Annan appeals for UN action on Darfur

Dec 12, 2006, 11:58 GMT

Geneva - Outgoing UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in an address to the 47-country UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday appealed for action to be taken towards resolving the Darfur crisis.

'The people of Darfur cannot afford to wait another day. The violence must stop,' Annan said in a message sent by video link which opened the council's special session on the situation in the war-torn western Sudan region.

'The killings and other gross violations of human rights must end,' he said.

Annan had personally urged the council to address the crisis in Darfur amid fears the unrest was spreading region-wide.

More than 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed and more than 2 million displaced during the Darfur conflict, which is soon to enter its fourth year.

Sudan is accused of arming Arab militias to crush a 2003 rebellion, using a savage campaign of rape and murder - charges it denies.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour in her address to the council on Tuesday said there had been a 'systematic failure to prevent violence in Darfur.'

Arbour said that a UN Panel of Experts had concluded that the government of Sudan had not only failed to disarm militia groups as required by the May 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, but that evidence indicated the government was helping to upgrade militia weapons and mobility.

'Civilians continue to be the target of deliberate and devastatingly brutal attacks,' she told the council, adding that the peace agreement needed to be 'revived and enforced.'

'Impunity is rampant,' she said, with scarcely any prosecutions and even fewer convictions for the vast majority of crimes.

A Sudanese government representative attacked the UN Human Rights Council over the special session accusing it of 'politicization and selectivity.'

The spokesman said the objective was 'not to protect human rights but to undermine the dignity and sovereignty of a weak state.'

The special session was called for by the European group of states who wish to see a special investigative mission sent to the region to report back to the council.