Global Policy Forum

By Edith Lederer

A U.N.-appointed panel accused the Sudanese government and rebels of blocking peace in conflict-wracked Darfur, and recommended that the Security Council impose sanctions on key figures from all groups. The panel's final report, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, also accused all parties to the conflict of committing widespread human rights violations, including torture. It said the government, the rebel Sudan Liberation Army, and militia groups "have shown least regard for the welfare of civilians."

A Security Council resolution adopted in March authorized an asset freeze and travel ban on individuals who defy peace efforts, violate international human rights law, or are responsible for military overflights in Darfur — and the panel was asked to come up with recommendations. It also authorized the panel to help monitor an arms embargo in Darfur that was expanded to include the government as well as the rebels in an attempt to end the three-year conflict.

The four-member panel said it was sending a confidential list of names to the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Sudan to consider imposing a travel ban and asset freeze. It said this was being done to prevent advance warning to those named and to avoid compromising ongoing investigations. The sanctions committee discussed the report Monday but Qatar, the only Arab member of the Security Council, and China, whose main supplier of foreign oil is Sudan, blocked its immediate transmission to the council, according to a council diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed. Greece's U.N. Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, who chairs the sanctions committee, said without elaborating: "The committee will continue its consideration. Some countries wanted to have more detailed discussion on the report before it is sent to the council."

Decades of low-level tribal clashes over land and water in the western Darfur region erupted into large-scale violence in early 2003 when ethnic African tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated central government of neglect. The government is accused of responding by unleashing Arab tribal militias known as Janjaweed to murder and rape civilians and lay waste to villages. It denies the charge.An estimated 180,000 people have died in the upheaval — many from hunger and disease — and about 2 million others have been displaced.

The panel accused all parties, especially the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Army, of "consistent, willful and systematic violation" of an April 2004 cease-fire. The government has also "abjectly failed to fulfill its commitments to identify, neutralize and disarm militia groups outside the formal state security forces under its influence, as demanded by the U.N. Security Council," it said. The panel said it was sending the names of individuals responsible for cease-fire violations and failing to disarm militias to the sanctions committee for possible action. Sudan's U.N. Mission did not answer any calls seeking comment because Tuesday was a U.N. holiday.

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