Sudan, UN said to set plan on Darfur
KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Sudan and the United Nations have agreed a plan to tackle the humanitarian crisis and disarm marauding militia in Darfur in an effort to avert threatened UN sanctions, UN officials said yesterday.
The agreement in Khartoum, which was not released, contains detailed steps to be taken in the next 30 days "on how to begin to disarm the Janjaweed and other outlawed groups, on improving security in Darfur, and on addressing the humanitarian crisis," UN associate spokeswoman Denise Cook said in New York.
The UN Security Council last week adopted a resolution demanding Khartoum disarm Janjaweed auxiliary militias, accused of pillaging, raping and driving African villagers off their land. It asked UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to report in 30 days on how much progress the government has made.
The resolution said that if Sudan was not complying it would consider imposing unspecified sanctions.
Jan Pronk, Annan's special representative, told reporters in Khartoum that the government had kept its promise on providing access in Darfur for relief organizations.
Pronk said he and Sudanese Foreign Minister Osman Mustafa Ismail agreed on detailed policy measures that needed to be approved by Sudan's Cabinet to avoid threatened sanctions.
"If that text is agreed upon by the (Sudanese) cabinet as a whole and if that text is implemented, then I have very good hope that the Security Council . . . can only come to the conclusion that there is indeed substantial progress," Pronk said.
Some 30,000 people are estimated to have been killed and 2.2 million are in urgent need of food, medicine and shelter in the western Darfur region, where two main rebel groups launched a revolt last year, complaining of official neglect. The Janjaweed then retaliated.
Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote in The Wall Street Journal yesterday that Sudan had not done enough.
"Violence and atrocities on a wide scale continue to be committed against the civilian population in Darfur," he said, "The Sudanese government has not, however, taken decisive steps to end the violence."
At the United Nations, US Ambassador John Danforth said Khartoum had to make sure its military was not "unloading bombs from planes" or "using helicopters to destroy villages."
"If this situation continues, it's going to be very visible," Danforth said. "The government of Sudan will be an international pariah, and there will be consequences."
More than 100,000 besieged people from Darfur had fled to neighboring Chad. French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie is to fly to Chad today to visit aid workers and French troops helping refugees. France has deployed some 200 troops in Chad,
The police commissioner in North Darfur state was quoted as saying the disarmament process would begin this week. "The disarmament campaign would be carried out on voluntary basis or through rushing into the suspected areas," Commissioner Jamal al-Huwairs told the semi-official Sudanese Media Center.
The Janjaweed have long competed with the settled population for land but are accused of going on the rampage in response to the revolt.
