*EPF506 07/02/2004
United States Expects Khartoum to Act on Darfur Immediately
(USAID's Natsios will press for U.N. resolution "in days") (680)

By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- The United States will give Sudanese officials "days, not weeks" to act decisively to neutralize the Jingaweit and measurably improve conditions for the more than 1 million displaced persons before pressing ahead with a U.N. Security Council resolution on the crisis, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Andrew Natsios said July 2.

Speaking with journalists after privately briefing the Security Council on his visit to Sudan, especially Darfur, earlier this week, Natsios said, "We will not be waiting for a long time ... we're not talking about months here, we're talking about days, not weeks."

The USAID administrator said he found no opposition to the draft resolution from the other 14 members of the Security Council.

"I got the sense from the group that if the Sudanese government does not implement what it promised [to Secretary of State Colin Powell], there would be interest in supporting" the resolution, he said.

The draft resolution, among other items, would impose an arms embargo and travel ban on the Jingaweit militia. It calls on the Sudanese government to fulfill its commitments to stop all military attacks in Darfur, disarm and neutralize the Jingaweit, protect civilians, and end restrictions on aid to the region. The current draft, however, does not include any immediate restrictive measures against Khartoum government officials.

Natsios said that Jingaweit senior commanders "have wealth and power and travel outside the country, and such a ban will have an effect on them."

Whether the United States will press for U.N. sanctions on Sudanese government officials will depend on what "the government does in the next few days, weeks," he said.

The United States currently has its own sanctions imposed on Sudan.

On the final day of his visit to Sudan July 2, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said there have been "gross and systematic" violations of human rights in Darfur.

President Bush sent Powell and Natsios to Sudan June 29 and 30 to investigate conditions and press the Sudanese government to neutralize and disarm the Jingaweit, reverse the crisis, and create conditions that will allow the displaced to return home safely and with dignity.

Natsios said that Powell specifically asked the government to take steps to ensure that wheat and other humanitarian goods can be brought into the country and that aid workers have access to the camps and the displaced population.

"The displaced people in Darfur told us repeatedly and told the staffs of all our organizations that the cities and displaced camps have become prisons, concentration camps," he said. "The Jingaweit will execute men on sight if they leave the camps. If the women go out to get firewood or to cook their meals, they rape them."

The situation in Darfur, Natsios said, "is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world."

"The thing that makes this very different from almost all other recent emergencies is the fact that these populations cannot rely on what we would call traditional coping mechanisms for survival," the USAID administrator said.

"Most people survive emergencies on their own. We help them in the international community, but they help themselves even more. Almost all of the 14 or 15 traditional coping mechanisms that people in poor countries use to survive nutritional and public health crises like this are unavailable [in Darfur] because they are imprisoned in these camps and the cities and they can't help themselves," he said.

"So they are entirely dependent on us. If they do not have access they are going to die," Natsios said. He added that there has already been a measles epidemic that killed hundreds of children, as well as an outbreak of severe diarrhea. There is a threat of meningitis and, with the onset of the rainy season and mosquitoes, malaria has begun to spread through the camps.

The United States already has spent $117 million on the emergency and will spend another $150 million over the next 18 months, Natsios said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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