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UN: U.S. Seeks More Pressure On Sudan To Stop Darfur Atrocities

By Robert McMahon

U.S. officials have circulated a new draft resolution in the UN Security Council that seeks stronger measures to end the rampant human rights abuses still being committed in Sudan. The resolution includes a reference for the first time to sanctions on Sudan's oil trade and a call for bolstering international monitors there. The council is due to discuss the draft today. At the same time, a U.S. State Department report may indicate whether U.S. officials regard the Darfur actions as genocide.

United Nations, 9 September 2004 (RFE/RL) -- The UN Security Council is to discuss today a U.S. proposal to increase pressure on the Sudanese government to end abuses that have led to the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

About 40 days after an initial warning from the council, Sudan has failed to rein in militias which continue to carry out attacks, killing, raping, and assaulting villagers in the western part of the country.

Now the U.S. government has circulated a resolution which calls on Sudan to take new steps -- such as submitting names of militiamen disarmed and arrested for rights abuses -- to end what it calls a "climate of impunity." It demands the government stop all military flights over the western region of Darfur and supports a UN call for a much larger monitoring force.

The measure also asks UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to establish an international commission of inquiry to investigate all human rights abuses in Darfur.

The draft does not use the word "sanctions" but makes reference to possible future actions "with regard to the petroleum sector" in the event Sudan's government does not comply.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher explained the purpose behind the new measure yesterday: "The most appropriate step at this time is to specify what needs to be done to help people on the ground in Sudan. Imposing new sanctions at this time may or may not help people on the ground in Sudan. We know that adding African Union monitors will make them safer. We know that ceasing government flights will make them safer. We know that monitoring overflights can make them safer. And what we're focused on in this resolution is things that can be done right now by the government, but also by the international community, to make the people of Darfur safer."

The international community has assisted Sudanese civilians with humanitarian aid but has been unable to stop what many rights experts label an ethnic-cleansing campaign in Darfur. The conflict has already killed more than 30,000 people and caused 1.2 million to flee their homes.

There are currently about 80 military observers from the African Union in the vast region of Darfur, protected by about 300 soldiers. They are monitoring a cease-fire signed by the government and rebel groups.

UN special envoy Jan Pronk has asked Sudan to permit more than 3,000 troops into the region. Sudan has resisted a larger force but its foreign minister said in Japan yesterday that the government had asked for more monitors from the African Union.

Robert Johansen is a senior fellow at the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies and professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. He told RFE/RL that a robust international force with policing powers is essential to protect civilians and eventually allow them to return home. "I do favor a much larger presence, preferably I think under UN auspices, to protect people who are being victimized," he said. "I frankly think that's more important than sanctions on the Khartoum government against oil or anything else."

Sudan produces an estimated 250,000 barrels of oil per day and its customers include China and Pakistan, two Security Council members that oppose sanctions.

The issue of oil sanctions is likely to be sensitive in the Security Council but should be raised, said Princeton Lyman, a former U.S. diplomat in Africa and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent policy institute. "The pressure on Sudan, even if they can't get it through the Security Council, to talk about sanctions on the oil trade is something I felt we ought to be talking about for a long time. [The threat of oil sanctions] ought to be out there -- even the thought that if the UN can't do it, maybe selectively other countries will. Because those are the only sanctions that would really hurt," Lyman said.

Lyman also stressed the importance of the political talks taking place in Nigeria between representatives of the Sudanese government and two rebel groups from Darfur. Fighting broke out in Darfur in early 2003 over scarce land and water resources. Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, escalated the fighting by targeting villagers, who have fled into camps or into neighboring Chad.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will brief a U.S. Senate committee today on a report that says the government of Sudan has promoted systematic killings in Darfur based on race and ethnic origin. It's uncertain whether Powell will label the violence as genocide, which could create a strong legal case for a military intervention.

Copyright (c) 2004. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org