Sudan rights watchdog criticizes suspension of Darfur investigators

December 24, 2004 — The Sudan Human Rights Organization Cairo Office welcomes the decision to extend the mission of Dr. Sima Samar, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Sudan. The organization, however, notes with regret the failure of the Human Rights Council to resume the work of the Darfur international investigators’ expert-group, as mandated in March 2007.

The compromising style of the new Council to appease those opposing the extension of the Rapporteur mission, as well as the international investigators’ expert-group, is a great disappointment to the human rights’ victims in Darfur. The Council’s decision is an undeserved reward to the Government of Sudan for the elusive policies and the unabated deference it has been diligently pursuing to frustrate the decisions endorsed by the International Community, or the recommendations raised by the Darfur investigators’ expert-group.

The investigators’ team (composed of the Secretary General’s Representative for children and armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy; the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston; the Secretary General’s Special Representative on the situation of human rights defenders, Hina Jilani; the Secretary General’s Representative on human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs), Walter Kalin; the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture, Manfred Nowak; and the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Yakin Erturk) represented a significant instrument to accomplish the mission mandated to the UN Special Rapporteur on Sudan. The decision to suspend the work of this autonomous group of experts is a serious setback to the work of the Sudan Rapporteur.

The establishment of the Human Rights Council in June 2006 was received with optimism by all international, regional, and national human rights organizations (including SHRO-Cairo), as a successor of the previous Human Rights Commission that failed to achieve its goals by politicizing the human rights’ issues.

SHRO-Cairo shares the Council’s concerns that the past and ongoing human rights violations have not been brought to justice. The Organization, however, is deeply concerned, the new Council might adopt the same style that had earlier failed the former International Commission to ensure full compliance by all perpetrators with international law.