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GENEVA - A UN human rights mission today accused Sudan's government of orchestrating and taking part in gross violations in Darfur and called for urgent international action to protect civilians there.
The team, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams, was dispatched by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate charges of widespread abuse in Sudan's vast western region, where observers say some 200,000 people have been killed since a revolt broke out in 2003.
"The situation is characterised by gross and systematic violations of human rights and grave breaches of international humanitarian law," the mission said in a report to the Council.
"The mission further concludes that the government of Sudan has manifestly failed to protect the population of Darfur from large-scale international crimes and has itself orchestrated and participated in these crimes," the 35-page report said.
While rebel groups were also guilty of serious abuses, the "principal pattern is one of a violent counterinsurgency campaign" being waged by government forces and their militia allies, the so-called Janjaweed, the report said.
The mission, which was refused entry to Sudan, urged the UN Security Council to take "urgent further action" to protect civilians, including through the deployment of peacekeepers.
The Sudanese government denies responsibility for abuses and blames them on rebel groups which refused a 2006 peace deal.
The Darfur violence, described as genocide by Washington, has killed tens of thousands of people and driven 2.5 million from their homes as rebels, charging the government in Khartoum with neglect, battle pro-government Arab militias.
Khartoum rejects the genocide term and says those numbers are exaggerated. It says Western media has blown the conflict out of proportion.
'Violent counterinsurgency'
The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) has summoned a junior government minister and a Darfur militia leader to answer war crimes charges in a first step toward bringing to trial those deemed responsible for atrocities, including mass rape and murder of civilians.
Khartoum, which says it will hold trials of its own, is adamant that it will not hand over anybody to face the court.
The decision to send the six-person team to Sudan was taken by the U.N.'s human rights watchdog only after a bitter debate. Some Arab and African countries on the 47-state body were unhappy at singling out Sudan for special attention.
Western diplomats saw it as a chance to increase pressure on Sudan to accept UN peacekeepers.
The Sudanese government, which is resisting calls for a UN force, at first agreed to cooperate but then refused to issue visas to the mission.
The team travelled to Chad's border with Sudan, where the conflict in Darfur has spilled over, and to Addis Ababa, headquarters of the African Union, which has been trying to contain the violence in Darfur with some 7,000 peacekeepers.
"They (the Sudanese) made it difficult to have a pleasant view of them. It is Khartoum which really suffers in the long run from not letting us in and treating us like pariahs," Williams told Reuters by telephone from the United States.
But one team member, Indonesia's ambassador Makarim Wibisono, withdrew when it failed to get access to Darfur.
Diplomats said that some Council members were talking of blocking formal presentation of the report on the grounds that not all those appointed to the mission took part.
- REUTERS
