Human rights groups urge UN meeting to act against atrocities in Darfur
GENEVA, June 3 (AFP) — Human rights groups urged the international community to force Sudan to stop atrocities being committed in the western Darfur region, warning that humanitarian aid would not be enough to help about one million displaced people.
Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch, said a high level meeting in Geneva including mainly western donors and the Sudanese government would fail to tackle the root cause of the suffering in Darfur if they just agreed on aid deliveries.
“Humanitarian aid is urgent but it is not enough. A political solution is necessary: the Sudanese government’s etnnic cleansing must not stand,” Roth said here.
Amnesty International also called for urgent protection for civilians in Darfur, where about a million African civilians have been forced to flee their homes because of an onslaught by government-backed Arab militia and Sudanese troops over the past year.
Roth warned that the international community’s action so far, including a UN Security Council resolution, had been too timid despite Khartoum’s evident sensitivity to outside pressure.
“This is not rocket science, we know that what is required is that the Janjawid militia have to be disbanded, disarmed and withdrawn from Darfur,” Roth told journalists.
“There should be no doubt that this is a government sponsored ethnic cleansing operation, that the atrocities are the product of a deliberate policy on the part of Khartoum to rid large swathes of Darfur of their African ethnic population,” he added.
At least 10,000 people have been killed in Darfur since rebels rose up in February 2003, prompting an assault by government forces and their militia allies in what the UN has called the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis.
Amnesty said that humanitarian aid would not be enough without the deployment of international observers in sufficient numbers in the region.
Six human rights officers were due to be deployed in an area equivalent to the size of France, the UN announced at the meeting.
UN acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan said they would join African Union monitors who are due to oversee a fragile ceasefire agreed last April.
That ceasefire between Khartoum and rebels in Darfur has often been broken, further jeopardising aid deliveries in the mainly desert region which have already been hampered by government red tape.
The meeting of donors, Sudanese and Chad officials, Darfur rebel groups, the United Nations and aid agencies was due to examine boosting an appeal launched earlier this year for a total of 170 million dollars in aid, a UN spokeswoman said.
“Pledges are expected from donor countries,” said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
On Tuesday, one of two rebel groups — the Justice and Equality Movement — said 24 people had been killed in a two-day assault by government forces in the west Darfur village of Adjidji.
A UN human rights report released last month accused the Sudanese government of committing massive human rights violations in Darfur that may amount to crimes against humanity.