SUDAN: Aid groups and human rights activists believe Sudan has not done enough toescape UN censure over Darfur, writes Denis McClean in Geneva
Any hopes harboured by the Sudanese government of escaping sanctions and ending its pariah status ahead of Monday's UN Security Council deadline on ending atrocities in Darfur were dealt severe blows yesterday by a broad coalition of aid and human rights organisations.
Human Rights Watch said it had detailed evidence that the Sudanese government is permitting the Arab Janjaweed militia - the main culprits in attacks on the ethnically African civilian population - to maintain at least 16 camps in west and north Darfur and five of these camps are shared with the Sudanese army.
Mr Peter Takirambudde, head of the Africa section of Human Rights Watch, called on the UN to impose sanctions on Sudan for failure to "disarm the Janjaweed militias and apprehend and bring to justice Janjaweed leaders and their associates" as demanded in UN Security Council Resolution 1556 of July 30th.
"The existence of these Janjaweed camps shows clearly that Khartoum is not at all serious about ending atrocities and providing security. The fact that there are still armed camps filled with killers terrorising civilians in Darfur makes it impossible for people to go home," he said.
Human Rights Watch also backs allegations that members of the Janjaweed have been inducted into the Sudanese security forces.
A grim picture of the Darfur countryside was painted yesterday in Geneva by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which said more than 500 villages had been burned down throughout the region and the local population traumatised by "a very violent counter-insurgency strategy with devastating humanitarian consequences".
ICRC's head of delegation in Khartoum, Mr Dominik Stillhart, said that even by Sudanese standards, what had happened in Darfur over the last year was unprecedented with more than one million people uprooted from their homes.
He said the whole humanitarian endeavour was at least six to nine months too late due to earlier travel restrictions placed on humanitarian organisations which have since been lifted. Mr Stillhart said that the ICRC, in addition to providing relief to 300,000 displaced people, is now about to target 300,000 to 400,000 people who have not left their homes but are living in extreme poverty.
Of the four million to five million people who have not left their homes, ICRC estimates that one million "are extremely vulnerable".
Goal director Mr John O'Shea, said yesterday he was convinced that "the Sudanese government wants to ethnically cleanse this area. It is not acceptable that the Sudanese government be given credit for allowing a few aid agencies to operate. If protection is not there, then we are looking at another Rwanda." Mr O'Shea said he was all too afraid that the UN Security Council "despite no change on the ground will just pass the buck and not insist on any meaningful action".
Concern's chief executive, Mr Tom Arnold, called for continuing pressure to get more non-Sudanese peacekeeping troops in on the ground. "I don't think that dispatching American or British troops would be a solution. The African Union is the best instrument for getting troops in there on the ground and providing reassurance to the local population."
Mr Arnold, who visited Darfur recently, said field reports continued to indicate that there was "very little trust and faith" among the displaced population. "Some element of external involvement is necessary to guarantee their security."
The plight of displaced women was taken up yesterday by the new director of operations for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Sudan and Chad, Mr Jean-Marie Fakhouri, who told reporters in Geneva that he recently met terrified women in the besieged village of Masteri who had been raped just a few days before his visit. He also spoke with a man whose mother was shot in front of him.
"Masteri is just one dot on that border and there are many other dots," Mr Fakhouri said. "There were about 30,000 people huddled together in that large village out of 65,000 original inhabitants. They told us that they were waiting for the arrival of some form of international peacekeeping force or when the water in the river drops they will cross the border into Chad."
The UN Secretary General's special representative to Sudan, Mr Jan Pronk, concludes his three-day fact-finding mission to Darfur today and then starts preparing to deliver his report to the UN Security Council next Thursday, three days after the expiry of the original deadline.
He will also be aware of the ongoing US investigation into whether what has been happening in Darfur meets the definition of genocide as already declared by the US Congress but disputed by the European Union.
A preliminary State Department review based on 257 interviews with Sudanese refugees in Chad at the end of July found "a consistent and widespread pattern of atrocities".
UN estimates of the death toll in Darfur now stand at 50,000 and the numbers of those in need of assistance either as refugees in Chad or internally displaced in Sudan could rise to two million by the end of the rainy season in October. The US Agency for International Development predicts that as many as 350,000 could die by the end of the year.
The UNHCR is launching an appeal next Friday for $105 million to support 200,000 refugees in Chad but the fact s that the total UN appeal for Sudan remains grossly underfunded with just $434 million received out of $722 million needed through the end of the year. This includes a shortfall of $188 million to meet the needs of the displaced in Darfur while the rest is for three million people living on the edge of starvation in the southern, central and eastern parts of the country.
Observers agree that there will be little hope of a return to normality without a political settlement between the government and the rebel Sudanese Liberation Movement, the army and the Justice and Equality Movement who started their rebellion early last year in a bid for more autonomy and equal sharing of resources. So far African Union mediated peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, are making little progress.