UN calls for end to Darfur violence
But humanitarian groups say latest resolution is toothless.
For the fourth time in history, the UN Security Council met away from its New York headquarters. Gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, it again attempted to find a way to bring peace to one of Africa's longest-running conflicts and humanitarian disasters.
The Security Council adopted a resolution on Friday calling for the cessation of all violence and compliance with international humanitarian law in the western region of Darfur in Sudan .
The resolution calls for the Sudanese government, rebel forces, and other armed groups, to ensure that their members comply with the
cease fire, reports
IRINnews, a UN humanitarian information unit.
The resolution is
temporary and expires on Dec. 31 of this year, reports the
BBC.
The United Nations has promised aid to Sudan's government and southern rebels if they fulfill a promise to finalize a peace deal by the end of the year. The "peace pledge" was signed by a Sudanese government official and a representative of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement, and witnessed by UN Security Council ambassadors, reports the
BBC.
But
before the ink was dry on the agreement, Human Rights Watch strongly criticized it for being "watered down", reports
Bloomberg news. The humanitarian organization wrote:
The UN Security Council appears to have watered down its previous threats to hold the government of Sudan accountable for the continuing human rights abuses in Darfur
Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College in western Massachusetts who has testified before the US Congress on the Darfur crisis, harshly denounced the agreement, reports
Bloomberg.
'The resolution is almost inconceivably weaker and more useless than the two previous resolutions. The US, Britain, and the UN have determined upon a course of absolving, indeed rewarding, the genocide if they will only provide a diplomatic fig-leaf of a signature.'
The international aid agency Oxfam also slammed the resolution, callling it
"weak" and "dithering," reports
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Instead of responding to the ongoing crisis in Darfur 'with concrete action,' the Security Council could only agree to 'monitor compliance' with previous resolutions, Oxfam said in a statement.
'Monitoring compliance" has become UN speak for more death and suffering.
The Security Council resolution stipulates that the UN will "take action against any party failing to fulfill its commitments" to stop what the US has called "genocide in Darfur," reports
Bloomberg.
But to date, "the Sudanese government has denied any involvement in the atrocities, and Security Council members Algeria, China, Pakistan and Russia have blocked imposition of sanctions."
"From New York to Nairobi
a trail of weak resolutions on Darfur has led nowhere," the
BBC quotes Caroline Nursey of the UK-based charity Oxfam as saying.
'Yesterday Oxfam was unable to get vital aid to 200,000 people in Darfur who are cut off by renewed violence... We needed the council to take action now, not yet more diplomatic dithering.' Despite the fact that the UN has already passed two resolutions threatening sanctions if Khartoum does not disarm the pro-government militias in Darfur, aid agencies and human rights groups say the violence continues.
The conflict in southern Sudan dates from 1983, when the Khartoum government dominated by northern Arabs tried to impose Islamic sharia law across Sudan, even in areas where the majority is not Muslim. This "
exacerbated a rebellion that had begun in the south, which is inhabited by black African Christians and those who practice traditional religions," reports the
BBC.
The southern rebels, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) have "never clearly stated whether it is fighting for autonomy for the south within Sudan, or outright independence," reports the
BBC.
The
current civil war in Darfur broke out in early 2003, when rebel groups began attacking government targets, saying the government had neglected the region. In response, Khartoum mobilized Arab "self-defense militias", which are accused of carrying out atrocities against local black Africans.
Control and distribution of oil reserves in the region exacerbates the conflict, UN officials and humanitarian aid workers say.
Also...
•
Sudan: Human Rights Accountability Must Be Part of North-South Peace Agreement (
Human Rights Watch/B>)
•
Q&A: Sudan's Darfur conflict (BBC
•
Q&A: Peace in Sudan /A> (
BBC)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
Jim Bencivenga
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