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United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday that despite "some progress," the Sudanese government had not "fully" met its commitments to protect civilians and disarm marauding Arab militiamen in the troubled western Darfur region.
Annan made the conclusion in a report to the Security Council, which adopted a resolution on July 30 giving Sudan 30 days to make good its promises to disarm Arab militias, bring their leaders to justice and protect civilians in Darfur.
If Sudan failed to meet the demand, the 15-nation council would consider imposing economic and diplomatic sanctions on the country. It would judge Sudan's compliance on the basis of Annan's report.
In the report, Annan said Sudan did take some measures to stabilize Darfur, including improving security in some specific areas with large numbers of displaced persons, deploying additional police and lifting access restrictions for humanitarian relief operations.
But he stressed that Sudan failed to meet its responsibility of protecting civilians "despite the commitments it has made and its obligations under (council) resolution 1556."
"Attacks against civilians are continuing and the vast majority of armed militias has not been disarmed," he said.
"Similarly, no concrete steps have been taken to bring to justice or even identify any of the militia leaders or the perpetrators of these attacks, allowing the violations of human rights and basic laws of war to continue in a climate of impunity."
"After 18 months of conflict and 30 days after the adoption of resolution 1556, the government of Sudan has not been able to resolve the crisis in Darfur, and has not met some of the core commitments it has made."
Darfur, bordering Chad, has been beset by a conflict between the rebel forces, formed by local black tribes, and the government and Arab militiamen since February 2003. The conflict has left up to 30,000 people dead and more than 1 million displaced. UN officials have listed the region as a site of the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
In his report, Annan said the violence and atrocities committed against Darfur civilians, including killings, rape and the destruction of hundreds of villages, have been documented "in gruesome detail."
While stopping short of labeling the atrocities as part of an ethnic-cleansing drive, he said, "Most of the targeted violence resulted from a scorched earth policy which was adopted by armed militias, and resulted in the forced displaced of more than 1.3 million people within Darfur and across the border to Chad."
Russian Ambassador to the UN Andrei Denisov, whose country held the Security Council presidency for August, told reporters on Tuesday that time was not ripe for the council to apply sanctions on Sudan.
The council is expected to discuss Annan's report, prepared by his envoy for Sudan Jan Pronk, next week.
(Xinhua News Agency September 2, 2004)
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