Sudanese women reject foreign intervention in Darfur, deny rape reports
KHARTOUM, July 28 (AFP) — Some 200 Sudanese women demonstrated in Khartoum on Wednesday, denying reports of mass rape in the strife-torn western Darfur region and protesting at the threat of UN sanctions or a military intervention to end the conflict.
The rally, called by the women’s secretariat of the ruling National Congress (NC) party, together with the women’s media league and other professional women’s associations, marched from the foreign ministry to the offices of the United Nations, where protesters handed a petition to the UN representative.
The demonstrators chanted such slogans as: “No to foreign intervention”, “Leave Darfur women alone” and “A Sudanese solution to Darfur problem.”
The crisis in Darfur has been brought before the UN Security Council, where a US-backed draft resolution is calling for sanctions against Khartoum unless it takes swift action to stem a humanitarian disaster in its western region.
Between 30,000 and 50,000 people have been killed in Darfur since February 2003 and 1.2 million have been left homeless, according to UN figures.
The UN resolution calls for the government to crack down on Sudanese-backed Arab militias known as the Janjaweed. Rights groups have detailed atrocities including systematic rape in Darfur, many of them attributed to the militias.
The protest delivered to the UN in Khartoum rejected allegations of ethnic cleansing and rape and deplored “political manipulation of the purity and dignity of the Sudanese woman.
Describing the Darfur problem as an “internal” question to be resolved by the Sudanese themselves, the text insisted there was “no justification for foreign military intervention”.
In particular it argued that sanctions against the government in Sudan “only complicates the problem and encourages the rebels into stubbornness.”
The Sudanese government said on Tuesday it would face down any foreign military intervention in the crisis.