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U.N.'s Ban warns Khartoum on human rights
2007-09-03
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave Sudan a warning on human rights after arriving on Monday to lay the groundwork for an end to the Darfur conflict through talks and deployment of thousands of peacekeepers. Aides said Ban, on his first visit to Sudan, would seek commitment to his plan from Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and visit a refugee camp in the western Sudanese Darfur region. He met Bashir for dinner on Monday evening. While Darfur will be the focus, his six-day tour will include a trip to southern Sudan, where a 2005 peace deal ending more than two decades of north-south civil war that killed 2 million people is on shaky ground, and visit neighboring Chad and Libya. International experts estimate some 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes during 4-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur. Sudan puts the death toll from the conflict, which flared when rebel groups took up arms against the government, charging it with neglect, at 9,000. Within hours of arriving, Ban told a Sudanese audience the world was changing its role as a "seemingly helpless witness" to the conflict and served notice that Khartoum's human rights record was under scrutiny. "We only have to look around us to see how far Sudan has to go in upholding human rights and protecting people from suffering," he told the Sudan United Nations Association. "Justice is an important part of building and sustaining peace. A culture of impunity and a legacy of past crimes that go unaddressed can only erode the peace." Last week, Ban sketched out a three-point approach to Darfur: deployment of 26,000 U.N. and African Union troops and police, approved by the Security Council in July, peace talks tentatively scheduled for October, and aid. In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Monday, Ban said Bashir had promised him cooperation in a weekend telephone conversation. "He told me he will do everything to help the mission logistically," he said. POLITICAL WILL Invitations to the peace talks are due to be sent to some eight of around a dozen rebel factions. "There has to be a political will inside the government of Sudan to move the negotiations and we think there is such a political will," said a senior U.N. official on the trip. Ban's trip comes against a background of a resurgence of violence in Darfur -- denounced as "simply unacceptable" by Ban -- between government and pro-government forces and rebel groups, and what U.N. officials say is worsening malnutrition. While Bashir has assented to both the talks and the peacekeeping force, Western governments remain suspicious of his sincerity and Britain and France last week revived talk of sanctions if he does not cooperate. But Western diplomats concede that some on the Security Council, including veto-holding China, oppose sanctions at present. China's ambassador to Sudan said on Sunday that "sanctions cannot help to solve the problem." In an apparent gesture of goodwill before Ban's visit, a Sudanese official said on Sunday Khartoum was discussing the possible return of the country director of U.S-based aid agency CARE, expelled last week for alleged meddling in internal security. The United Nations had criticized the expulsion. In Chad, Ban will hold talks with President Idriss Deby on the planned deployment of U.N.-backed European Union troops to tackle a crisis created by the flight of more than 200,000 Darfur refugees to Chad. The U.N. chief's visit to Libya is in acknowledgement of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's role in seeking to bring Darfur's fractious rebel groups together. (Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Milan)
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