Time running out for Sudan to allow in UN rights team
Feb 13, 2007 (GENEVA) — The United Nations said on Tuesday time was running out for Sudan to grant visas to a U.N. human rights team set to investigate alleged abuses against civilians in Darfur, but vowed to pursue its probe regardless.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Khartoum said on Monday Sudan would not allow the team into Darfur unless they replaced a member of the delegation who the government says is biased.
Another source in the Foreign Ministry said Sudan objected to the presence of Bertrand Ramcharan, a former U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Jose Luis Diaz, U.N. human rights spokesman, said on Tuesday the office had received no official objections to anyone on the six-member team, led by 1997 Nobel co-laureate Jody Williams.
“If we don’t have an answer in coming hours we will take it as a ‘No’ and we will have to go to an alternate plan,” Diaz told Reuters. “They need visas, all of them.”
Earlier, he told a news briefing: “They do have a programme of work and they do have a contingency plan if they don’t get their visas.”
Asked whether this meant carrying on the investigation outside of the country, Diaz replied: “We can envisage that it can do its work even if it does not get into Sudan.”
The team, which is holding talks in Addis Ababa with officials from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), had originally planned to be in Sudan on Tuesday. It had shown flexibility but this was not unlimited, according to Diaz.
The U.N. Human Rights Council agreed last December to send a high-level mission to Darfur to probe allegations of worsening abuses against civilians.
Humanitarian officials estimate that 200,000 people have died in four years of violence in Darfur, which Washington has called genocide.
The Sudanese government, which is accused of arming Arab militia groups, disputes the death toll and blames continuing violence on rebels who have refused a peace deal.
The Foreign Ministry source told Reuters in Khartoum that Ramcharan had made comments “referring to genocide and saying the government needed to do more right after he was appointed”.
Ramcharan, who is from Guyana, sent the first U.N. human rights mission to Darfur in 2004 when he was acting U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights after Sergio Vieira de Mello died in the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.
Diaz quoted Council President Luis Alfonso De Alba — Mexico’s ambassador who named the U.N. team’s members after consulting with representatives from all regions — as saying: “The work of the mission doesn’t depend on its itinerary.”
The team is due to report back to the 47-member state Council, which opens its next session in Geneva on March 9.
(Reuters)