UN report accuses Sudan of racial cleansing in Darfour
Sudan-UN, Politics, 4/23/2004

A UN report said that the government and Arab militias forces are launching a racial cleansing campaign against non- Arab tribes in Darfour area to the west of Sudan.

Members of the team which is composed of five investigators said in a report that interviews made with hundreds of refugees in neighboring Chad indicated that crimes against humanity were committed and that numerous civilians were killed.

The report, which was prepared at the request of the human rights committee of the UN and is not disclosed yet, said that the types of violence indicate the intention of the Sudanese authorities to force the people to leave their lands.

The report indicated large scale allegations among the circles of the refugees in the camps inside Chad about acts of rape, stealing, torture and killing as well as deliberate fires in villages and cities in various parts of Darfour as well as attacks carried out by helicopters and jet fighters.

The report recommended the human rights committee which is composed of 53 members to notify the Sudanese government that it has to impose " measures to ensure such practices will not be repeated of human rights violations, war crimes and anti- humanity crimes in future.

The Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Othman Ismael deplored what he called "threatening" of Darfour paper. He rejected as replying to a question on the allegations of the human rights committee in Geneva, noting that Khartoum has not intended to settle the case militarily but was obliged to do so after the rebels seized several governorates in independent Darfour. A matter which pushed the government to try to impose its control on the whole area. He explained that his country is careful to solve the problem in the internal and regional context so as to prevent its internationalization, accusing the US and the EU and the UN of embarking on double standard policies through raising the question of Darfour and concentration on its while keeping a blind eye from the massacres taking place in Palestine and Iraq.

Ismael expressed his regret over the call advocated by the UN secretary general Kofi Annan to the international community to interfere in the affairs of a sovereign state, which is an unprecedented matter in the history of the international organization.

Diplomats said that the report which is composed of 12 pages was due to be disclosed at the UN on Tuesday but was not after the Sudanese officials permitted the UN officials to head to Darfour after they were prevented from that earlier.

Previous Stories:
  UN considers the situation in Darfour at the largest humanitarian catastrophe   (3/20/2004)
  UN suspends its aids to southern Sudan   (2/28/2004)
  European parliament stresses continued fighting in western Sudan   (2/24/2004)

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