Waging Peace
PRESS RELEASE
– Contact: Louise Roland-Gosselin
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London (February 14, 2007) – Prime Minister Tony Blair has been warned he must not continue giving British visas to leading members of the Sudanese regime implicated in the genocide in Darfur.
The human rights group Waging Peace is calling on Tony Blair to give his full backing to criminal indictments due to be handed down by the International Criminal Court (ICC) within days. The ICC will release the names of persons accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the past four years in Darfur.
The warning follows two occasions when Sudan’s head of intelligence, Sallah Abdallah Gosh, visited London, supposedly for medical treatment. On both occasions, Gosh met with British and American officials to discuss matters said to be related to the ‘war on terror’.
Tony Blair’s government is coming under increasing pressure from human rights organisations to back stronger action, including strict economic measures, against the dictatorial regime in Khartoum. This call has been echoed by members of the British government such as Lord Triesman, who stated in a recent Lord debate that it would be “ethical and prudent” for businesses to divest from Sudan.
Waging Peace and other human rights groups are calling for tougher measures to be taken against the masterminds of the ongoing crisis in Darfur in which an estimated 300,000-400,000 civilians have died. Waging Peace director Louise Roland-Gosselin says the international community has failed to apply genuine pressure on the Sudanese regime and hold it accountable to its obligations under the Darfur Peace Agreement and other agreements and resolutions.
“In the past four years, the Sudanese Government has indiscriminately attacked civilians, bombed villages, paid and supplied the Arab Janjaweed militias and displaced an estimated 2.5 million civilians in Darfur. However, these continued violations have gone unpunished by the international community”.
In a letter to the Prime Minister the campaign group has called on Tony Blair to back the forthcoming ICC indictments and to ensure UN resolutions against the perpetrators of the genocide in Darfur are enforced. Measures already approved by the UN include targeted sanctions, an arms embargo and a no-fly zone over Darfur, none of which have been implemented to date.
“Tony Blair has frequently expressed his outrage at Government-perpetrated atrocities against civilians in Darfur,” says Waging Peace’s Roland-Gosselin.
“Now the Prime Minister must ensure that the ICC report is promptly acted upon and that individuals indicted by the Court be arrested and handed over. His government must also support tougher international action to disrupt Sudanese financial institutions, charities and companies that fund the ongoing slaughter in Darfur”.
“Diplomacy and the continual issuing of empty threats have failed,” comments Roland-Gosselin. “It is now time for the international community to react to continued violations on the part of the Sudanese Government with clear measures: diplomatic, political, legal, and economic sanctions against those who impede the peace process and commit violations of international law”.
The UN Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in March 2005, after a UN mandated International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur (ICID) concluded that war crimes and crimes against humanity had taken place on a widespread and systematic scale in Darfur.
A further step being taken to put an end to the genocide in Darfur is the new campaign launched by Sudan Divestment UK and supported by Waging Peace, which focuses attention on encouraging universities and local government councils to divest funds from targeted companies with commercial interests in Sudan.
website:
www.wagingpeace.info
Letter to UK Blair on ICC indictments
Attached documents
