US likens west Sudan “ethnic cleansing” to Rwanda
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, April 22 (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday called on the United Nations’ top human rights body to condemn “ethnic cleansing” in Sudan’s Darfur region, comparing it to Rwanda’s genocide.
The U.N. Commission on Human Rights is due to take up Sudan on Friday, but U.S. ambassador Richard Williamson expressed concern the wording of a planned resolution was too weak.
The United States had initially co-sponsored a text with the European Union, but a new, softer version had emerged from negotiations between the EU and African member states, he said.
“Ten years from today the only thing that will be remembered about the 60th annual Commission is whether we stand up on the ethnic cleansing going on in Sudan,” he told journalists.
Already 10,000 black Sudanese had been “victims of ethnic cleansing” in brutal violence which has displaced more than 700,000 fleeing rape and murder, according to Williamson.
Human rights groups including Amnesty International appealed to the 53-member forum to take bold action on Sudan on the last day of its annual six-week session.
“It is an indictment of the commission if it cannot act decisively on the reported slaughter of civilians in Darfur,” said Nicholas Howen of the International Commission of Jurists.
EU diplomats said they were holding more talks about the new text. It takes the form of a chairman’s statement, a milder form of rebuke than a resolution, and must be adopted by consensus.
An EU diplomat in Geneva said no other member had shown as much concern about Sudan at the U.N. talks and the European Union was aware that it had lost the vote on its resolution last year because it had failed to win African support.
U.N. PROBE REACHES SUDAN
U.N. human rights investigators, who have accused Sudanese government troops and Arab militias of unleashing a “reign of terror” in Darfur, arrived in Sudan on Thursday.
The five-member team, which failed to get permission to enter Sudan previously, met officials in Khartoum and hoped to reach Darfur later in the day, spokesman Jose Luis Diaz said.
A report they have drawn up, based on interviews earlier this month with Sudanese refugees in neighbouring Chad, was obtained by Reuters and other media on Wednesday.
Echoing charges of ethnic cleansing made by a top U.N. aid official, the team said Sudanese troops and Arab militias were raping, torturing and killing black Africans in Darfur.
Helicopter gunships and aircraft dropping bombs were forcing populations to disperse in escalating attacks that began shortly after rebels opened a new front against the government in February 2003, according to the 13-page report.
Sudan, which has opposed the EU resolution calling for the appointment of a special investigator with a one-year mandate, reacted angrily to the leak.
Khartoum agreed to the visit by the rights investigators after discussions with acting U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan, whose office sent the team.