Sudan insists militias will be prosecuted

Sudan’s foreign minister today insisted that Arab militias responsible for killings in the troubled Darfur region would be prosecuted, but again denied that the attacks amounted to genocide.

Mustafa Osman Ismail met today with his Dutch counterpart, Ben Bot, a day after meeting with European Union officials in Brussels to discuss Darfur, where at least 30,000 have died in attacks by the so-called “Janjaweed” militiamen.

“We’ve arrested 100 of the Janjaweed leaders and will put them in court,” Mr Ismail said in the Netherlands, which now holds the rotating EU presidency.

The 15-month conflict between Darfur’s black Africans, mostly farmers, and pro-government Arab militias has displaced more than one million people and left 2.2 million in desperate need of food and medicine.

Mr Bot described today’s talks as “very good, very constructive”, ahead of a planned meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers in Brussels on Monday.

The EU wants a political solution to the crisis, and has urged rebel groups, who walked out of peace talks last week to return to the negotiating table. The rebels have insisted that the government honour the terms of previous peace agreements before beginning new talks.

Yesterday, after speaking with the EU’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Brussels, Ismail said his government had agreed with the UN, Britain, Germany and France that Sudan’s humanitarian situation was improving.

But Mr Solana expressed “great concern” about continuing atrocities by pro-government Janjaweed, and called for Sudan’s government to disarm them “without delay” and arrest the leaders, his spokeswoman Cristina Gallach said.

Mr Ismail again denied resolutions passed this week by US Congress declaring the killings amounted to genocide, and said an Africa Union (AU) report was “very credible” in saying there was no genocide.

The AU, meeting this month in Ethiopia, pressed Sudan to “neutralise” the Janjaweed and others involved in human rights violations in Darfur, but said they did not consider the atrocities to be genocide.

The 25-nation EU, the US and humanitarian groups have accused the Sudanese government of backing the militias – a claim it denies.

Mr Bot said that on Monday he would push for the EU ministers to discuss reconstruction aid for Darfur “so that we can create the situation where refugees can make a livelihood and feel secure when they return”.

Sudan’s humanitarian affairs minister, Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid, told reporters today in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum that 90,000 displaced people had returned to Darfur as of last week.