Arab Leaders Urged to Back UN Protection Force for Darfur
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WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 27 (OneWorld) - Arab leaders must press Sudan's government to let the United Nations take charge of peacekeeping in Darfur, the oil-rich country's war-wrecked western region, Arab and Western human rights advocates said in advance of regional talks starting Tuesday.
Discussions on Iraq and Palestine likely will dominate the League of Arab States summit in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, but delegates also are slated to consider an African Union (AU) proposal to re-hat the AU mission in Sudan as a blue helmet UN peacekeeping operation. The Khartoum regime opposes the plan. Arab states fielded their own fact-finding mission in 2004 and denounced ''massive violations of human rights'' by pro-government militias in Darfur. ''The Arab League has rightly condemned attacks on civilians across the region but it has remained silent about Sudan's atrocities in Darfur,'' the groups said in a joint statement to be delivered to the bloc on Tuesday. They referred to alleged government support for the militias and reports of state-instigated ethnic cleansing, in which members of the dominant population have been encouraged to target neighbors with the same ethnicity as the Darfur rebels. ''This time, Arab leaders must put the interests of Sudan's people first and support the transition to a UN force in Darfur,'' added the grouping of 15 organizations including Human Rights Watch and rights advocates in Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Yemen. ''The increasing violence in Darfur has left hundreds of thousands of people in desperate need of food and protection. A UN force is needed to restore the humanitarian relief cut off by direct attacks,'' the groups, citing a worsening security situation, added. They urged Arab League leaders to press Khartoum to ''cease attacks on civilians and support to abusive militias.'' Sudan's government, they added, must ''cooperate with efforts to hold accountable those responsible for serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law in Darfur, including by cooperating fully with and providing free access to the International Criminal Court.'' The Netherlands-based court is investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Rebels there launched an uprising in 2003 after complaining that the government in Khartoum had neglected their mainly non-Arab, non-Muslim region. Perhaps as many as 400,000 people have been killed in the fighting and about two million have been rendered homeless, according to aid agencies and advocacy groups. With few exceptions, Sudanese officials have denied government involvement in briefing, arming, and providing air support to Janjaweed militias fighting rebels from the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. AU peacekeepers have been reinforced but still make up a contingent of only about 7,000 poorly equipped military and police personnel with too little money and authority to enforce a 2004 ceasefire and protect civilians across an inhospitable territory roughly the size of Texas. Since last December, the fighting has spilled over into neighboring Chad, adding to demands--including from the AU--that the UN take over. On March 10, the AU--a regional bloc akin to the European Union (EU)--extended the mandate of its Darfur mission by six months--during which time rights advocates hope the UN will win Khartoum's consent to deploy in Darfur. Sudan's government, however, has sought to drum up opposition to a UN peacekeeping mission among the public at home and leaders throughout Africa and the Arab world. Such a mission, it has argued, would amount to an incursion like the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The UN already has deployed some 6,000 troops in central and southern Sudan to keep the peace under a 2005 peace agreement ending 21 years of civil war. The world body long has maintained a massive humanitarian presence in the oil-rich but impoverished country. ''Sudan already hosts foreign UN troops on its territory. Khartoum is clearly trying to manipulate Arab opinion with inflammatory misinformation about a non-existent 'invasion' of Sudan,'' said the rights groups in their message to Arab leaders. Organizations signing the communique and based in the Arab world included the Bahrain Center for Human Rights; Cairo Institute for Human Rights and Egypt's Initiative for Personal Rights, Organization for Human Rights, Center for Women's Rights, and Human Rights Center for the Assistance of Prisoners; Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections; Moroccan Organization for Human Rights; Palestinian Organization for Human Rights; Syrian Human Rights Organization; and Yemen's Human Rights Information and Training Center and Sisters Arab Forum for Human Rights. In addition to Human Rights Watch USA, groups headquartered in the West included UK-based Saudi Human Rights Center and Sudan Organization Against Torture. In addition to misgivings about political representation, government aid, and ethnic and religious bigotry, the Darfur conflict has been fanned by the spoils of oil and mineral extraction in a country blighted by famine. The pressure on Arab leaders comes as activists at U.S. colleges, houses of worship, and charities seek to turn up the heat on foreign investors in Sudan. Harvard University announced last week it would divest from Sinopec, the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, because of the company's ties to the Sudanese government. Harvard dumped its stock in PetroChina, also doing business with Khartoum, last year. Brown, Stanford, and Yale universities and Amherst and Dartmouth colleges are among other prominent schools to have blacklisted up to dozens of companies with interests in Sudan. Often, the moves have followed pressure from the nationwide network Students Taking Action Now: Darfur. States that have enacted or are considering compulsory divestment legislation include Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, California, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Washington, and Vermont, according to Smith College English professor and veteran Sudan activist Eric Reeves. Student and other activist groups have used divestment to target Apartheid in South Africa, oppression in Myanmar (formerly Burma), and sweatshops all over the world. |
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