labeled the fighting genocide, a position which Bush reiterated Monday.

"We will not turn away," Bush said. "We will call genocide by its rightful name."

The U.N. humanitarian chief hurriedly left a Darfur refugee camp Monday when demonstrators demanding the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers attacked a translator, accusing him of supporting the feared Janjaweed militia, a U.N. spokeswoman said.

Another translator, working for the African Union was hacked to death in the same demonstration, according to a U.N. spokesperson.

Jan Egeland cut short his visit when some in a crowd of about 1,000 protesters manhandled a translator in Egeland's entourage who they suspected had previously worked for the pro-government militia blamed for widespread atrocities in Darfur, she said.

Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, had gone to the citry of Kalma to meet leaders of at least 90,000 residents of the camp as well as representatives of aid agencies.

An Associated Press reporter in the camp said Egeland was met by a huge crowd chanting pro-U.N., pro-U.S. and anti-government slogans.

The demonstrators, mostly women, shouted: "Yes to international troops!" - a reference to the Western proposal for U.N. peacekeepers to be deployed in Darfur.