UN chief alarmed over Darfur crisis
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 8 (AFP) — UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for new international action to halt violence in Darfur in a report released which highlighted the failure of negotiations and deteriorating security in the Sudanese region.
Six months after the Sudanese government promised to make efforts to end attacks on the Darfur population by pro-government militias, Annan said: “The armed groups are re-arming and the conflict is spreading outside Darfur.
“Large quantities of arms have been carried into Darfur in defiance of the Security Council decision taken in July. A build-up of arms and intensification of violence, including air attacks, suggest the security situation is deteriorating.”
Annan, who went to Sudan in July with US Secretary of State Colin Powell to negotiate with the government, has made repeated warnings in recent weeks that conditions were worsening in the region in the west of Sudan.
The UN’s World Food Programme suspended food aid to Darfur at the end of December after a rebel attack on one town triggered deadly clashes with government forces.
Since February 2003, Sudanese troops and their militia allies have been fighting rebel groups in Darfur, who have been demanding a greater share of oil revenues for development.
According to the United Nations, at least 70,000 people have been killed, mainly civilians, and about 1.6 million have fled their homes.
Annan said in his report for the UN Security Council that new rebel movements are emerging and launching attacks in the area of oil facilities in Western Kordofan.
“I am concerned that we may move into a period of intense violence unless swift action is taken,” the UN secretary general warned.
“The pressures on the parties to abide by their commitments are not having a perceptible effect on the ground. This leads me to conclude that we need to reconsider what measures are required to achieve improves security and protection” for the Darfur homeless.
The United Nations had considered Darfur to be the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis before the December 26 tsunamini disaster in the Indian Ocean.
Just four days earlier, Annan had urged the Security Council to consider a harder line on Darfur, while rejecting a US request that he visit Sudan again.
The United States has sought sanctions against Sudan but this has been opposed on the Security Council. The US ambassador to the UN, John Danforth, a former US envoy on Sudan, expressed his frustration with the international community in December, saying “we’re getting nowhere in Darfur.”
Two UN resolutions made veiled threats of sanctions against Sudan. Russia and China, which can each veto a Security Council resolution, have opposed sanctions.
But in November, the UN changed policy and sought to tempt Sudan with an aid package if it ended the Darfur crisis.
The UN sought a peace accord between the Khartoum government and rebels in the south of the country, hoping that this would lead to a peace deal in Darfur.
An accord between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA) and the government was reached in the Kenyan city of Naivasha and is to be signed by rebel leader John Garang and President Omar el-Beshir in Nairobi on Sunday.
The US secretary of state is to be present and he will also hold talks on ways to ease the Darfur crisis.
Annan said that attacks since the start of 2005 in Darfur “suggest that the parties are so far failing to use the momentum offered by the agreement in Naivasha.”