US State Dept official visits Darfur on final day of UN deadline
By ED JOHNSON, Assocaited Press Writer
AL-FASHER, Sudan, Aug 30, 2004 (AP) — Sudan, awaiting word on whether it will be sanctioned by the international community, hopes for a “reasonable decision” from the U.N. Security Council, the foreign minister said Monday, the U.N.-imposed deadline for quelling violence in its western Darfur provinces.
Mustafa Osman Ismail’s remarks came as a U.S. State Department official made a final firsthand American assessment of conditions for thousands of displaced people.
The visit by Constance Berry Newman, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, follows tours by U.N. teams who report Tuesday to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on whether the government is doing all it can to rein in Arab militiamen. Known as Janjaweed, the militiamen are blamed for killing and raping black African villagers and for driving more than 1 million people from their homes.
The Security Council will meet Sept. 2 and consider whether to follow through with its threat of unspecified action against Khartoum. The United States has advocated sanctions against the government.
“Of course we are concerned,” Mustafa Osman Ismail told Associated Press Television in Khartoum, the capital. “We wish … the relationship with the Security Council will not be the way of confrontation. We hope it will be in the form of cooperation.”
“We hope the Security Council will come out with a reasonable decision that will help us to continue working together,” Ismail said, speaking in English. He did not directly threaten to end cooperation with the United Nations if Khartoum disagrees with the Security Council’s decision.
Newman, who touched down at Al-Fasher airport in a U.N. World Food Program twin-engine plane, was briefed by aid agencies and U.N. officials before touring Abu Shouk camp, home to some 43,000 villagers driven from their homes in 18 months of fighting between government troops and rebels.
Ismail refused to see Newman in Khartoum, with the official Sudanese news agency quoting him as saying it was in protest of the U.S. State Department failing to help it keep its embassy open in Washington. Sudan announced Wednesday the embassy had closed after being unable to find a bank that would handle its financial matters, and that it had sought State Department help finding another bank.
Children clamored around Newman as she visited one of 200 classrooms in the camp, where students sat in the shade on mats to learn about basic sanitation and the importance of clean drinking water.
“Salam,” she said to the children, using a traditional Arabic greeting, as she entered the straw and tarpaulin classroom UNICEF built and runs. She later watched as aid workers inoculated babies against measles. Newman refused to speak with journalists during her visit.
Abu Shouk camp, on the outskirts of al-Fasher, has an air of permanence. Residents have begun to build mud walls around their straw and tarpaulin shelters, and simple fences from scrub and thorn tree branches, replicating conditions in their villages.
Some have planted vegetables and corn outside their huts, and a small market thrives on the edge of the desert settlement. Many say they are too afraid to return home, fearing further attacks.
“We are happy and living here securely but we still need more and we need them to give us more peace,” said Kalthoum Mohammed Haroun, waving to Newman’s small delegation as it passed through the camp in a convoy of white trucks.
More than 30,000 people are thought to have been killed in the violence since two rebel factions took up arms against the government in February 2003 escalating years of low-level conflict between African farmers and Arab herders, competing for water and land. The rebels, drawn from African tribes, rose up against the Arab dominated government, claiming discrimination and political marginalization.
Human rights groups, the U.S. Congress and U.N. officials accuse the government of trying to crush the rebellion by backing the Janjaweed allegations Khartoum repeatedly denies.
Dennis McNamara, a senior official in the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance, told reporters in Nairobi, Kenya, on Monday that attacks on civilians have continued in Darfur and too little has been done to stem the humanitarian crisis.
Women and girls still are being raped by militiamen as they leave camps to collect firewood, McNamara said. The government hasn’t done enough to stop the attacks, he said, noting there is no functioning, independent justice system in Darfur.
“There remains constant, regular pressure — sometimes harassment by the authorities — in various locations in Darfur on displaced populations to go back to insecure villages of origin,” McNamara said.
Efforts to forge peace between rebels and the government at talks in Abuja, Nigeria, have so far proved fruitless, with each side accusing the other of violating an April 8 cease-fire.
Only 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Al-Fasher, the small mud and straw hut village of Um Hashab lies in ruins and abandoned after fighting between government forces and rebels. Villagers told The Associated Press they were attacked Thursday by Sudanese troops who dropped bombs from helicopters.
The African Union, which has a team of 80 cease-fire observers, protected by 150 Rwandan troops, said it was investigating the claims. A contingent of 150 Nigerian soldiers was scheduled to arrive in Al-Fasher later Monday to boost the AU presence.
Ismail, the Sudanese foreign minister, defended the government’s position against increasing the number of African Union monitors, saying they were not necessary unless their mission of protecting monitors is changed to ensuring security. He indicated that Sudan would not favor such a change.
“If they are going to be responsible for the security, the tribes will revolt against them. Then we will end up with a situation similar to Iraq, which is going to be very dangerous, and definitely the AU is going to fail. We don’t want the AU to fail. We want the AU to succeed,” Ismail said.