UN panel recommends sanctions on Darfur key figures from all parties

Jan 11, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — A U.N-appointed panel accused the Sudanese government and rebels of blocking peace in conflict-wracked Darfur, and recommended that the Security Council impose sanctions on key figures from all groups.

An African Union (AU) peacekeeper shows injuries on a former detainee, allegedly inflicted by Sudanese forces, after a prisoners release at a AU compound in el-Fasher in the Darfur region.

The panel’s final report, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, also accused all parties to the conflict of committing widespread human rights violations including torture. It said the government, the rebel Sudan Liberation Army, and militia groups “have shown least regard for the welfare of civilians.”

A Security Council resolution adopted in March authorized an asset freeze and travel ban on individuals who defy peace efforts, violate international human rights law, or are responsible for military overflights in Darfur — and the panel was asked to come up with recommendations.

The resolution also authorized the panel to help monitor an arms embargo in Darfur that was expanded to include the government as well as the rebels in an attempt to end the three-year conflict.

The four-member panel said it was sending a confidential list of names to the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Sudan to consider imposing a travel ban and asset freeze. It said this was being done to prevent advance warning to those named and to avoid compromising ongoing investigations.

The sanctions committee discussed the report Monday but Qatar, the only Arab member of the Security Council, and China, whose main supplier of foreign oil is Sudan, blocked its immediate transmission to the council, according to a council diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.

Greece’s U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, who chairs the sanctions committee, said without elaborating: “The committee will continue its consideration. Some countries wanted to have more detailed discussion on the report before it is sent to the council.”

Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in the western Darfur region erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 when ethnic African tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated central government of neglect. The government is accused of responding by unleashing Arab tribal militias known as Janjaweed to murder and rape civilians and lay waste to villages. It denies the charge.

An estimated 180,000 people have died in the upheaval — many from hunger and disease — and about 2 million others have been displaced.

The panel accused all parties, especially the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Army, of “consistent, willful and systematic violation” of an April 2004 ceasefire.

The government has also “abjectly failed to fulfill its commitments to identify, neutralize and disarm militia groups outside the formal state security forces under its influence, as demanded by the U.N. Security Council,” it said.

The panel said it was sending the names of individuals responsible for ceasefire violations and failing to disarm militias — as well as seven other categories of acts that could threaten peace and stability in Darfur — to the sanctions committee for possible action.

It also identified a number of individuals who probably committed or are responsible for violating international humanitarian and human rights law and recommended that the committee consider imposing sanctions on them.

The sanctions committee should also consider imposing a travel ban and asset freeze on senior leaders of the Military Intelligence and National Security agencies if their personnel continue to arbitrarily detain, abuse and torture citizens while violating their right to a fair trial, the report said.

Sudan’s U.N. Mission did not answer any calls seeking comment because Tuesday was a U.N. holiday.

The panel’s report came during a week that Sudan will be high on the Security Council’s agenda.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said it will be discussed at Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s monthly lunch with council members on Thursday — and again Friday when U.N. envoy Jan Pronk will give an open briefing.

One issue will be the slow progress at African Union-mediated peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, between the government and rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army and its Justice and Equality Movement ally.

The panel noted that one of the hold-ups in the talks is the competing ambitions of Sudan Liberation Army chairman Abdel Wahid Mohamed al-Nur and its former secretary-general Minni Arko Minawi. The sanctions committee should monitor their activities and consider imposing travel and financial restrictions if their future actions “unduly impede the peace process,” it said.

The AU has 7,000 peacekeepers in Darfur, and Bolton said consultations are taking place on whether to transform the force into a U.N. peacekeeping mission.

“Everybody understands the security situation continues to deteriorate, but how and exactly when the force would change is still being debated,” he said. “A lot of people in the AU are reluctant to see the mission shift because it would be seen as an AU failure. We don’t see it that way. … What we’re looking for is the mechanism to provide security in Darfur.”

As for the arms embargo, the panel said the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement continue to receive arms and ammunition from Chad, Eritrea, Libya and other organizations — and it said the Eritrean government was definitely providing material support and training.

The panel also accused the government of violating the embargo by moving arms into Darfur from elsewhere in the country and deploying additional attack helicopters.

(AP/ST)