A United Nations mission to investigate human rights abuse in Sudan’s Darfur region, which hopes to head for the region on Saturday, is still negotiating entry visas, mission head Jody Williams said on Friday.
The Nobel peace laureate would not comment on reports that Sudan objects to some members of the team, set up by the UN Human Rights Council last year amid mounting attacks against civilians in the western Sudanese region.
Williams told a news conference the five members of the mission expect to pick up their permits in Addis Ababa before travelling to Khartoum on February 13 for an eight-day visit.
”We are still in negotiations on the visas, which we fully expect to get in Addis Ababa,” said Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work in getting landmines banned.
Humanitarian officials estimate that more than 200 000 people have been killed in the ethnic and rebel violence that erupted in Darfur in 2003, with much of the killing blamed on Arab militias they say have government support.
Khartoum denies any involvement with the militias and says the death toll is exaggerated. It is resisting calls for UN troops to be sent in to reinforce struggling African Union peacekeepers in the vast territory.
Williams is joined in the mission by former deputy UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan, Estonian parliamentarian Mart Nutt, Indonesia ambassador to the UN in Geneva Makarim Wibisono and Gabon’s ambassador Patrice Tonda.
According to EU diplomats in Geneva, Khartoum objects to Rampcharan and a US member of the back-up staff.
”It is no surprise or secret that there have been contentions about the composition since the day the mission was gavelled,” said Williams. While refusing to offer more details, she suggested Khartoum had raised some late objections.
”There is no way that any nation who is receiving a mission mandated by a resolution that it has agreed to is going to have veto power over the members of the mission,” Williams insisted.
The team was named last month by council chairperson Luis Alfonso de Alba, but only after weeks of wrangling during which earlier suggestions were rejected by leading council members.
The EU opposed the inclusion of Algeria’s ambassador to Geneva, Idriss Jazairy, because his country had long resisted attempts to get the council to take a stronger line on Darfur, where more than two million refugees live in squalid camps.
The mission is due to report back to the next session of the Geneva-based Council, which begins on March 9. — Reuters