October 8, 2004
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has set up a commission of inquiry to investigate and determine whether genocide has been committed in Sudan's strife-torn western region of Darfur. He appointed an Italian judge to lead the probe. The five-member commission, which was formed on Thursday, will also investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights in Darfur, where militias locally known as the Janjawid stand accused of killing and raping thousands of villagers since February 2003, when rebel groups took up arms against the Sudanese government. The Janjawid, made up largely of ethnic Arab tribes and who are allegedly allied to government troops, have been accused of committing atrocities against black African communities in Darfur.
The United States Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate committee in Washington on 9 September that American government investigations had showed "that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjawid bear responsibility" for it. The US subsequently proposed a resolution to the UN Security Council that threatens to impose sanctions on Sudan's fast-growing oil industry that currently produces about 320,000 barrels per day.
Khartoum vehemently condemned Powell's statement and said that Washington was sending "a wrong signal" that would discourage the two rebel movements in Darfur - the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) - from entering into meaningful peace negotiations with the government.
Annan's decision to set up the commission of inquiry followed the Council's request that he do so in a resolution adopted last month on the humanitarian and security crises engulfing Darfur, a vast and impoverished region. About 1.45 million people are internally displaced within Darfur and another 200,000 are living as refugees in neighbouring Chad. UN officials have described the situation as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Antonio Cassese of Italy, the first President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), will be the commission's chairman. Professor Cassese has taught international law in Italy and the United Kingdom and also served on human rights committees for the Council of Europe. The other members are Diego Garcia-Sayán of Peru, Mohammed Fayek of Egypt, Hina Jilani of Pakistan and Thérese Striggner Scott of Ghana. Dumisa Ntsebeza of South Africa will act as executive director, heading the technical team that supports the commission.
Garcia-Sayán, previously Foreign Affairs and Justice Minister of Peru, a legal professor for nearly 20 years and a UN negotiator during the Guatemalan peace talks in the early 1990s. Fayek is Secretary-General of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation, and has served as both a minister and as a presidential adviser during his time in the Egyptian parliament. Jilani has been the Secretary-General's Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders since August 2000. She has a long record as a human-rights lawyer and activist in Pakistan and started the country's first firm of female attorneys in 1980. Striggner Scott, currently chair of Ghana's Law Reform Commission, has worked as a High Court judge in Ghana and Zimbabwe and has also been an ambassador for her country during a long diplomatic career.
More Information on Sudan
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
