Darfur region: U. N. sanctions would be considered

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail on Wednesday rejected a proposed new UN Security Council resolution on the country's war-torn Darfur region, calling it "illogical and unbalanced." "It is an illogical and unbalanced resolution," Ismail told a press conference here. "Sudan is open to an increase in the number of observers and to the creation of a fact-finding commission, or that the United States sends observers" to the region. These measures would be on top of the "African observation mission," said Ismail, who had been attending an Arab League meeting here. The U.S.-inspired draft warns the Sudanese government that if it does not meet its promise to re-establish security in Darfur, then the UN Security Council would consider sanctions. Last week, a U.S. draft said the council "will take action" including sanctions if Sudan fails to curb the &to= english.pravda.ru/accidents/21/93/394/13124_Sudan.html ' target=_blank> Janjaweed militia in Darfur and take other steps to ease the crisis. An estimated 50,000 people have died in Darfur, Sudan's vast western desert region, and another 1.4 million have been displaced in what UN officials have called a campaign of &to= english.pravda.ru/hotspots/2001/07/26/11026.html ' target=_blank> ethnic cleansing by Arab militias against black Africans. Washington has called the bloodshed there "genocide," a term Ismail said had complicated talks organization by the African Union in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. Sudan's rebels and government broke off internationally brokered peace talks for the bloodied Darfur region on Wednesday after three weeks with little progress and no deal. Both sides said the talks had collapsed, although they left open the possibility of trying again after a halt of at least three weeks, informs the Daily Star. According to the Washington Post, Between 6,000 and 10,000 people are dying from disease and violence each month in Sudan's Darfur region as heavy rains and a marauding militia hinder U.N. efforts to respond to &to= english.pravda.ru/letters/2002/01/31/26136_.html ' target=_blank> one of Africa's worst humanitarian crises , according to a survey of mortality rates by the United Nations' World Health Organization. The latest U.N. figures demonstrate that survival rates have worsened in Darfur over the past three months as the United Nations struggles to provide food to nearly 1 million displaced people in more than 120 camps throughout Darfur. The main killers are preventable conditions such as diarrhea, which accounted for nearly a quarter of the deaths, and a wave of violence that has plagued the region since civil war began in February 2003. Sudan challenged the findings of the survey, saying that mortality rates among displaced civilians in Darfur are improving. "I do not think this assessment is correct," Sudan's minister of humanitarian affairs, Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid, told reporters in Khartoum after a meeting with Andrew S. Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. "The death rate is decreasing." The Bush administration has accused Sudan and a government-backed militia of committing genocide. The United States is pressing the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution this week threatening to consider oil industry sanctions against Khartoum if it does not crack down on the militia and invite thousands of additional African monitors into Darfur. The resolution also calls for a formal U.N. inquiry into human rights abuses to determine if genocide has occurred there. The European Union backed the Bush administration's call for a U.N. commission of inquiry to determine whether the government or government- backed militia is guilty of committing genocide. Earlier this week Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, holding the rotating six-month presidency, said the bloc would impose sanctions if Sudan did not take tangible measures to disarm the Janjawid. The Janjawid are Arabic-speaking nomads accused of aiding the government in Khartoum to drive the sedentary Darfurian African tribes from their lands in western Sudan. US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate hearing on 9 September that evidence compiled by the United States led to the conclusion that genocide had been committed in Darfur. He said the government of Sudan and the Janjawid bore responsibility and that "genocide may still be occurring". The &to= english.pravda.ru/world/2003/01/31/42854.html ' target=_blank> European Parliament is also set to call violence in Darfur "tantamount to genocide" later this week, echoing US statements and strengthening the EU stance. The United Nations described the food and refugee problem created by the conflict as the world's worst current humanitarian crisis, reports Aljazeera.