Sudan orchestrated Darfur crimes, UN mission says
March 12, 2007 (GENEVA) — A U.N. human rights mission on Monday accused Sudan’s government of orchestrating and taking part in war crimes in Darfur and called for urgent international action to protect civilians there.
The United Nations mission, led by Nobel peace prize laureate Jody Williams, was dispatched by the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate charges of widespread abuse in Sudan’s vast western region, where observers say some 200,000 people have been killed since revolt broke out in 2003.
“The situation is characterised by gross and systematic violations of human rights and grave breaches of international humanitarian law,” the mission said in a report to the Council.
“The mission further concludes that the government of Sudan has manifestly failed to protect the population of Darfur from large-scale international crimes and has itself orchestrated and participated in these crimes,” the 35-page report said.
It urged the U.N. Security Council to take “urgent further action” to protect the civilian population in Darfur, including through the deployment of peacekeepers.
The Sudanese government denies responsibility for abuses and blames them on rebel groups which refused a 2006 peace deal.
The Darfur violence, described as genocide by Washington, has killed tens of thousands of people and driven 2.5 million from their homes as rebels, charging the government in Khartoum with neglect, battle pro-government Arab militias.
Humanitarian agencies say they face mounting difficulties in getting help to the desperately needy, and increasingly aid workers themselves are targets of the violence.
Khartoum rejects the genocide term and says those numbers are exaggerated. It says Western media has blown the conflict out of proportion.
‘VIOLENT COUNTERINSURGENCY’
Nevertheless, the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) has summoned a junior government minister and a Darfur militia leader to answer war crimes charges in a first step towards bringing to trial those deemed responsible for atrocities, including mass rape and murder of civilians.
Khartoum, which says it will hold trials of its own, is adamant that it will not hand over anybody to face the court.
The decision to send the six-person team to Sudan was taken by the U.N.’s human rights watchdog only after a bitter debate. Some Arab and African countries on the 47-state body were unhappy at singling out Sudan for special attention.
The Sudanese government, which is resisting calls for U.N. peacekeepers to be deployed in Darfur, at first agreed to cooperate but then refused to issue visas to the mission.
It travelled instead to Chad’s border with Sudan, where the conflict in Darfur has spilled over, and to Addis Ababa, headquarters of the African Union, which has been trying to contain the violence in Darfur with some 7,000 peacekeepers.
The mission’s report marks the latest international investigation to accuse Sudan of complicity in crimes in Darfur. It said while rebel groups were also guilty of serious abuses, the “principal pattern is one of a violent counterinsurgency campaign” being waged by government forces and their militia allies, the so-called Janjaweed.
But one team member, Indonesia’s ambassador Makarim Wibisono, withdrew when it failed to get access to Darfur. His country, a leading member of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), has dissociated itself from its findings.
(Reuters)