US threatens oil sanctions on Sudan at UN
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 8 (Reuters) – The United States submitted a U.N. resolution on Wednesday threatening oil sanctions against Sudan if Khartoum does not stop abuses in Darfur and accept a large African Union monitoring force.
The draft Security Council measure says Khartoum had “failed fully to comply with its commitments” to rein in the Arab Janjaweed militia, accused of killing, raping and uprooting African villagers.
Some 1.2 million people have fled their homes in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
The resolution also demands all military flights over Darfur be stopped and asks Secretary-General Kofi Annan to establish an international commission to investigate human rights abuses and “determine whether acts of genocide have occurred, and to identify the perpetrators.”
U.S. Ambassador John Danforth said a key provision in the text was increasing the number of African Union monitors as well as expanding their mandate.
“It says to the Government of Sudan that the rest of the world is looking,” he told Reuters. “And it says to the people of Darfur that there are people from the outside watching and that would have a chilling effect on the government.”
Danforth said he understood that African leaders “are very interested in doing this.”
The resolution does not set a deadline for Sudan to comply, although diplomats said this might be added during negotiations, which begin on Thursday.
It threatens punitive measures “including with regard to the petroleum sector” or against individual government members in the event of noncompliance “or failure to cooperate with the African Union mission.”
Sudan is now producing about 320,000 barrels per day from its southern oil fields, and from Sept. 15 an extra 12,000 bpd will reach the refinery in Khartoum from another southern field, Oil Minister Awad Ahmed al-Jaz said. It exports oil to China and Pakistan, two council members who oppose sanctions.
The Security Council threatened on July 30 to consider imposing unspecified sanctions on Sudan if it failed to disarm and prosecute the Janjaweed.
Sanctions have a slim chance of approval at this time but Danforth said he would keep up the pressure if Sudan does not comply and was certain the council would support the African Union.
“We think it’s a reasonable thing if there is continued noncompliance,” Danforth said. “Then there would be sanctions. That is certainly our position and the only course we could follow at that point.”
Sudan has said it would accept more AU monitors but not if their mandate is expanded as proposed by Jan Pronk, the special U.N. envoy to Sudan.
The 53-member African Union has some 80 monitors and 300 troops to protect them in Darfur, but only to observe a cease-fire between the government and the rebels.
The United Nations has proposed about 3,000 AU military observers and troops and another 1,100 police, although some U.N. officials say the numbers should be higher.
The draft resolution calls for them to investigate all abuses and visit camps for uprooted Africans and not just concentrate on cease-fire violations.
The rebels began their uprising in February 2003 after years of low-level fighting between mainly African farmers and Arab nomads over scarce land and water resources.
The Arab Janjaweed escalated the fight by driving African villagers from their homes and into camps.
((Editing by Chris Wilson))