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 Darfur: Peace Talks Must Address Civilian Protection
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For Immediate Release
Darfur: Peace Talks Must Address Civilian Protection
African Union Needs to Speed Troop Deployment, Insist on Rights Provisions
(New York, December 10, 2004)-The African Union must speed its deployment of
troops to Darfur and seek to expand their mandate to protect civilians,
Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to Nigerian President Olusegun
Obasanjo, the current AU chairman. Any accord between the Sudanese
government and Darfur rebel groups, set to resume peace talks on Friday in
the Nigerian capital Abuja, needs to incorporate human rights provisions.
Civilians in the rural areas of Darfur far from the African Union's existing
bases continue to come under attack, as Sudanese government forces and their
Janjaweed militias pursue a campaign designed to consolidate ethnic
cleansing and prevent farmers from returning to self-sufficiency. The
African Union should ask the United Nations Security Council for a full
mandate to protect civilians. Human Rights Watch also called on the African
Union to rapidly deploy its expanded monitoring force of 3,500 personnel in
Darfur and press for more help from the international community to achieve
this.
"The African Union still has only 900 troops and monitors on the ground in
Darfur, and these forces lack the mandate to protect the hundreds of
thousands of civilians who remain at risk of attack," said Peter
Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "They need to secure
the rural areas of Darfur as quickly as possible so that 1.8 million people
can return home safely and voluntarily."
While the Sudanese government resumes African Union-mediated talks in Abuja
with two Darfur rebel groups, it also faces a U.N. Security Council deadline
of December 31 to finalize the Naivasha accords with the southern rebel
movement to end the 21-year civil war. The failure of the Naivasha accords
to include accountability provisions for crimes committed during that war,
waged mostly in the south, has ensured that the Sudanese political and
military leadership responsible for those atrocities would remain immune
from punishment, further fueling their abuses in Darfur, Human Rights Watch
said.
"Once again, the Sudanese government has armed and directed ethnic militias
to carry out the same scorched-earth tactics of mass displacement in Darfur
that it so ruthlessly employed in the south," said Takirambudde. "Unless the
international community ensures that the Sudanese authorities are held
responsible for these crimes in Darfur, their atrocities will continue."
The Sudanese government has continued to use helicopter gunships and Antonov
airplanes in attacks against civilians in Darfur and has failed to take any
steps to "neutralize and disarm the Janjaweed/armed militias," in violation
of a Security Protocol signed between Khartoum and two Darfurian rebel
groups on November 9. Meanwhile, the rebels as well as the government have
repeatedly broken the AU-mediated ceasefire with minimal consequences.
In view of the Sudan government's failure to abide by African Union and
Security Council resolutions to disarm and prosecute the Janjaweed militias,
and its refusal to end its support for their rampages and protect civilians
instead, Human Rights Watch called on President Obasanjo to recommend
depriving Sudan of its voting rights in the African Union. The African Union
should also reverse its decision to hold its 5th Assembly of ######### of State
and Government in Khartoum in July 2005, and thus also prevent Sudan from
assuming the presidency of this important emerging regional body for one
year.
"The African Union must demonstrate that it will not tolerate Khartoum's
continued disregard for the principles and ideals on which the African Union
was founded," said Takirambudde. "The fate of Darfur's people is at stake,
and so is the credibility of the African Union."
The open letter to President Obasanjo is available at:
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/12/10/sudan9818.htm
For further information, please contact:
In Washington D.C., Jemera Rone, (Spanish): +1-202-612-4328
In New York, Georgette Gagnon: +1-416-893-2709
In London, Urmi Shah: +44-207-713-2788
In Brussels, Vanessa Saenen, (French, Dutch, German): +32-2-732-2009
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Kostawi
Mohamed Suleiman
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست