World’s patience on Sudan’s Darfur fast running out: Amnesty
JOHANNESBURG, Sept 19 (AFP) — The world’s patience is running out on war-torn Darfur and Sudan has to immediately stop all rights abuses and end a cycle of broken promises, a senior Amnesty International official said Sunday.
The warning came a day after the UN Security Council passed a resolution warning that it “will envisage” sanctions against Sudan’s vital oil industry, after consulting with the African Union, unless Khartoum delivers on pledges to protect the people of Darfur.
“The world — and most importantly Darfurians — are tired of people being raped, tortured, killed and driven out of their homes. The patience of the international community is not unlimited,” Kolawole Olaniyan, Amnesty International’s legal adviser on Africa told AFP.
“We are tired of rhetorical promises which are never kept. We want to see a clear political will now that things will change.”
The resolution, sponsored at the United Nations by the United States, says Khartoum and its proxy Arab militias are guilty of genocide in Darfur, a term also used by German Defence Minister Peter Struck, who said that for the first time, Berlin might contribute soldiers to a UN mission if one was sent.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer on Saturday night told journalists in Berlin that the resolution was “an important sign that the international community isn’t ready to accept humanitarian disasters which are also blows to human rights”.
An estimated 50,000 people have died and 1.4 million more have been displaced in Darfur, where UN officials say government-backed Janjaweed militias have carried out a scorched-earth campaign of ethnic cleansing against black residents.
Olaniyan was in Pretoria for a two-day meeting of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, an organ of the African Union, which was expected later Sunday to adopt a report on its mission to Darfur, which will be passed on to Khartoum.
He said Amnesty, the London-based rights watchdog, had made a series of recommendations to be incorporated into the Commission’s report.
“We are asking Sudan to cease all violations of international human rights forthwith and to allow tens of thousands to return to their homes. We are asking for compensation for victims and and for human rights monitors to have unhindered access to all places of detention in Sudan.”
“We are calling for the establishment of an international commission of enquiry to investigate cases of rights violations and want to specifically caution the Sudanese to release all human rights defenders held in the context of conflict.”
He said Khartoum should “also bring to book suspected perpetrators of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in line with international standards for fair trials and without recourse to the death penalty.”
“The horror is continuing with impunity,” Olaniyan said. “between July and August alone, 168 people were arbitarbily executed in the area of Wadi Salih. Hundreds of human rights defenders are languishing in jail.”
The war broke out in February 2003 when rebels rose up against Khartoum to demand an end to the political and economic marginalisation of their region, peopled mainly by black Africans.
Khartoum’s response was to back the Janjaweed and give it a free rein to crack down on the rebels and their backers.
Darfur is one of the most backwards areas in Sudan, which produces an estimated 300,000 daily barrels of oil and has forecast that oil exports would bring in almost two billion dollars this year.