Sudanese government calls U.N. remarks on violence in west ‘heap of lies’
By MOHAMED OSMAN Associated Press Writer
KHARTOUM, Sudan, March 21, 2004 (AP) — Sudan on Sunday accused a senior U.N. official of lying when he alleged Arab militiamen were systematically attacking villages and raping women in fighting in western Sudan.
Sudan’s Humanitarian Affairs Ministry accused Mukesh Kapila, the U.N. resident coordinator for Sudan, of concocting the allegations “after the government and the U.N. agreed to conclude his work in Sudan because of his flagrant failure in discharging his mission.”
“We were surprised to hear an odd statement made by the U.N. resident coordinator to Sudan, who made a heap of lies … about the conflict in Darfur and the number of killed and raped,” the ministry said in a statement received by The Associated Press.
On Friday, Kapila, whose 14-month assignment in Sudan ends this month, described the situation in Darfur as the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis and possibly its greatest humanitarian catastrophe.
“There has been systematic burning of villages and displacement of the population. There are reports of women being raped, other men and women disappearing.” Kapila told the AP in Nairobi. He said he had word from international and Sudanese aid workers in the area that more than 100 women were raped in Tawilaa, a village in North Darfur, in a Feb. 27 attack alone.
The U.S. envoy to Sudan, former Sen. John Danforth, also described the situation in Darfur as a “a true humanitarian disaster.” He has said the crisis should be resolved before there can be normal relations between the United States and Sudan.
Danforth spoke on Friday after meeting negotiators at peace talks in Kenya between the Sudanese government and rebels fighting a 21-year civil war in southern Sudan.
Fighting has rocked Darfur since February 2003, when rebels took up arms and said they wanted a greater share of power and wealth in Africa’s largest country. They accuse President Omar el-Bashir’s Islamic government of arming and supporting the Arab militia, and carrying out a scorched-earth policy in the impoverished, underdeveloped region.
But the Sudanese ministry said the government had carried out humanitarian work that had been commended by U.N. officials in Sudan and visiting western delegations and had led to “noticeable stability and the return of tens of thousands of displaced persons and refugees.”