UN envoy to Sudan urges Khartoum to disarm Arab militias
UNITED NATIONS, July 22 (AFP) — UN envoy Jan Pronk on Friday expressed cautious optimism about the situation in Sudan’s western Darfur region, but urged the Khartoum government to take more forceful action to disarm Arab militias and stop rapes.
“The ceasefire seems to be kept by the parties,” Pronk, the UN envoy to Sudan, told the UN Security Council, adding the African Union (AU) had helped bring more stability.
But the envoy made it clear that the situation remained delicate.
“(Government-armed) militias have not been disarmed. Arbitrary arrests and inhuman treatment of prisoners still take place,” Pronk told a council debate on Sudan.
In his own report to the Security Council, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called on Khartoum to do more “to address the disarmament of the Janjaweed (Arab militias) and other outlaw groups, which would also greatly facilitate the conclusion of a political agreement that settles the conflict in Darfur.”
The UN chief also deplored the fact that recent clashes between the rebel factions “have exacerbated the difficulties faced by humanitarian organizations” in delivering aid to those who need it.
Turning to the issue of rape, Pronk said: “a new Government policy to help the victims of rape and to investigate the crimes of rape has been adopted, after long and intensive discussion with the UN, but its implementation is still deficient throughout Darfur.”
The Annan report made the same point, noting that: “Sexual violence committed by soldiers, police, and Government-aligned militias remains a widespread feature of the Darfur conflict,” Annan said. “Although the government has taken some action, it has not done enough to end the culture of impunity behind the widespread sexual abuse in Darfur.”
Pronk for his part urged the Khartoum government to “not only arrest foot soldiers who killed and raped, but also their commanders, and their leaders who instructed them to do so.”
He also underscored the need to expand the AU force in Darfur soon.
The AU plans to more than double its Darfur monitoring force to more than 7,700 by September.
An estimated 180,000 to 300,000 people have died in Darfur, with some 2.6 million civilians left homeless, since February 2003 when fighting erupted between rebels and government forces backed by local Arab militia.
Local groups in Darfur had launched their rebellion in the name of the region’s black African tribes against marginalization by Khartoum’s Arab-dominated government.
The Annan report however said the overall situation in Darfur had “improved considerably” since the signing of the joint statement issued at the end of the UN chief’s visit to Khartoum in July 2004.
In the joint statement, Khartoum undertook to take immediate steps to disarm the Arab militias accused of sparking a humanitarian crisis, to allow the deployment of human rights monitors and ensure that all individuals and groups accused of human rights violations are brought to justice without delay.
But the report said efforts must be made to end the harassment of aid workers in south Darfur and “to ensure that the policies adopted at the national and state levels are implemented on the ground at the local level.”
Pronk for his part said further confidence-measures were needed but added: “there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”
The UN envoy, who last week held talks in Eritrea aimed at resolving a burgeoning rebellion in eastern Sudan, said he was hopeful an agreement between the two sides there might be reached before the end of the year.