HRW wants Sudan peace deal to address past abuses

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 18, 2004 (PANA) — New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW)
said Thursday the “impunity enjoyed by the Sudanese authorities
in their ongoing atrocities in Darfur demonstrates why the
near-final peace deal to end the country’s North-South conflict
must include accountability” for alleged human rights abuses.

The UN Security Council began an extraordinary session in
Nairobi Thursday to push the Sudan North-South peace
negotiations to a conclusion.

A draft peace deal to end the 21-year conflict is known as
the Naivasha protocols, after the Kenyan town where the
Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement/Army (SPLM/A) have negotiated a series of protocols
since June 2002.

“Unless they are held accountable for abuses in the South, the
Sudanese authorities will continue to believe they can get away
with murder in Darfur,” said Jemera Rone, Sudan researcher for
Human Rights Watch. “There’s still time for UN Security Council
members meeting in Nairobi to insist that the final peace
agreement includes accountability for past abuses and protections
against future ones.”

In a new briefing paper addressing the human rights “shortcomings,”
in the Naivasha protocols, HRW called for prosecutions of those
implicated in grave violations of human rights and international
humanitarian law in Sudan.

It also called for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to ensure
full disclosure of human rights abuses in the armed conflicts that
have ravaged Sudan since 1983.

The rights group said the international mediators led by
the United States, Britain and Norway “have a solemn
responsibility to insist that both the government and the
rebels be held accountable for past abuses, including war
crimes and crimes against humanity.”

“A North-South peace deal is vital for the people of Sudan, who
have suffered a war that has killed two million people,” Rone
said. “But we have learned the hard way that ignoring grave
abuses such as those we saw in the South will not bring Sudan
lasting peace.”