Annan presses Security Council to do more on Sudan’s Darfur

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 21 (AFP) — UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Tuesday appealed for more international help in Sudan’s Darfur region and pressed the Security Council to “assume its responsibility” for peace and security.

Sudanese workers of the humanitarian organization Care International prepare food for Care feeding Centers in Nyala town in Sudan’s south Darfur region. (AFP).

His comments came as the council held another closed-door meeting on Darfur amid reports of more bloodshed between the government and rebels despite council resolutions threatening sanctions if the violence does not end.

An estimated 70,000 people have died, many from famine and disease, since government-backed militia helped put down a rebellion launched in February 2003 against the government in Khartoum.

Annan said nations must do more to help the African Union, which has a tiny force on hand in the vast region to monitor the shaky ceasefire but is short of money and logistical capabilities in Darfur.

“If additional support is needed and additional action is needed, the council has to assume its responsibility,” he told a press conference at UN headquarters in New York.

“After all, it has the ultimate primary responsibility for international peace and security,” Annan said, also raising the possibility of slapping sanctions on the war-torn nation.

“There comes a time when you have to make a reassessment as to whether the approach you’ve taken is working or not,” he said.

The United States has run into opposition from some other council nations over imposing sanctions on Sudan, and has insisted that all those responsible for the bloodshed — which it calls a genocide — be brought to justice.

At the same time, however, Washington is opposed to any referrals to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, in part because it fears its own nationals could be targeted by politically motivated prosecutions.

“The majority of the council members would want the ICC to play a role but we also know that the US has a problem with any referral to the ICC, and this is an issue that council will have to find a way around,” Annan said.

After Tuesday’s meeting, US envoy Stuart Holliday said the 15-nation council took its responsibilities “seriously” but added that Annan should make another visit to Darfur to see the horrors of the situation first-hand.

“The continued engagement of the secretary general on this question is absolutely critical,” Holliday told reporters.

“We will be engaging with the secretary general on steps the council might take, and also think it might be time for him to actually personally see the situation in Darfur again, as he did last summer,” Holliday said.

Ethnic black rebels rose up in Darfur, a vast western area the size of France, in February 2003. The rebellion was put down by the Arab-led government with the help of Arab militias known as Janjaweed.

The militias have been blamed for a campaign of ethnic cleansing including rape and pillaging in Darfur, where Annan cautioned earlier this month that “chaos is looming as order is collapsing.”

US ambassador John Danforth, who last led a council mission to Africa on the Sudan issue in November, pointedly said earlier this month that the council was “getting nowhere” on Darfur.

“The rebels and the government and the militia — all sides — are complicit in the disaster. They sign agreements which apparently mean nothing at all,” Danforth said.