Annan calls emergency Sudan session of UN Council
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, March 7 (Reuters) – Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called a closed-door emergency meeting for Monday of U.N. Security Council ambassadors over the deteriorating situation in Darfur and in south Sudan where a peacekeeping force is awaiting council approval.
The 15-nation council has been debating a comprehensive resolution for three weeks. It would authorize a 10,000-member peacekeeping mission to southern Sudan, consider travel sanctions and an asset freeze on perpetrators of atrocities in Darfur and decide whether an international court should hear cases of human rights offenders.
“I think all would agree that not enough is being done to bring the security situation in Sudan under control,” U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
“We all know the kinds of difficult issues that the council is grappling with as they debate approving the secretary-general’s proposal for a peacekeeping mission,” he said. “And I think he wants to discuss with them what practical options are available to them to act more decisively to deal with the continuing killing and rape that’s going on.”
The Khartoum government and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement signed a landmark agreement in January that ended a two-decade-old civil war. They are to form a coalition government, decentralize power, share oil revenues and integrate the military.
But Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian relief coordinator, said the world was failing to provide promised assistance in the war-ravaged south, which could encourage resumed warfare.
“We have the end of the bloodiest war of our generation but we are failing to support the peace process,” he told Reuters during a trip to the region on Saturday.
NATO IN DARFUR?
On Darfur, the main bulwark against atrocities is an African Union force that needs outside assistance. At the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy last month, Annan said NATO and the European Union should help.
“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 end this tragedy,” Annan said then without spelling out specific action. “Additional measures are urgently required.”
In Darfur, killings, rape and the pillaging of African villages are widespread in fighting between rebels wanting more power and the Arab-dominated Sudanese government. Khartoum denies it has armed brutal militia, known as Janjaweed. A U.N. inquiry has said there is little distinction between the Janjaweed and government-backed official paramilitary forces.
At least 70,000 people have been killed between last March and October and 2 million are homeless.
In a revised version of the resolution, obtained by Reuters, all mention of threatened oil sanctions against Sudan is dropped. But a partial arms embargo as well as travel and an assets freeze against perpetrators of atrocities remain in the document. Diplomats said the assets freeze might be deleted to get support from Russia and China.
The main stumbling point is where to put those responsible for heinous crimes on trial. Most council members prefer the new International Criminal Court in The Hague, which the United States opposes. China and Algeria are against any referral to an outside court.
The Bush administration has proposed a new U.N.-African Union tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, which few on the council and elsewhere support.
The United States had suggested severing that part of the resolution and voting on it later but that had not been approved either, diplomats said.