Sudan's U.N. post provokes anger

By Colum Lynch
The Washington Post

ABD RAOUF / AP Thousands gather yesterday to hear about peace negotiations between the government and the western Sudanese rebels.

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Sudan's Islamic government is facing mounting international condemnation for failing to halt the violence in Darfur. The United Nation's top emergency-relief official, Jan Egeland, charged last month that Khartoum may be condoning "ethnic cleansing" by Arab militias against black Africans.

"The United States is perplexed and dismayed by the decision to put forward Sudan — a country that massacres its own African citizens — for election to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights," said U.S. representative Sichan Siv before storming out of a U.N. conference hall before the vote.

"With credible reports continuing to come out of Sudan regarding the most serious human-rights violations in Darfur, Sudan's membership on the commission threatens to undermine not only its work, but its very credibility."

Sudan's representative, Omar Bashir Manis, responded by criticizing the United States for human-rights abuses around the world, citing the "infamous and degrading treatment of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison."

Bashir accused the United States military of excessive force in Afghanistan and Iraq and denying basic rights to inmates in a military-detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. "It is yet very ironic that the United States delegation, while shedding crocodile tears over the situation in Darfur, is turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed by American forces against the innocent civilian population in Iraq," he added.

More than 1 million mostly black villagers in Darfur have been forced to flee their homes by Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed. U.N. officials estimate that thousands may have been killed. The campaign has emerged in response to an insurgency early last year by two local rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army.

The Sudanese government, which barred international access to Darfur much of the past year, has denied involvement in the attacks. But faced with international pressure, Khartoum invited a U.N. human-rights team and the head of the World Food Program to the region last week. They will brief the U.N. Security Council on Friday.

"People have gone through in the most malicious, heinous way, and burned down homes," James Morris, the executive director of the U.N.'s World Food Program, said in London yesterday. "The humanitarian crisis is enormous. It will only ultimately be solved if the government of Sudan is able to control the militia, get the conflict in hand."

Sudan was one of 14 countries elected to the commission by the 53-member Economic and Social Council. It was part of a previously agreed slate of four African candidates that will fill the four new African seats on the commission. Spain and Vietnam were defeated in competitions for their regional seats on the commission.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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