UN begins Darfur genocide probe amid charges of tampering by Khartoum

KHARTOUM, Nov 8 (AFP) — A UN team began work investigating allegations of genocide against the Sudanese government as ethnic minority rebels accused the army and its militia allies of destroying the evidence of mass graves in Darfur.

Rebels from the Sudan Liberation Movement wait in their base in Gellab, North Darfur, Sudan, during a meeting with African Union officers. (AFP).

The five-member panel, which arrived here Sunday evening, held separate meetings with Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail and Justice Minister Ali Mohamed Yassin.

Ismail said he had promised his government’s full cooperation with the team set up by UN chief Kofi Annan to investigate charges that Khartoum’s bloody 21-month-old clampdown against the Darfur rebels amounts to genocide.

“The commission is supposed to be a neutral body and will therefore be offered an opportunity to obtain all the information it needs to make its decision,” he said.

“The government welcomes the commission because it has nothing to hide and, instead, concedes that there is a problem in Darfur and, if it is offered a chance, any unbiased body can reach the truth, a matter which will help refute the tremendous allegations about Darfur.”

But as the team began work, one of the two Darfur rebel factions accused Khartoum-sponsored Arab militias of destroying the evidence of their abuses in the restive western region where the United Nations says some 50,000 people have died and 1.4 million more been driven from their homes.

Sudan Liberation Movement spokesman Mahmud Hussein said militiamen had been seen emptying a mass grave in Kabkabiya, west of the North Darfur state capital of El-Fasher.

“They were removing corpses,” he told AFP by telephone from the Nigerian capital Abuja. “It’s a plan to obliterate the truth.”

The German and US governments have both backed accusations by human rights watchdogs that the scorched earth policy adopted against minority villagers suspected of supporting the Darfur rebels amounts to genocide by the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum.

The UN team is headed by Antonio Cassesse of Italy. Its other members are Mohamed Fayek of Egypt, Diego Garcia-Sayan of Peru, Hina Gilani of Pakistan and Therese Striggner-Scott of Ghana.