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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
SUDAN: Government officials unhappy with UN resolution
NAIROBI, 2 Aug 2004 (IRIN) - Sudanese government officials have angrily denounced a resolution passed by the United Nations Security Council on Friday, which demanded that Khartoum disarm Janjawid militias accused of committing atrocities in the western Darfur region within 30 days or face further actions.
The resolution also demanded that Khartoum apprehend and bring to justice the militia leaders and their associates who had incited and committed violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Darfur.
It called on the government to immediately fulfil all the commitments it made in a statement issued jointly with the UN Secretary-General on 3 July, particularly by facilitating the distribution of relief aid to those affected by the conflict.
But the Sudanese Council of Ministers, which met on Sunday under the chairmanship of First Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha, expressed regret over the resolution, Sudan News Agency reported.
A statement issued by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mustafa Osman Ismail, said the resolution did not address the causes of the Darfur conflict and the 30-day period "was illogical and difficult to be implemented". Instead, the statement said, Khartoum was ready to act on the Darfur situation in 90 days.
The Al Anbaa daily newspaper on Monday quoted the Sudanese armed forces spokesman, Gen Mohamed Beshir Suleiman, as saying the UN resolution was "a declaration of war".
"The Sudanese army is now prepared to confront the enemies of the Sudan on land, sea and air," he was quoted as saying. He added that the 30-day deadline set in the resolution was "a preparatory period" for war against Sudan, which was "being targeted by foreign powers."
He was quoted as saying: "The door of the jihad is still open and if it has been closed in the south it will be opened in Darfur."
The resolution also called for an independent investigation into human rights violations and a resumption of talks with dissident groups from Darfur, specifically the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA).
It endorsed the deployment of international monitors and a protection force, under the leadership of the African Union, to Darfur, urging the rebel groups "to respect the ceasefire, end the violence immediately and act in a positive and constructive manner to end the conflict".
The United States ambassador to the UN, John Danforth said: "The last thing we wanted to do was lay the groundwork for sanctions". He added that the actions of the Sudanese government and "its Janjawid proxies" had led to 30,000 deaths since February 2003, caused more than one million people to flee their homes, and "perhaps 300,000 more people faced death by hunger and disease in the next six months".
He said responsibility for the disaster lay squarely on the Sudanese government which had, to suppress a rebel uprising in early 2003, began a "campaign of terror" against innocent civilians by exploiting an ancient rivalry between Arab African herdsmen and groups of largely black African farmers. It had also armed the Janjawid militias and unleashed them against black civilians, the ambassador added.
Meanwhile the European Commission (EC) said on Friday that it was extremely concerned about the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
"The ceasefire signed in N'Djamena on 8 April is clearly a welcome development, particularly insofar as it commits the parties to allow fast and unrestricted humanitarian access and to facilitate delivery of humanitarian assistance in accordance with international humanitarian law and principles," the EC said in a statement. "However, there is a long way to go before durable stability and, eventually, peace can be re-established."
Noting that thousands of people were believed to have died over the past 12 months in the Darfur conflict, the EC said about 2 million people - a third of the entire population of the Darfur region - were badly affected.
"The EC has urged the government of Sudan to abide by its obligations regarding the protection of its own civilians. This includes actively disarming and prosecuting armed groups acting against civilians," it said.
"The EC has further called upon the government of Sudan to facilitate the establishment of a truly conducive environment in which a serious and meaningful humanitarian operation can be mounted," it added.
In Darfur, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) started dropping food by air into the most inaccessible parts of the region. "Dropping food by air is always an expensive last resort, but for many parts of Darfur we simply have no other option at this time of year," Ramiro Lopes da Silva, WFP country director in Sudan said in a statement.
WFP said it continues to distribute food by road to the displaced people, but faced difficulties. On Thursday, for example, armed people who had identified themselves as members of the SLA stopped and looted two trucks of 50 mt of food on the road from Ed-Daein to the South Darfur capital of Nyala.
The looting, near the village of Labadu, was the second such incident in the same area in 10 days. On 20 July, men identifying themselves as SLA members took 300 bags of sorghum and 300 bags of other cereals from two trucks near Labadu, WFP said.
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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