The United Nations new human rights watchdog agreed on Wednesday to send a high-level mission to Sudan’s Darfur to probe allegations of worsening abuses against the civilian population.
The 47-state Human Rights Council, which is holding its first special session on Darfur, approved a consensus proposal leaving the naming of the five ”highly qualified” team members up to the council chairperson.
The council, launched in June as part of UN reform, was under pressure to show it can act effectively on Darfur where aid officials say more than 200 000 have died in violence over the past three years.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told the opening session on Tuesday the council must help end the ”nightmare” of violence by sending a ”clear and united message … that the current situation is simply unacceptable”.
After two days of tough haggling over membership of the mission, it was agreed that council chairperson, Mexican ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, should name the team and that it should be accompanied by the UN special investigator for Sudan, Sima Samar of Afghanistan.
Khartoum and its backers on the council, brushing aside reports from Annan and other top officials, say the situation in Darfur, where long-simmering ethnic violence erupted into war in 2003, has improved since a peace treaty earlier this year with one leading rebel group.
It also disputes the death toll in the region, where over two million have been driven from their homes, and pins the blame for rights’ violations on rebel groups that are still fighting.
Western diplomats say there is already abundant information available about what is happening in Darfur and the main point of a mission is to increase international pressure on Khartoum to accept UN peacekeepers for the region.
The Sudanese government, which is accused of backing Janjaweed militia groups that UN human rights officials blame for some of the worst offences, including rape and wide-scale murder, says Western countries are trying to re-colonise it in pursuit of its oil wealth.
The Darfur debate is seen as important for the credibility of the council, which has been accused of focusing on alleged Israeli violations in Palestinian territory and Lebanon and ignoring what the UN sees as a huge humanitarian crisis.
”This council should take a stance today [Wednesday] for the victims of Darfur and commit itself to continuing to act on Darfur while the crisis continues,” Mariette Grange, of advocacy group Human Rights Watch, told the UN watchdog on Wednesday. — Reuters