UN to vote on Sudan
2004-09-18 10:03
United Nations - The UN Security Council will vote on Saturday on a US draft resolution pressing Sudan to rein in the Arab militias behind the bloodshed and violence in the troubled Darfur region.
China had previously threatened to veto the measure but UN Secretary General Kofi Annan came out strongly behind the resolution on Thursday, saying the council needed to take immediate action.
"We believe there's language in it that they can accept," a US diplomat told AFP.
The United States circulated the latest draft on Friday, the fourth version of a proposal that hangs the possibility of sanctions on Sudan's oil industry if Khartoum does not comply.
The resolution calls on Sudan to disarm and clamp down on the Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, blamed for a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against the ethnic black African natives of the vast western Darfur region.
It also calls for an expanded presence of African Union monitors in the region and asks the United Nations to establish a commission of enquiry to determine if genocide has occurred.
At least 50 000 people are estimated to have died and some 1.4 million others have been displaced in Darfur.
Several nations have expressed concern that the sanctions threat on Khartoum might make the government uncooperative with the international community over the crisis.
But the United States has repeatedly insisted that the threat of sanctions was needed to get Sudan to act.
A similar resolution on Sudan passed the council in July 13-0, with China and Pakistan abstaining.
"Civilians are still being attacked and fleeing their villages even as we speak," Annan said on Thursday. "I have urged the Security Council to act on the draft resolution without delay, and to be as united as possible."