African nations lined up behind Sudan to help defeat a U.N. Human Rights Commission resolution today that would have kept the militant Islamic Khartoum regime under special scrutiny.
Some activists who lobbied hard to prevent Sudan from “upgrading” its human rights status, however, considered the outcome a victory, in part because the 26-24 vote was divided between democratic Western nations and a list of some of the world’s worst human rights violators.
 U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting |
Western nations were able to get their point across to Sudan despite having to work through a mechanism led by Libya, the panel’s chair, said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House in Washington, D.C.
“There is no way – with the commission being this dysfunctional in its makeup – that there could have been a special rapporteur reappointed,” said Shea, who also is a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent panel established by Congress.
The special rapporteur – a monitor who visits the country to produce a published human rights status report – would have been maintained for another year with passage of the European Union-sponsored resolution.
The outcome could have been worse, however, Shea maintained.
She and her colleagues had feared that Libya, aided by France, would succeed in a procedural move that essentially would have shifted Sudan from the status of a country with “special problems” to a nation eligible for new U.N. funding. In the end, the resolution was introduced under Item 9, “human rights violations,” rather than Item 19, “advisory services and technical cooperation in the field of human rights.”
“This sends a clear signal that the free, developed world is united in censuring Khartoum as a gross violator of human rights,” Shea said. “We did not want to give a signal that it had somehow graduated from being considered in that category.”
Sudan’s cleric-backed National Islamic Front regime in the Arab and Muslim north declared a jihad on the mostly Christian and animist south in 1989. Since 1983, an estimated 2 million people have died from war and related famine. About 5 million have become refugees.
About 3,000 people have assembled in Geneva for commission’s 59th annual session. This year it has issued mandates to investigate 38 countries for human rights abuse.
A U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights staffer insisted that the result of the vote does not mean Sudan will escape U.N. scrutiny, pointing to the work of “thematic” rapporteurs who cover areas such as torture and summary execution.
Shea said another possible outcome was that Libya, in its position as chair, would have been permitted to appoint the special rapporteur.
“That would end up being a whitewashed report, which would be worse than nothing,” she said.
Shea was part of a delegation that visited the French Embassy in Washington last week to argue against upgrading Sudan’s position. That seemed to have had an effect, along with other lobbying that included statements from church leaders and newspaper editorials.
“The European Union is extremely hard to move in foreign policy – it’s a very rigid, inflexible organization with all 15 governments having to weigh in,” Shea said. “So the fact that that did change shows governments are responsive to human rights concerns when there is a strong voice for it.”
North-south divide
A U.N. staffer told WorldNetDaily the atmosphere in the commission this year is particularly divisive, which made any compromise on the Sudan resolution impossible.
“There is a very strong sense of division between north and south and a lot of bitter feelings about the war in Iraq not being handled by the U.N.,” the staffer said on condition of anonymity. “As a result, resolutions that they would have gone the extra mile to negotiate in previous years” were not given such effort this time.
The staffer said there is “less tolerance this year by member states for country-specific mandates in general because of this sense that there is a double standard being applied.”
Sudan observer Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College in Massachusetts, believes France’s oil interests in Sudan played a role in its initial effort to have the resolution introduced in a softer category.
“France’s oil giant TotalFinaElf has enormous, but presently inaccessible, concession rights in southern Sudan,” Reeves said in a editorial prior to the vote. “Perversely, upgrading Khartoum’s human rights status makes it much more likely that the regime will be able to extend its scorched-earth tactics to ‘secure’ these concessions for TotalFinaElf.”
Reeves charged that “other EU countries – Germany, Britain, Italy, Sweden – have also had their appetites whetted by Khartoum’s relatively recent petro-wealth.”
He chastised South Africa for being on the verge of casting a vote that “will register the most callous of attitudes toward fellow Africans, a vote that will declare in effect that the lives of the African peoples in southern Sudan no longer matter enough to warrant the assiduous human rights monitoring offered by a U.N. special rapporteur.”
Reeves said, “Given South Africa’s painful history, from which it emerged only because of international moral pressure against the hateful apartheid regime, this vote will be a disgrace – and one that history will record as an instance of overwhelming hypocrisy.”
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued a joint statement last week, urging the commission to strengthen its human rights monitoring presence in Sudan.
“The two international human rights organizations noted the special rapporteur’s 2003 report on Sudan, which said that “in spite of the commitments made, the overall human rights situation has not improved.”
The report said that under the Khartoum government, “the role of the security apparatus as the main entity responsible for the human rights abuses as well as the impunity enjoyed by security remains an issue of serious concern.”
The U.S. State Department’s most recent annual report on human rights also describes extensive continued abuses committed by Khartoum.
Monday deadline for new sanctions
The Sudan Peace Act, passed by Congress last fall, found that actions committed by the government of Sudan constitute genocide as defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Under the act, President George W. Bush must send Congress a six-month report by Monday, certifying whether Khartoum and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army are making progress in peace talks to end the 20-year war.
The legislation authorizes Bush to impose new sanctions if he determines the government is not acting in good faith. That could include blocking oil revenues and loans through international financial institutions and downgrading diplomatic ties.
As a designated state sponsor of terrorism, Sudan already is subject to U.S. sanctions, including a ban on arms-related sales.
A senior U.S. official indicated to Reuters Monday he would not expect more sanctions to be applied, expressing optimism that the two sides can reach a final deal to end the war by July.
Sudan activist Faith McDonnell, director of the religious liberty program for the Institute on Religion and Democracy, is skeptical, however.
“We really believe they have not been negotiating faithfully,” she said. “They continue to violate all the agreements they sign. That is par for the course for 14 years of this government and the one before that.”
In a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell Monday, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom noted that the Civilian Protection Monitoring Team, established by the peace process, has been grounded by Khartoum since March 7.
The civilian team issued a report in February stating that the government has continued to attack, kill and maim civilians despite signing a cease-fire accord with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.
Vote tally
The resolution to reappoint the special rapporteur for one year expressed concern at continuing restrictions on freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief and “deep concern” at continuing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, while noting some improvements since the beginning of the peace process last year.
The voting went as follows:
In favor (24): Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, France, Germany, Guatemala, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States and Uruguay.
Against (26): Algeria, Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, India, Kenya, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Togo, Ukraine, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
Abstentions (3): Thailand, Uganda and Venezuela.
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