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'Hell continues in Sudan' - UN
17/02/2005 09:48 - (SA)
United Nations - The United Nations human rights chief said there could be no peace in Sudan without justice for the victims of atrocities there and urged the Security Council to immediately refer abuses in Darfur to the International Criminal Court.
Louise Arbour on Wednesday strongly backed the recommendations of a UN commission which concluded last month that the Sudanese government and militias carried out mass killings and probably war crimes in the Darfur region.
The commission called for the Security Council to immediately refer the killings in Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal.
Arbour said the ICC was the right place for any prosecutions and was "ready to go."
"The imperative is to act very quickly. Crimes continue to be perpetrated as we speak," she said, adding that arresting people could "actually save lives and protect victims."
No peace
"If there was ever a case where there cannot be peace without accountability for the perpetration of these offences, this is the case," she told reporters Wednesday evening.
But the United States, China and Algeria expressed opposition to the ICC at a meeting of the Security Council called on Wednesday to discuss the commission's report, according to diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the Security Council it was "vital" that the perpetrators of the crimes were punished.
He called the commission's report "one of the most important documents in the recent history of the United Nations."
"It makes chilling reading. And it is a call to urgent action," he said.
"This report demonstrates, beyond all doubt, that the last two years have been little short of hell on earth for our fellow human beings in Darfur. And despite the attention the council has paid to this crisis, that hell continues today," he said.
"As others have said before me, while the United Nations may not be able to take humanity to heaven, it must act to save humanity from hell," Annan said.
Arbour told the Security Council that although the commission did not find that the Sudanese government had a genocidal policy, individuals accused of atrocities in Sudan could still be convicted of genocide.
The United Nations has called Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis, saying the conflict between the government, rebels, and the government-backed Janjaweed militia has claimed 70 000 lives since March - mostly from disease and hunger. It now affects two million people and UN officials say the situations is deteriorating.
The United States has accused Sudan's government of directing the militia's attacks on civilians - violence that Washington has called a genocidal campaign.
But President George W Bush's administration is vehemently opposed to the International Criminal Court, claiming Americans could be prosecuted for frivolous or political reasons. - AP
- SAPA
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