UN Council votes for resolution on Darfur abuses

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 18 (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution on Saturday that threatens oil sanctions against Sudan if Khartoum does not stop atrocities in the Darfur region.

The vote was 11-0, with four abstentions, on the U.S.-drafted resolution that also calls for an expanded African Union monitoring force and a probe into human rights abuses including genocide.

China, Russia, Algeria and Pakistan abstained. China earlier threatened to veto the measure and its U.N. envoy, Wang Guangya, consulted with U.S. Ambassador John Danforth until the last minute.

“We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater,” Wang told reporters before the vote.

The resolution says Sudan has to cooperate with an expanded African Union monitoring mission in Darfur, where an estimated 50,000 people have been killed and 1.2 million forced out of their homes. U.N. officials hope at least 3,000 African Union monitors and troops go to Darfur to investigate and serve as a bulwark against abuses.

It also calls for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to set up a commission that would investigate human rights abuses and determine if genocide had occurred, as the United States believes it has, in the western Sudanese region where Arab militia have been terrorizing African villagers.

“We act today because the Government of Sudan has failed to fully comply with out previous resolution, adopted on July 30,” Danforth said. “The crisis in Darfur is uniquely grave. It is the largest humanitarian disaster in the world.

SECURITY AGREEMENT

The latest version before the council urges African rebels and all other parties to the faltering African Union negotiations to sign an agreement on security quickly.

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 area as large as France.

The government turned to the militia, drawn chiefly from the nomadic Arab population, to help suppress the rebels but the Janjaweed, often backed by government forces, escalated the conflict, raping villagers and pillaging.

Over the past week, the United States softened language on sanctions and eliminated a call for Sudan to stop all military flights over Darfur.

But the resolution retains the main action points: a threat of sanctions, a commission to investigate the possibility of genocide and an expanded African Union monitoring force U.S. and U.N. officials hope will reach some 3,000 troops and observers and serve as a bulwark to further abuse.

Specifically, the resolution says that if Sudan does not comply with its demands or cooperate “with the expansion and extension” of the African Union mission, the council “shall consider taking additional measures … such as actions to affect Sudan’s petroleum sector and the Government of Sudan or individual members of the Government of Sudan.”