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Annan warns of Rwandan-style genocide in Sudan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-04-08 10:58 U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan warned Wednesday a Rwandan-style genocide may be in the making in Sudan
and said international military force could be needed -- a suggestion at once
rejected by the Khartoum government.
The U.N. chief issued his warning in a speech in Geneva on the 10th
anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, in which about 800,000 died. He left no
doubt he feared something similar might be under way in west Sudan, where U.N.
officials say "ethnic cleansing" is carried out.
"The international community cannot stand idle," declared Annan, who has
acknowledged more should have been done to halt the orgy of killing in Rwanda in
1994. "The risk of genocide remains frighteningly real."
Annan said humanitarian workers and human rights experts needed to be given
full access to Darfur, a western region in Africa's biggest country, to
administer aid to hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes, many
into neighboring Chad.
"They need to get to the victims," Annan said in his speech to the U.N. Human
Rights Commission.
"If that is denied, the international community must be prepared to take
swift and appropriate action. By action in such situations, I mean a continuum
of steps which may include military action."
Sudan immediately rejected any outside military help but welcomed offers of
aid for the region, where the United Nations is warning of a humanitarian
crisis caused by a conflict it says has affected 1 million people.
"We don't think we need outside military help and we do our best according to
the available resources," Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told
reporters in Khartoum.
"All that we want from the international community is that it helps us with
more supplies of humanitarian aid so that we can try and help those in need."
REBELS APPEAL FOR MILITARY OBSERVERS
Two rebel groups accuse the Khartoum government of arming Arab militias to
loot and burn African villages in Darfur and rebels were quick to urge outside
military help.
"We are requesting the international community like the United Nations, or
the United States ... just to bring forces here to protect a cease-fire, to be
as an observer for what is going to be another genocide and to protect
civilians," Sudan Liberation Movement chairman Abdel Wahed Mohamed Ahmed al-Nur
told Reuters by telephone.
U.S. officials said Washington was focusing on diplomatic efforts, not
outside military intervention, in west Sudan.
Sudan's government has consistently refused international involvement in
Darfur, saying it is just local tribal strife.
Two senior U.N. officials have described killing and looting in Darfur as a
"scorched earth" campaign and "ethnic cleansing." Both said Khartoum had done
nothing to stop the bloodshed.
Annan criticized U.N. member states for lacking the will to act in potential
genocidal situations and unveiled a five-point action plan to address genocidal
threats worldwide.
The plan includes calling for a review of the ability of U.N. peacekeeping
forces to intervene in genocidal situations and to get prompt reinforcements in
case of need, Annan said.
"The best way to honor the dead in Rwanda and to show that we have learned
from our failures is to stop massacres from being carried out in the Sudan,"
Reed Brody, of the U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.
Peace talks in the Chadian capital N'Djamena witnessed a breakthrough late
Tuesday as the government for the first time held direct talks on humanitarian
aid with the rebels in the presence of international observers, a key rebel
demand.
Rights group Amnesty International urged the negotiators to act swiftly to
stop human rights abuses in Darfur.
"The tenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda should concentrate the minds
of the negotiators in N'Djamena to act to end a horrifically escalating conflict
where civilians -- killed, raped, abused and plundered -- are the principal
victims," Amnesty said in a statement Wednesday.
A separate civil war has raged in the south of Sudan for two decades, pitting
the region's mainly Christian and animist peoples against the largely Muslim
government in Khartoum. Up to 2 million people are believed to have
died.
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