UN resolution punishing Sudan off until next week

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, July 14 (Reuters) – Sudan has opened its doors to aid groups seeking to help more than a million uprooted people in Darfur, but militia are still terrorizing villagers, a U.N. relief official said on Wednesday.

Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator, said he expected no verdict on Sudan’s cooperation until U.N. officials evaluated the situation later this week.

And Security Council envoys said they did not expect any action on a U.S.-drafted sanctions resolution until next week at the earliest, despite worldwide protests against Khartoum.

The resolution would put an immediate travel and arms ban on Darfur militia, called the Janjaweed, and threaten to extend the bans to Khartoum within a month if the government did not stop the killings, rape and uprooting of African villagers.

Britain and Germany, however, say this is too little, too late, and the world should put an immediate arms embargo on Sudan if the government does not live up to its obligations.

A CRUCIAL PERIOD

Egeland told a news conference, “We see that there is progress in some area, including access.”

“But the government has to do much more to disarm this infamous Janjaweed militia,” he said. “These next days and couple of weeks will be very crucial.”

“We are now in this moment of truth, which will last for some weeks,” he said. “My worst scenario is that the security will deteriorate, that we will step back at a moment we have to actually step up.”

Black Darfur Africans have blamed mounted Arab fighters for violence that humanitarian officials say has made 1.2 million people in Darfur homeless and forced them into barren camps.

Up to 30,000 people may have died so far and more than 100,000 have fled to neighboring Chad, U.N. figures show.

Egeland said said relief goods had been looted, and humanitarian workers had been attacked by militia and rebel groups, though not necessarily through government inaction.

He said he was also concerned that those uprooted are being pressured to leave camps and return to their villages, where they would be prey to the militia. “This is one of the key points to monitor — that return is voluntary and security is reestablished for the civilian population.” he said.

ENSLAVING CHILDREN

With support from Sudan’s military, the Janjaweed are accused of burning villages, kidnapping and enslaving children, contaminating water sources and systematically raping women.

U.S. Ambassador John Danforth noted there would be a meeting on Thursday in Khartoum between U.N., United States and Sudanese officials to see which benchmarks “they have honored or not honored; and then we will proceed from there, sometime after Thursday, maybe early next week,” he told reporters.

In addition, diplomats said the United States had privately given the Sudanese some undisclosed deadlines, which had not yet expired.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir promised U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan nearly two weeks ago to disarm militias, begin political talks with rebels and provide access for international aid agencies as well as send police to Darfur to protect civilians.

In the 15-nation U.N. Security Council, Russia, China, Philippines, Pakistan, Algeria and Brazil are waiting to see what Khartoum will do. The two sub-Saharan African members, Angola and Benin, have not made their positions clear.

Chile and Europeans Britain, France, Spain, Germany and Romania either support the U.S. resolution or want the tougher measures, council sources said.