UN council demands Sudan stop Darfur atrocities
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-31 01:55

The U.N. Security Council on Friday adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution demanding Sudan disarm and prosecute marauding militia in Darfur and threatened sanctions if Khartoum did not comply.

The 13-0 vote with abstentions from China and Pakistan came after the United States, facing considerable opposition, deleted the word "sanctions" and substituted a reference to a section of the U.N. Charter permitting punitive measures.

A newly-arrived displaced Sudanese boy from Darfur region waits for aid distribution at the Bredjin camp in eastern Chad July 29, 2004. Aid groups gave out emergency supplies of food, plastic sheeting and blankets to thousands of refugees from Sudan's Darfur region stuck outside an already overcrowded camp in eastern Chad. [Reuters]

This provision, called Article 41, allows the "interruption" of economic, transport, communications or diplomatic measures, which amounts to sanctions.

The resolution, co-sponsored by Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Chile and Romania, demands that Khartoum disarm and prosecute within 30 days militia known as Janjaweed or the Security Council will consider punitive measures under Article 41.

At least 30,000 civilians have been killed in Sudan's western region of Darfur, 1 million have been driven from their villages into barren camps and 2 million need food and medicine in what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis and the U.S. Congress has branded as genocide.

The resolution also places an immediate weapons embargo on all armed groups in Darfur, where government forces and Arab militia have been battling a rebellion from some African tribes. But Sudan security forces, accused of protecting the Janjaweed as they rape and kill, are excluded.

The United Nations has been planning a peacekeeping force after a final peace pact in southern Sudan, where a decades-old civil war is ending. The resolution says the planning should also include Darfur, although troops are not expected soon.

The United States and its European allies faced an uphill battle in the Security Council, where developing nations as well as Russia questioned the 15-member body's right to interfere in internal affairs and argued that punishing Sudan would make matters worse.

But after deleting the word "sanctions" made the resolution more palatable to most objectors, 13 members voted in favor. But China said it had hoped all references to sanctions would be removed and decided, along with Pakistan, to abstain.

"The initial draft included the word sanctions. It turns out that the use of that word is objectionable to certain members of the Security Council," U.S. Ambassador John Danforth said earlier. "They would rather use 'U.N. speak' for exactly the same thing."

He said one could use word "banana, so long as it is clear that it equals sanctions. The meaning has to be very clear."

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