UN rights chief urges ICC to act on Darfur
May 11, 2006 (GENEVA) — The International Criminal Court must act more decisively to bring to trial those guilty of war crimes in Darfur because Sudanese officials have so far proved incapable of doing so, the top U.N. human rights official said.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, just back from a visit to Sudan, said on Thursday that despite government promises no official had been tried and punished for any of the serious human rights violations committed in the vast western region of Africa’s largest state.
“Progress is invisible,” she told a news conference. “I believe we must call on the ICC to act more robustly, and visibly discharge the mandate … that the (U.N.) Security Council has conferred on it,” Arbour said.
In April 2005 the Council agreed to send Darfur war crimes cases to the Hague-based court, but diplomats said little had happened since then even though the court had the findings of a U.N. mission of inquiry, including the names of 51 suspects.
The Sudanese government has said it was fully capable of investigating and bringing to justice those responsible for crimes in Darfur.
But Arbour said there was no sign any of the commissions of inquiry and other bodies set up by Khartoum to investigate allegations of sexual crimes and other abuse had had any effect.
Arbour, who went to Sudan earlier this month, said she heard similar reports of widespread rape from women driven from their homes by the violence in Darfur as she had heard on her last visit in September 2004.
“The government says it has taken many initiatives to address the issue of sexual violence. The initiatives, as far as I am aware, continue to be paper initiatives,” Arbour said.
“There is a striking imbalance in Darfur between the attention the government pays to state security and the totally inadequate protection of human security,” she said.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million forced to flee into camps since rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government in 2003, accusing it of neglecting the ethnically mixed area.
Humanitarian groups say the government responded by arming Arab Janjaweed militias, blamed for a campaign of murder and rape against black African tribes. Khartoum denies the charge.
A leading rebel group and the government agreed a peace deal in Abuja last week, raising hopes for an easing in the plight of the refugees, but two other rebel groups refused to sign.
Arbour, who said her office would publish a new report on Darfur on May 16, said the only way to achieve lasting peace in the region, as well as in the south of Sudan, was by disarming and demobilizing the various armed factions.
Only then would the displaced people feel secure enough to return to their homes.
Southern Sudan, where a treaty early last year put an end to a 20-year civil war, was in desperate need of international support, she said..
“We are somewhat neglecting the need to support the peace deal in southern Sudan,” she said. Despite the accord, there was “no visible improvement either in the physical security or the economic well-being of the people.”
(Reuetrs)