*EPF410 07/08/2004
U.N. Security Council Pressuring Khartoum to Act
(Danforth says world is watching Sudan's response to human crisis) (920)

By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations --- The U.N. Security Council is giving Sudan a few days to implement agreements it made with Secretary-General Kofi Annan to improve the disastrous humanitarian situation in Darfur, including disarming the Jingaweit militias, before moving to impose sanctions, Security Council members said July 7.

Emerging from a videoconference with the secretary-general, who is traveling in Africa, council members said that Annan and other senior U.N. officials described the situation as grave. They added that Khartoum has only a matter of days to begin fulfilling the commitments it made to the secretary-general during his visit June 29 to July 3.

U.S. Ambassador John Danforth said that "the question isn't what the government of Sudan agrees to do verbally, the question is, ����What's it going to do?'

"The attention of the world is now on Sudan and the government of Sudan and what its actual performance is going to be. Is it going to rein in the Jingaweit or is it not? We're watching," said Danforth, who had just attended his first Security Council meeting since being sworn in earlier this month as the chief U.S. envoy to the United Nations.

"Is [the Sudanese government] going to provide for total humanitarian access to Darfur? ... " the ambassador asked. "We're holding them accountable."

The United States informally circulated a draft resolution that would impose a travel ban and arms embargo on the Jingaweit and call on Khartoum to protect the displaced persons and allow humanitarian workers access to the camps. The council will be meeting at the so-called "experts" level July 8 to refine the draft and get it ready for a vote if conditions on the ground in Darfur do not change.

Danforth, who had been the Bush administration's special envoy to Sudan, said in reference to the timetable for moving on the resolution that the U.S. delegation is "talking about days, this week.

"Thirty days is too long for the government to act," the ambassador said, emphasizing that it must be very clear to the government of Sudan that they are going to be judged "in the very short term" and that the world is ready to act.

German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said that "for the Security Council, we feel it is a matter of credibility to be ready to act now, and we are in favor of the Security Council making sure and making visible that we are prepared to act."

The Sudanese government "has made commitments, and I think the commitments should show up in the resolution as benchmarks," Pleuger said. "If they are not heeded, then my delegation at least would be prepared to consider sanctions, including an arms embargo not only against the Jingaweit but also against Sudan as a whole."

Council President Mihnea Motoc of Romania said that the council "called for sustained pressure on the government of Sudan ... to promote progress and find a solution to the humanitarian situation. Further action would depend very much on the action the government in Khartoum is showing in the commitments it has entered into."

During the videoconference, the secretary-general told the council that "the situation of the internally displaced people in Darfur and of the Sudanese refugees in Chad is indeed grave. Too many of the internally displaced, in particular, live in sub-human conditions with inadequate food, shelter, water, medicine, and other basic supplies.

"They also live in constant fear for their lives in the face of continuing attacks and harassment by the Jingaweit and other armed groups," Annan said. "The civilian population outside the major towns and camps are particularly vulnerable to such attacks."

Every one of the refugees who spoke with him and other U.N. officials during his visit to the region "expressed extreme distrust of both government troops and militias, and particularly the Jingaweit," Annan said. "They said that they still feel harassed and deeply insecure. They did not want to go back to their villages until there was peace and their security could be guaranteed."

The secretary-general said the situation is totally intolerable, unacceptable, and has to change. All involved must do more, those attending the closed session said.

"Pressure on Sudan is necessary," U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said after the meeting. "It is a logistical nightmare for us to help them, but we have for the first time now -- since this crisis started last year -- access to the internally displaced. ...

"In the month of July we will be either able to step up to ... feed 1.2 million people," providing most with water, sanitation and health care, "or we will fail," Egeland said.

Currently, security in Darfur is "not good enough, and funding is still short," he said. "The U.N. has only 40 percent of what we have asked for. If we do not get 100 percent, we will not get enough food and people will starve."

The United Nations has asked for $350 million as a minimum, but Egeland said that number may be increased by the end of the year. The United States already has spent $117 million on the emergency and will spend another $150 million over the next 18 months, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

(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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