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Sudan rejects U.N. resolution on Darfur
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-04 09:35
The Sudanese government on Sunday rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution
that empowers the International Criminal Court to prosecute the alleged
perpetrators of atrocities in the Darfur conflict.
President Omar el-Bashir led a Cabinet meeting that denounced Friday's
resolution and appointed a committee to work out "how to deal with this
situation," acting Information Minister Abdel-Basit Sabdarat told state-run
Radio Omdurman. El-Bashir will head the committee, he added.
The representative of the United Nations in Sudan, Jan Pronk, holds a press
conference in Khartoum Sunday, April 3, 2005. Pronk call on the government
of Sudan to work with the International Criminal Court in the Hague to
assist a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for Sudanese, suspected
of Darfur war crimes, to be referred to
it.[AP] | While government officials and
the ruling National Congress party had condemned the resolution, Sunday's
announcement was the first time the government had given its official view since
the Security Council passed the resolution by 11-0 votes with four abstentions.
The western Sudanese region of Darfur has been the scene of what the United
Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. An estimated 180,000
people have died in the upheaval and about 2 million others have been displaced
since the conflict began in February 2003.
Sudanese head of state General
Omar Al-Bashir leaves the closed door meeting of the ruling National
Congress Party, at the party's headquarters in Khartoum, Friday, April 1,
2005. Sudanese hard-liners vowed Friday to defy a U.N. Security Council
resolution referring Darfur war crimes suspects to the International
Criminal Court, saying it was unfair for Sudanese suspects to face The Hague tribunal when Americans are
exempt.[AP] | The resolution was the first time that the Security Council had referred a
case to the International Criminal Court, a tribunal the United States opposes.
The resolution was carefully worded to secure a U.S. abstention instead of veto.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan praised the passage of the resolution as
lifting "the veil of impunity that has allowed human rights crimes in Darfur to
continue unchecked."
Sudan argues it is capable of bringing to justice those responsible for
rights abuses in Darfur. But the world does not accept this, partly because a
U.N. panel that investigated the conflict found the government itself was
implicated in mass killings in Darfur.
In a report issued in February, the U.N. commission recommended that 51
Sudanese — including high-ranking government officials — stand trial in the
International Criminal Court.
In a statement, the acting information minister said the resolution
"violates" Sudanese sovereignty and "will further complicate the problem in
Darfur and give the wrong signals to the rebels," Egypt's semiofficial Middle
East News Agency reported from Khartoum.
At least one of the Darfur rebel groups supports the resolution. So does
Sudan's former prime minister, Sadiq el-Mahdi, who has said the perpetrators of
crimes in Darfur "must be sent to trial."
The Darfur conflict began when rebels took up arms against what they saw as
years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin.
The government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in
which the Janjaweed, an Arab militia, committed wide-scale abuses against the
African population.
Meanwhile, James Wani, who heads the 108-member Sudan People's Liberation
Movement delegation, said his group was in Khartoum to implement the peace
agreement that formally ended the separate 23-year north-south civil war and
work with Sudanese officials to draft a provisional constitution.
"We are here to boost our partnership with the (ruling) National Congress and
to revitalize our contacts with all political forces in the country," SPLM
secretary general Wani told journalists.
The SPLM's armed wing, the Sudan People's Liberation Army, fought soldiers of
the Islamic-oriented government based in northern Sudan for greater rights and a
share of wealth for southern Sudanese of Christian and animist faiths since
1983. More than 2 million people were killed during the war, mainly through
war-induced famine and disease.
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