UN Council should vote “yes” on Sudan draft – Annan
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 16 (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday threw his weight behind a U.S.-drafted resolution on Sudan’s Darfur region, saying the Security Council should adopt it immediately to stop atrocities.
“It is urgent to act now. Civilians are still being attacked and fleeing their villages as we speak,” Annan told reporters.
The United States would like a vote in the 15-member council on Friday but it is not known if China will cast a veto against the measure, which threatens to consider sanctions against Sudan’s oil industry if attacks against civilians by Arab militia continue.
China’s U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, who earlier in the week threatened a veto, told reporters he still had difficulties with the new version and was waiting for instructions from Beijing.
U.S. Ambassador John Danforth made numerous revisions on the resolution on Thursday, including deleting a demand Sudan cease all military flights over Darfur.
But the main points of the text remain: A call for the African Union to field a large monitoring force in Darfur and a threat to consider sanctions if Sudan does not cooperate with the monitors and stop the atrocities.
The resolution also asks Annan to create an international commission to determine human rights violations and whether genocide has occurred in Darfur as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell maintained last week.
“If this resolution is adopted I shall do so with all speed,” Annan said, adding he was already making some preliminary preparations. “But I want to make it clear that, no matter how the crimes that are being committed against civilians in Darfur are characterized or legally defined, it is urgent to take action now.”
He said he was sending Louise Arbour, the high commissioner for human rights, and Juan Mendes, a special adviser on the prevention of genocide, to visit Darfur and see what can be done to stop abuses.
They will arrive in Khartoum on Sunday but will not make a judgment on whether genocide has occurred, he said.
The draft resolution, says the council “shall consider” imposing sanctions, including against Sudan’s oil industry, if Khartoum does not reign in militia, known as Janjaweed, accused of murder, rape and uprooting African villagers or cooperate with an expanded African Union monitoring mission.
The resolution is the second in the Security Council this summer aimed at stopping the violence, which the United Nations says has left an estimated 50,000 Africans dead and has forced 1.2 million people to flee their homes.
Annan also said U.N. members had to support an expanded monitoring mission of the African Union, which may send 3,000 troops and observers to Darfur to investigate abuse.
“Time is of the essence,” Annan said, appealing to all nations to supply the force with logistic and financial support so it could be deployed quickly.
The United States has about 10 nations supporting the resolution, diplomats said. But a veto from China or Russia, which also has objections, would kill the measure. Pakistan, Algeria and Brazil also have reservations.
A resolution needs a minimum of nine positive votes and no veto from any of the permanent members — China, Russia, Britain, France and the United States.
Rebels began an uprising in Darfur in February 2003 after years of skirmishes between mainly African farmers and Arab nomads over land and water in the arid area as large as France.
The government turned to militia, drawn chiefly from the nomadic Arab population, to help suppress the rebels but the Janjaweed escalated the battle to civilians.