|
March 25, 2008 Khartoum - Canadian
Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier, on
his first official visit to Khartoum,
on Tuesday urged the Sudanese
government to stop attacks in the
war-torn region of Darfur.
Bernier, who spoke after talks with
Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor,
is scheduled to visit North Darfur on
Wednesday to meet the local governor
in the state capital Al-Fasher and
international peacekeepers.
"I urged the government to stop the
military action in Darfur and stop
attacks over civilians and work with
the international community to be sure
that the humanitarian people would be
able to have access to Darfur," he
said.
Bernier was visiting just days after
Sudan's army condemned as biased a UN
report issued last week which accused
its soldiers of rape and extensive
looting during offensives in Darfur
carried out with state-backed
militias.
The conflict, which the United Nations
says has claimed the lives of about
200 000 people and displaced 2,2
million, pits ethnic minority rebels
who want a greater share of national
resources against the Sudanese
government.
Bernier also called on the government
to implement fully a fragile peace
agreement that ended two decades of a
separate civil war between north and
south in 2005.
On Thursday, he will travel to the
southern capital Juba, where he is set
to meet First Vice President and
leader of south Sudan, Salva Kiir.
Ottawa has spent 338 million Canadian
dollars (about R2-billion) on peace,
humanitarian and early recovery
projects in Sudan since January 2006.
Canada's contribution to the
international peacekeeping missions in
Darfur and the rest of Sudan will
include up to 50 army personnel, 25
civilian police and the loan of 100
armoured personnel carriers.
UN accussing Sudan targeted
civilians in Darfur
Sudanese forces targeted civilians
in air and ground attacks on villages
in Darfur this year, the United
Nations human rights office and the
UN-African Union (AU) mission in
Darfur said on Thursday
In a formal report, the mission said
115 people had been killed and 30 000
driven from their homes in the attacks
in which helicopter gunships and
fixed-wing aircraft were used and
pro-government militia were involved.
The assaults in January and February
in western Darfur "amount to
violations of international
humanitarian and human rights
law....(by) failing to distinguish
between civilian objects and military
objectives," the report said.
The report was issued in Geneva by the
office of the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Louise Arbour, and the
joint mission in Darfur, UNAMID, which
took over peacekeeping in the region
from the start of this year from a
purely AU force.
The attacks, three on the village of
Saraf Jidad in January, and others on
the villages of Sirba, Sileia and Abu
Surouj on February 8, came during a
major military push by the Sudanese
government against rebels in the area,
it said.
There was no immediate response from
Khartoum.
Earlier actions by the insurgent
Justice and Equality Movement (JEM),
which says it controls much of western
Darfur, had already been denounced by
an independent commission to be
violations of a 2004 ceasefire
agreement, the report added.
On Tuesday, JEM said it had fought off
a major assault by Sudanese forces in
west Darfur.
The Darfur conflict
began in 2003 when non-Arab rebels
took up arms. Outside experts say
200 000 people have died and
2,5-million have fled their homes, but
Khartoum says the scale of the
fighting is exaggerated and only 9000
have died.
The report, which said there was
extensive looting after Sudanese
attacks and listed "consistent and
credible accounts" of rape committed
by uniformed men during and after the
attack on Siraj, was compiled by
UNAMID human rights officers.
It said the scale of the destruction
of property, "including objects
indispensable for the survival of the
civilian population, suggests that the
damage was a deliberate and integral
part of military strategy."
Among the dead were elderly and
disabled people, women and children,
the report said. Many of the local
people were forced to flee across the
border into neighbouring Chad, where
there are already large numbers of
refugees from Darfur.
The report said homes, clinics run by
relief organisations, community
centres, water towers, schools, food
depots and shops were systematically
vandalised "and in many cases burned
to the ground, sometimes with their
occupants still inside."
UNAMID had been unable to investigate
reported ground and air attacks on the
town of Jebel Moun and nearby areas in
late February in which civilians were
also reported to have died, the team
said, because the Sudanese authorities
refused it access.
Although the monitors were allowed in
on March 1, a week after the last
assault, the earlier refusal was in
breach of Khartoum's duty to allow
UNAMID officials freedom of movement
under an accord with the UN in
February, the report added.
|
