Sudan govt still violating Darfur arms embargo – Amnesty

August 23, 2007 (CAIRO) — A human rights group said Thursday that Sudan’s government continues to violate a U.N. arms embargo in Darfur and urged the United Nations to give its planned peacekeeping force for the region the authority to confiscate weapons from combatants.

In its latest report on Darfur, the London-based Amnesty International published photographs it said were obtained from credible witnesses supporting the claim of arms embargo violations.

The photographs were taken in July and purportedly show military shipments at the Sudanese army airport in the West Darfur state capital of El Geneina, the group said.

One photograph shows Sudanese soldiers moving containers from an Antonov cargo plane onto military trucks and two others show Russian-supplied Mi-7 and Mi-24 attack helicopters at the airport, Amnesty said.

“Sudan flaunts its impudence of the U.N. arms embargo and peace agreements by persisting to send arms into Darfur,” said Larry Cox, the group’s director in the United States.

In 2005, the U.N. Security Council imposed a wide arms embargo on all parties in the conflict in Darfur, including the Sudanese government. It was a follow-up on a previous 2004 embargo that also included the government-armed janjaweed militia.

Brian Wood, a military expert at Amnesty’s London offices, said that while there is no way of knowing what was in the photographed containers, the military aircraft at the El Geneina airport had arrived from Sudan’s capital on flights that were not reported to or permitted by the U.N.

“And that means that those are violations of the Security Council arms embargo to Darfur,” Wood told The Associated Press by telephone. “We have indicated that we know of similar flights with small arms and weapons to militia and armed groups that have attacked civilians in the past.”

Amnesty’s report also said air raids by Sudanese forces continued in Darfur, with strikes reported by the U.N. in North Darfur in late June. Sudanese forces also used Antonov aircraft for several bombing raids on South Darfur in August, near the town of Adila, the group said.

On July 31, the U.N. Security Council authorized the deployment of 20,000 peacekeepers and 6,000 civilian police in a joint U.N.-African Union operation for Darfur, which the Sudanese government had long resisted.

The peacekeeping mission is authorized to use force to protect and ensure freedom of movement for its own personnel and aid workers and to prevent armed attacks and protect civilians in Darfur.

But the U.N. resolution does not authorize the force to seize or collect arms.

“The U.N. Security Council must give U.N. peacekeepers the ability to remove weapons from all parties involved in the conflict,” Cox said. “Otherwise, the ability to effectively protect civilians and usher in a lasting peace will remain elusive.”

More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur since ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government in 2003, accusing it of discrimination.

Sudan is accused of retaliating by unleashing Arab militias, which are blamed for the worst atrocities against civilians in a conflict that has displaced more than 2.5 million people.

In a report issued Tuesday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour’s office detailed the rapes of dozens of Darfur women last year, saying they were sexually assaulted in front of each other, beaten with sticks and forced to cook and serve food to their attackers.

The report alleged Sudanese forces and militiamen subjected about 50 women to multiple rapes and other violence in an attack on the eastern Darfur village of Deribat in late December. It accused the Sudanese government of failing to investigate the rapes.

On Thursday, Sudan’s justice minister lashed out at the report, calling it untrue and irresponsible. “This is a false report and it is clear to us that the human rights commissioner does not care about her credibility,” Mohamed Ali al-Mardi told the AP.

He denied government soldiers had committed atrocities in Darfur and claimed the situation in the region had improved.

(AP)