UN Security Council hails Sudan resolution

NAIROBI, Nov 19 (AFP) — The UN Security Council Friday hailed a resolution urging an end to the two-decade war in Sudan saying it would pave the way for peace as well as help to resolve the crisis in western Darfur.

Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha, left, reaches to shake hands with Sudan People’s Liberation Movement leader John Garang, Friday, Nov. 19, 2004 during the U.N. Security Council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP).

“History will prove that this will not only provide a perfect conclusion to the settlement of the long-lasting question in the southern Soudan, it will also be conducive to the solution of the question of Darfur,” said China’s ambassador Wang Guangya.

More than 1.5 million people have died since the southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) took up arms against Khartoum in 1983.

Both sides pledged Friday to seal a dragging peace accord by the end of the year, as the UN Security Council adopted a resolution aimed at fostering “lasting peace and stability and to build a prosperous and united Sudan.”

But aid agencies were swift to slam the resolution which does not include a direct threat of sanctions against Khartoum if the violence does not end in a separate conflict in the western Darfur region, saying it was “weak” and “dithering”.

Pakistan’s ambassador Munir Akfam however defended resolution 1574 saying: “Coercion, we have learned it, could be counterproductive.”

French ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said the resolution had been adopted unanimously and “shows that the Security Council is ready to assume its responsibilities.”

The conflict in Darfur erupted in February 2003, and more than 70,000 people have died and a further 1.6 million have been displaced.

Human rights groups place most of the blame for massive human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in Darfur on government forces and their allied militia.