UN team seeks urgent action to avoid genocide in Darfur

NEW YORK, Oct 1, 2004 (PANA) — An international police presence is needed
in Darfur to accompany and monitor local police officers in a
move to protect the huge population of internally displaced
persons there, two senior UN human rights officials have
recommended to the Security Council.

High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour and Secretary-
General Kofi Annan’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of
Genocide, Juan Méndez briefed the Council Thursday on their
mission last week to Darfur, where they found more than 1.45
million IDPs were living in “prisons without walls”.

Arbour and Méndez later told reporters that the only way to
overcome the IDPs’ lack of trust would be for the police to
protect them, especially if they venture out of the camps for
firewood and food or try to return home.

They said such security officers should include international
police officers.

“I think a mere increase in their number [the Sudanese police] is
unlikely to restore the lack of faith and actually overcome the
sense of insecurity and fear that is prevalent in IDP camps,”
Arbour said.

“In some camps, the number of police officers is clearly
insufficient: say five police officers just outside a camp of
50,000 IDPs. But it’s pretty clear that even when the Sudanese
police presence has been considerably increased, it still has
virtually no interaction with the camp community and people have
no confidence [in them].

“The number of IDPs in Darfur has been swelling since last year,
when Janjaweed militias began attacking villagers after two rebel
groups took up arms against the Sudanese Government. More than
200,000 refugees have also fled to neighbouring Chad,” she said.

Arbour and Méndez called for an expansion of the size and mandate
of the force of African Union (AU) ceasefire monitors, saying
they have shown an impressive dedication to their work given
their limited resources and numbers.

Arbour indicated there were reports that whenever an
international delegation toured IDP camps, security forces would
later enter the camps and try to question anyone who spoke to the
foreign visitors.

But the IDPs “expressed their faith and total dependence on the
international community for protection, this is where they think
their security lies”.

She said the UN would not support the Government’s policy of
encouraging IDPs to return to their home villages until they felt
assured the process would be both safe and voluntary.

“People can barely step outside the perimeter of their camps to
collect firewood without a very realistic fear of being attacked
and raped on many occasions,” she noted.

While emphasising it was not his task to determine whether
genocide has occurred in Darfur, Méndez said the international
community must be vigilant in the weeks and months ahead.

“In my mind the vulnerability of certain ethnic groups in Darfur
is such, and the instability of the situation generally, that we
have not turned the corner on preventing genocide from happening
in the future or even in the near future,” he said.

The UN is in the process of setting up a commission of inquiry to
consider whether genocide has happened after the Security Council
called for such a commission in its most recent resolution on
Darfur.