Sudan:UN human rights investigators have accused the Sudanese government of orchestrating "gross and systematic" human rights abuses in Darfur and complained that the international response has been "inadequate and ineffective".
"It's a damning report. It's another example of lovely words in UN resolutions which don't mean anything if you don't put them into action," the head of the investigative team, Nobel peace prize laureate Jody Williams, said.
Ms Williams said she was hoping to deliver the report to the UN human rights council on Friday, but there are attempts by Islamic states supporting Khartoum to block it and order a new one.
The report they are attempting to suppress concludes that the Sudanese government "has manifestly failed to protect the population of Darfur from large-scale international crimes and has itself orchestrated and participated in these crimes".
While rebel forces had also been guilty of serious human rights abuses, the commission found, the "principal pattern is one of a violent counterinsurgency campaign waged by the government of Sudan in concert with Janjaweed militia" - the Arab paramilitary group.
Last month, prosecutors at the international criminal court in The Hague issued indictments against a member of the Khartoum government, Ahmed Muhammed Harun, and a Janjaweed militia leader, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Sudanese government has blamed the violence on rebel groups and argues it is being exaggerated by the West. Khartoum has appointed Mr Harun minister of state for humanitarian affairs.
The UN report is also scathing about the response of the international community.
A small African Union (AU) force with a limited mandate has failed to stem the violence, and a UN resolution last year to send an international force with more robust rules of engagement has so far only resulted in the dispatch of a few UN civilians. The government in Khartoum has held up the deployment of UN military units.
If the UN Security Council does not impose targeted sanctions in the next few weeks, US officials say Washington is considering a punitive package of its own, while Britain and Denmark are pressing the EU to formulate parallel measures.
The US and British governments have also hinted at military force against Khartoum, but none of the pressure has so far brought about change in Khartoum.
"The international community has made a series of hollow threats and then done nothing, furthering the sense of impunity in Khartoum," said Ms Williams, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1997 for her leadership of a campaign to ban landmines.
More than 200,000 people, mostly civilians, have died so far in Darfur, and more than two million have been forced out of their homes.
Ms Williams warned there was a "huge" risk of the crisis escalating into a regional conflagration. "It doesn't look good," she said.
"The violence could now spread back into southern Sudan and Kordofan [another Sudanese province]."
- (Guardian service)