Annan calls on NATO, EU to intervene in Sudan crisis

MUNICH, Germany, Feb 13 (AFP) — UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called here Sunday on NATO and the European Union to take action in Sudan’s Darfur region to end violence between ethnic minority rebels and government-backed forces.

A UN panel found that the civilian population in Darfur “has been brutalized by war crimes, which may well amount to crimes against humanity,” Annan said in an address to the annual Munich security conference.

“People are dying, every single day, while we fail to protect them. Additional measures are urgently required. Those organizations with real capacity — and NATO as well as the EU are well represented in this room — must give serious consideration to what, in practical terms, they can do to help end this tragedy,” Annan said.

Annan saluted the work of the 1,850 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, but said other international bodies must act as quickly as possible in a region where tens of thousands have died and 1.6 million have been displaced.

“Remember this: our current collective shortcomings are measured in lives lost,” he said.

The UN Security Council is currently considering how to hold those responsible for the killings in Darfur to account for their crimes.

The killings began nearly two years ago when the Sudanese government unleashed Arab militias against an uprising launched by ethnic minority rebels. Annan said the conflicts in Sudan — including the north-south conflict which has recently been the subject of a peace accord — should never have been allowed to develop.

“It would have been far better if the chronic problems of governance that have long plagued Sudan had been addressed earlier,” Annan said.

“Our eventual goal must be a world of peaceful and capable states, able to exercise their sovereignty responsibly, and to deal with internal stresses before they erupt in conflict.”