Sudan tries to block UN from considering Darfur atrocities report
March 13, 2007 (GENEVA) — Sudan on Tuesday accused a United Nations panel of bias, and moved to block the U.N. Human Rights Council from considering its report accusing Khartoum of orchestrating attacks in Darfur.
Sudanese Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi told the 47-nation council that the American head of the mission, Nobel laureate Jody Williams, took “a preconceived and hostile attitude against Sudan.”
Al-Mardi said Sudan “strongly and resolutely” opposes any consideration by the council of the report, which he said should be dismissed because it was written without the team having visited Darfur. The team said it had to proceed that way because Sudan refused to grant them visas.
“Any attempt to confer legitimacy on this mission will constitute a serious and dangerous precedent in the eyes, not only of the Sudan, but also of many members of this esteemed council,” al-Mardi said.
He asserted that two of the six team members had failed to participate, which made the mission “no longer valid.”
U.N. officials said Indonesian Ambassador Makarim Wibisono had withdrawn from the panel, but that he was the only one to do so. Gabonese Ambassador Patrice Tonda had to return to Geneva while the panel was waiting in vain for Sudanese visas, but he remains a member of the panel, the officials said.
Al-Mardi also complained that the Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, president of the Human Rights Council, failed to adequately consult countries before making appointments to the team.
“The selection came as a result of and in response to unjustified pressures,” al-Mardi said. “No consideration was paid to our legitimate and objective reservations and concerns.”
Western countries vehemently opposed the inclusion of ambassadors on the panel — as demanded by Sudan’s allies on the council — arguing they could not be objective.
But after more than a month of protracted private negotiations among members of the council, western countries agreed to the appointment of the two ambassadors in order to ensure that the mission went ahead.
Al-Mardi claimed Williams had given Sudanese authorities less than an hour to issue visas on Feb. 14 before calling off plans to visit Sudan.
Williams, however, wrote a letter last month to de Alba stating that more than a dozen requests for the visas were submitted to Sudanese authorities by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and others starting Jan. 26.
“By Feb. 14, after 20 days of these efforts and with little time to carry out our mandated work, it was clear that the government had no intention of issuing the visas,” Williams said. He added that she told the government that if the visas weren’t issued by noon of that day the mission would make other arrangements to write its report in time for the council meeting in March.
Al-Mardi said it showed the “double standards” of the team that it prepared its report without visiting the country, which he claimed had “never” happened with similar missions previously.
In fact, reports routinely have been written for U.N. human rights bodies when countries — including Iraq, Cuba and North Korea — have refused to admit the world body’s experts.
Al-Mardi claimed the humanitarian situation in Darfur “is much more stable now there is visible decrease in malnutrition and mortality rates.”
“Tremendous changes have occurred on the ground,” he said.
The team’s reports, issued Monday, said the United Nations must move now to protect civilians against a Sudanese government-orchestrated campaign in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced by four years of fighting.
The panel’s report said obstruction and resistance had prevented international attempts to improve the situation.
Sudan’s government “has manifestly failed to protect the population of Darfur from large-scale international crimes, and has itself orchestrated and participated in these crimes,” the report said, adding that “war crimes and crimes against humanity” were continuing across the region.
The conflict began when members of the region’s ethnic African tribes took up arms against what they saw as decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. In a tactic the U.S. has characterized as genocidal, the government is accused of unleashing a pro-government Arab militia, known as the janjaweed, that has committed many of the worst atrocities in the conflict.
The team said that, even though it was unable to enter Sudan, it consulted widely with aid agencies working in the region and was briefed by African Union officials in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It also spoke to some members of rebel groups and to Darfur refugees in Chad.
(AP)