Obasanjo tasked on Darfur crisis

DAKAR, Senegal, Aug 20, 2004 (PANA) — African Union (AU) chair and
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, should make the
protection of civilians in Sudan’s troubled western
Darfur region a priority in talks beginning Monday in
Abuja between the Khartoum government and Darfur’s two
rebel movements, Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Friday.

The New York-based rights group said in a release,
parties to the talks in the Nigerian capital should
agree to increasing the number of AU troops and giving
them a clear mandate to protect civilians.

The Sudanese government and the two rebel movements in Darfur
– the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the
Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), are to hold negotiations
mediated by the AU to work out a political settlement to the
Darfur conflict.

“Civilians in Darfur urgently need and deserve protection
right now, and the African Union should give its troops a
clear mandate to protect civilians from abuses,” said Peter
Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s
Africa Division.

“President Obasanjo should ensure that the size and mandate of
the African Union protection force are on the table in Abuja,”
he added.

The Rwandan government has indicated that its 154 troops in
Darfur would intervene if civilians are threatened, HRW said.

The rights group, however, noted that “the Rwandan contingent
is severely constrained by the size of the force and the lack
of a formal mandate to protect civilians under attack.”

Nigeria plans to deploy some 153 troops to Darfur next
week to protect AU ceasefire monitors.

The Nigerian government has also agreed to deploy an
additional 1,500 troops, subject to approval by the
African Union and the Sudanese government.

HRW urged the African Union to urgently “increase the
number of troops deployed and give them a mandate to
protect civilians, as proposed by the AU Peace and
Security Council in its July 27 communiqué.”

The continental body, it said, “should also ensure that
such forces are deployed in small towns in rural areas
and that they proactively patrol, investigate, document
and publicly report on ceasefire violations, attacks on
civilians, and provide protection to civilians in these
areas.”

HRW also expressed concern with the “United Nations
‘Plan of Action’ whereby the Sudanese government would
create ‘safe areas’ in which displaced persons would be
concentrated.”

The plan calls for the ‘safe areas’ to be protected by
Sudanese police and security forces, but the rights group
claimed “the Sudanese government is now integrating members
of the government-supported Janjaweed militias into
police forces, and such militias have been responsible
for atrocities in Darfur.”

“While protection must be provided to the people living in the
over 140 camps scattered across Darfur and neighbouring Chad,
international protection forces should be deployed in rural
areas as well to provide security, to facilitate the voluntary
and safe return of displaced persons, and to prevent the ethnic
cleansing that has already occurred in Darfur from becoming
permanent,” HRW stressed.

“If the Sudanese government is unable or unwilling to carry
out its obligation to protect its citizens, and refuses
assistance from the African Union or the United Nations to
protect civilians, the Sudanese authorities will bear
individual criminal responsibility for the atrocities
committed,” Takirambudde charged.