Khartoum to strongly oppose EU human rights draft resolution on Sudan

KHARTOUM, April 11, 2004 (Sudan Triune) — The Sudanese government has announced that it will strongly oppose the human rights committee move to pass the European draft bill in Geneva on Thursday 15 April. The bill aims at reinstating Sudan into the list of countries with serious human right violations records in accordance with Article 9.

The human right committee will also appoint a special rapporteur for monitoring the situation in Sudan, the Sudanese independent al-Ayam newspaper said.

The Sudanese ambassador in Geneva has also officially received from the EU the new draft bill.

In response to the new EU draft bill, which is scheduled to be voted on Thursday, in Geneva, Justice Minister Ali Mohamed Osman Yasin said “We are against this bill and we shall strongly oppose it. We shall battle against it in order to defeat it”.

The minister further added “We expected these confrontations from the beginning and we are not surprised about it”.

Regarding the extent of influence of the statement of Kofi Annan on Darfur the minister confirmed it had a negative effect since it drew the attention of the people to something which was not true.

“This is one of the main reasons that made the external relations minister, Dr Mustafa Osman Ismail, and myself to come to Darfur because Annan accused Sudan of ethnic cleansing and human rights violations” the minister indicated.

Yasin also said the draft bill concerning Article (9) was not much different from Article 19 which was supposed to be voted on 23 April.