Darfur 3

'UN Darfur mission to work outside Sudan

GENEVA (AFP) - A planned UN human rights mission to the strife-torn region of Darfur said that it would carry on its work outside Sudan after being denied entry visas.

The mission, headed by Nobel peace laureate and anti-landmines campaigner Jody Williams, has been in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa since the weekend for talks with African Union officials.
The mission said in a statement that it had decided "it can no longer allow the continued uncertainty regarding visas from Sudan to impede the continuance" of its work.
Williams has decided the mission will now "proceed and collect all relevant information from locations outside the country," the statement added.
Sudan's foreign ministry said on Monday it would not grant visas to the mission if it included an unnamed individual known for his "hostility" to Sudan.
Khartoum has in the past criticised delegation member Bertrand Ramcharan, the former UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, for describing the situation in Darfur as a "genocide," according to a diplomatic source in Geneva.
The mission has been fraught with difficulties and complications ever since its inception at a fractious special session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last December.
Western countries were insistent that the council probe human rights abuses in Darfur, where some 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed and two million displaced.
African and Islamic states said Sudan was being singled out for unfair criticism.
Khartoum's allies then sought to have the mission comprised of national ambassadors to the council, with its president Luis Alfonso de Alba at its head.
This was rejected by Western nations who insisted anything other than full independence from member states would water down the mission's credibility.
De Alba then proposed that Williams head the inquiry, but his inclusion of ambassadors from Indonesia and Gabon sparked the ire of Western diplomats who feared their presence would compromise the mission's integrity.
The French ambassador to the
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United Nations in Geneva, Jean-Maurice Ripert, said he was "surprised and disappointed" by their inclusion.
UN monitors in Darfur are already reporting back about violations and attacks on civilians to High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour.'

Lees verder: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070214/wl_afp/
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