UN demands prosecutions over Darfur mass killings

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded speedy prosecution of Sudanese officials and militiamen guilty of crimes against humanity in Darfur, as members of the Security Council came under renewed pressure to tackle the issue at last.

The push to end what has been labelled the world’s worst humanitarian crisis gained impetus after a UN panel released a report Monday that said government-backed militias were still conducting rape, mass killing and wanton destruction in Darfur.

The Security Council, and by extension the UN, has been dogged by allegations that it is standing by and doing little as thousands of people die in Darfur.

Annan said yesterday that on a recent trip to Abuja, Nigeria, he warned Sudanese leaders to rein in the so-called Janjaweed militia or face punishment - possibly including sanctions. He said that leading suspects in the killings, whose names were provided to him in a secret annex to the report, must be tried urgently.

The Security Council, ratcheting up pressure to resolve the Darfur crisis, has asked two key Sudanese players to appear before the council next week – Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha, and John Garang, head of the main southern Sudanese rebel group that just signed a peace deal with the government.

Darfur has become a hot political issue in Washington. The Bush administration and Congress have labelled the crisis genocide, and have pointed to the UN Security Council’s delays as evidence of UN ineffectiveness.

While the commission report concluded there was not genocide in Darfur, it spelled out crimes including the disproportionate use of force, mass burnings of villages and other acts it said were just as heinous. It didn’t rule out that a court may later find some people were guilty of ”genocidal intent” in Darfur.

Some Security Council members want to link the Darfur crisis with the recent ending of the civil war – possibly by withholding economic and humanitarian aid tied to that deal unless violence in Darfur is stopped.

There is also the issue of accountability for those guilty of abuses in Darfur. Several European nations want the case referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, as the commission report recommends.