U.S. warns Sudan to quickly rein in Arab militias

UNITED NATIONS – The new U.S. ambassador warned the Sudanese government Wednesday that Washington will demand tough U.N. action if it doesn’t start reining in Arab militias blamed for thousands of rapes and killings in western Darfur.

“This is a matter of urgency,” said John Danforth, the former Missouri senator who was the U.S. point man on Sudan before taking up his new post this week. “We’re talking about days. We’re talking about this week as far as being serious.”

He hinted the United States might push for sanctions against the Sudanese government as well as the Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, if there are still killings, rapes and obstruction of humanitarian relief efforts in Darfur next week.

“I think that it is very clear to the government of Sudan that they’re going to be judged in the very short term, and that the world is going to be watching and the world is going to be acting,” Danforth said after attending his first Security Council meeting.

The council held a closed-door videoconference with Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is in Nairobi, Kenya, on the agreement he and Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir signed last week to contain the militias and allow humanitarian aid and human rights monitors into Darfur in western Sudan.

It calls for the government to immediately send additional troops to stop the Janjaweed and disarm them and other armed groups; to deploy police to protect over a million displaced people; and to start political negotiations to end the conflict.

Annan signed the agreement after he and Secretary of State Colin Powell made separate appeals to el-Bashir to rein in the militias.

If the government doesn’t demonstrate by next week that it is fulfilling these commitments, Danforth said, “I think that would mean serious action on the part of the Security Council – at least that would be the view of the United States.”

But while the 15 Security Council members seemed united in keeping up the pressure on the Sudanese government, only Germany gave strong vocal support to speedy action while several members including China and Pakistan said Khartoum should have more time.

Council experts were scheduled to meet today to discuss a U.S. draft resolution circulated last month that calls for sanctions against the Janjaweed. It would require the council to decide after 30 days whether an arms embargo and travel ban against the militias should include “any other individuals or groups responsible for the commission of atrocities in Darfur.”

But Danforth now says “30 days is too long,” and Germany’s U.N. Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said the council should “be ready to act now.”

The government’s commitments should be incorporated in the resolution as benchmarks, Pleuger said, and if they are not followed Germany “would be prepared to consider sanctions, including an arms embargo, not only against the Janjaweed, but also against Sudan as a whole.”

He noted that a group set up by Annan and the government to monitor implementation of the agreement is expected to make its first report on July 15.

China’s deputy U.N. Ambassador Zhang Yishan stressed, however, that the council hadn’t agreed on a timetable for action.

“Everyone on the council has the impression that this time the Sudanese government is really committed,” he said.

The United States and humanitarian groups accuse the government of backing the Janjaweed during the 15-month conflict that has killed up to 30,000 people, forced more than 1 million to flee their homes, and left 2.2 million in desperate need of food and medicine. The government denies supporting the Janjaweed.

Long-simmering tensions between nomadic Arab herders and their farming neighbors exploded into violence when two black African rebel groups took up arms against the Sudanese government in February 2003 over what they consider unfair treatment in their struggle for land and water resources in Darfur.