A culture of impunity still reigns in Sudan’s western Darfur region, and a special Sudanese court set up to try perpetrators of war crimes in the three-year-old Darfur conflict has failed to prosecute any suspected war criminals, according to a United Nations envoy in Khartoum.
Sudan set up its own special criminal court for Darfur last spring to counter a call from the international community call for Khartoum to send Darfur war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
Sudan refused international intervention and formed the court to illustrate that it could try war criminals internally.
But Sima Samar, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan, told reporters in Khartoum on Monday that the local courts have failed to try those responsible for war crimes.
”There has been not much accountability for the serious crimes that have been committed in Darfur. A special court established to bring people to justice has so far not accused or prosecuted anyone with command responsibility,” she said.
Samar said the security situation on Darfur is worsening and accused both rebels and Sudan government forces of violating ceasefire agreements.
She painted a bleak picture of the human rights situation in Sudan, charging that arbitrary arrests, detentions and torture were still commonplace throughout the country.
The expulsion of two American aid agencies from the eastern Kassala region earlier this week is a stark reminder that conflict threatens to engulf both the west and east of the Islamist country.
Southern Sudan has signed a peace agreement with the ruling National Congress Party, ending 20 years of a north-south civil war.
Samar’s visit comes amid heightened tensions in Sudan over a possible takeover of the African Union mission in Darfur by United Nations peacekeepers.
The international community has pushed for a handover of the mission’s command, but Sudan has issued several stern warnings that UN intervention will not be tolerated.
The African Union mission in Darfur was intended to illustrate that Africans could handle their own problems.
But the chronically underfunded mission has only 7 000 troops patrolling a vast area the size of France. Late last year, several AU peacekeepers were killed as violence in the region escalated.
Critics charged that the mission could not defend itself, much less Darfuri civilians.
The African Union Security Council is slated to meet on March 10, to determine whether it will ask for UN support, but Sudan has threatened to pull out of the AU if the body calls for UN support.
Some charge that Sudan is merely posturing in an attempt to frighten away the international community.
”This is not serious. They haven’t got the guts to pull out of the African Union,” says Izzedin Abdul, a member of the Darfuri rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA). Abdul says a UN force is necessary to end the long-running conflict.
Last week, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir threatened that Sudan would become a ”graveyard” for international forces. Sudan has long charged that the international community has fabricated the crisis in Darfur and relations between Sudan and the West have grown increasingly icy in recent weeks.
The United Nations Security Council recently called for sanctions to be imposed upon dozens of high-ranking government members.
But the leaking of a confidential list of those slated for sanctions has prompted China, a staunch ally of the Islamist state, to use its Security Council seat to delay the move.
The three-year Darfur conflict began when rebels rose up against the Khartoum government, complaining of political and economic marginalisation.
The government armed Arab militias, known as janjaweed, to crush the rebellion. Their scorched-earth campaign led to about 180 000 deaths, and two million people displaced. – Sapa-DPA