Americans raising proposals to punish those guilty of atrocities in Darfur

By NICK WADHAMS, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27, 2005 (AP) — The United States is making several proposals to the U.N. Security Council meant to bring perpetrators of atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region to justice, a U.S. spokesman said Wednesday.

A rebel of SLA prays on the sand. (Reuters).

The United States has called the violence in Darfur a genocide and has been a leader in trying to punish those responsible. Hardships including disease and malnutrition are believed to have killed more than 70,000 of Darfur’s displaced people since March 2004, but many more have been killed in fighting.

The U.S. ideas would involve using methods other than the International Criminal Court, a body the United States opposes, U.S. Mission spokesman Richard Grenell said. That would almost certainly put Washington in conflict with European leaders who back the court.

The developments come as a U.N. commission is preparing to deliver a report examining the Darfur situation to see whether the crisis there is genocide. U.S. officials have said privately they don’t expect the report to make that determination.

“We called this a genocide last year, we reported regularly on violations, we called for this commission in a resolution last year to investigate and we have been absolutely intent on seeing accountability for those responsible,” Grenell said.

The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Russia, China, France, Britain and the United States — met Monday to discuss action on Sudan.

One possibility the United States is suggesting would involve the African Union, which has about 1,400 cease-fire monitors and protection troops in the western Sudan region, a U.N. diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Army and allied Justice and Equality Movement took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin.

The government responded with a counter-insurgency campaign in which the Janjaweed, an Arab militia, committed wide-scale abuses against the African population. An estimated 1.8 million people have been displaced in the conflict.

A senior U.S. official said the United States also hoped to use a possible resolution dealing with a recent peace deal ending Sudan’s civil war to leverage action on Darfur.

Sudan’s government and rebels signed a peace deal on Jan. 9 ending the civil war and setting up a national power-sharing administration with an autonomous south.

Jan Pronk, the top U.N. envoy to Sudan, said last month that if a peace agreement was reached, he envisioned Security Council adoption of a resolution in the third week of January authorizing a wide-ranging U.N. peacekeeping and peace-building mission, hopefully with 9,000 to 10,000 troops. But that has been delayed.

The senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States wanted to add incentives into that resolution that would push the government to end the conflict in Darfur. Ideas include tying the release of humanitarian aid to resolving Darfur, the official said.

Southern Sudan, a region the size of Texas, has been ravaged for 21 years by fighting between the government and rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army. More than 2 million people have been killed — mainly through war-induced famine and disease — and 4 million have fled their homes.

The U.S. official said Washington wants a resolution soon after the U.N. commission’s report is released.