Sudan to investigate Darfur abuses
NYALA, Sudan, April 10 (Reuters) – Sudan will begin an immediate investigation to prosecute those responsible for a campaign of violence in the troubled Darfur region, Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said on Saturday.
The decision follows the dispatch this week of a U.N. fact-finding mission to investigate the conflict and increasing pressure on the Sudanese government over violence in the western area bordering Chad that U.N. officials have described as ethnic cleansing.
Rebels launched a revolt in remote Darfur in February last year, accusing the government of arming Arab militias who loot and burn African villages.
During a visit to Darfur, Ismail said local state authorities would lead the investigation and urged aid groups to provide them with names of all those who have been attacked.
“We need this investigation. Some of these people lost their houses and we need to replace them. Some lost property. We need to discuss how they can be compensated as part of the road back to peaceful coexistence,” he told reporters.
“These people cannot believe that they can behave with impunity,” he said, adding this applied to militia leaders, rebels, bandits and all those who violated the law.
The United Nations estimates more than one million people have been affected by the conflict, and some 110,000 refugees have fled into neighbouring Chad, where peace talks with the rebels yielded a ceasefire on Thursday.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week warned a Rwanda-style genocide may be in the making in Darfur and said outside military forces could be needed, a suggestion rejected by Khartoum.
Ismail said it was important that those carrying out the violence in Darfur knew they were not above the law.
“That is why this investigation begins immediately. We are stating very publicly that anyone who is going to violate the law will be punished,” he said.
Witnesses have recently told of executions, public hangings and mass rape campaigns in the poor area, where tribal tensions over scarce water and land resources have historically run high.
Separately, the Arabic television channel Al Jazeera said on Saturday that one of its correspondents, Islam Salih, had been sentenced to one month in jail for spreading false information.
Sudanese authorities closed the channel’s Khartoum office in December, accusing it of biased reporting, which the channel said was related to its coverage of the fighting in Darfur.
“Our lawyers have lodged a request for an appeal and a request to stop the carrying out of the sentencing,” Al Jazeera correspondent el-Tahir Mardi told Reuters from Khartoum.
Sudanese Justice Minister Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin said Salih had the right to appeal and should do so if he felt he had been unfairly treated.
“In cases where journalists and journalism is involved we are much happier to allow the judiciary to act and to reprimand or sentence as it sees fit,” he told reporters on Saturday during a visit to Darfur.
“That way we are not in a position where the state is arbitrarily sentencing, rather it is the judiciary that is meting out punishment for those who have transgressed against the law.”