This week witnessed even more Sudenese gimmicks and bargins than usual, writes Gamal Nkrumah Over the past few months, Sudan went through a spell of achieving lots of goals it had set out to do. The Sudanese peace process is well underway: A historic peace deal was signed in January. But, there is still a job to do -- national reconciliation and reconstruction. Nevertheless, the positives Sudan would gain from a resolution of the Darfur crisis would help Khartoum complete the task at hand. However, do the omens bode well? This week Sudan bashers once again came out of the woodwork. According to the international humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), the women and girls of Darfur are subjected to some of the most horrendous human rights abuses, including high incidents of rape and sexual abuse. In a report released on Monday, the international medical relief group warned that rape is widespread and systematically used as a "regular and deliberate tool of war" and a tool of repression. The group said it treated an estimated 500 rape victims between October 2004 and mid-February 2005. This number, the group warned, was a fraction of the actual number of women believed to have been subjected to sexual abuse. The atrocities committed in the wars of Darfur are so vicious that United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the international community to intervene. Annan called for the convening of a UN Security Council meeting to tackle the disastrous situation in Sudan's war-torn westernmost region. Annan warned that the UN Security Council must take action to end the "appalling" crimes in Darfur. He urged the 15-member council to pass a resolution imposing sanctions on those who block peace moves in Darfur. Annan described Darfur as the "world's worst humanitarian crisis". The two-year Darfur conflict claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 Sudanese. Annan said he summoned Security Council ambassadors because of "reports which show that the killing, raping and burning are still going on" in Darfur. Annan noted that humanitarian and security efforts "are not enough". He said he hoped diplomats would adopt a new resolution on Darfur without further delay. A recently-released UN report found that Sudanese government forces and pro-government militias, the so-called Janjaweed, had embarked on a brutal campaign of torture, rape and murder. The international team of UN investigators strongly recommended that those accused of the most serious crimes be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. "The referral to the ICC is the best means by which to halt ongoing violations and to prevent future ones," Mohamed Fayeq, a member of the UN-appointed commission in Darfur told Al-Ahram Weekly. But Washington, which does not recognise the ICC's authority, prefers instead to have the accused brought to book in an African tribunal. Mohamed Fayeq, head of the Cairo-based Arab Human Rights Organisation, told the Weekly that while Sudan's government had not pursued a policy of genocide, nothing precluded the possibility of Sudanese officials being convicted of such acts. The commission identified 51 suspects whose names are being kept secret. Many observers believe that Russia, China and Algeria may also object to imposing a travel ban and financial sanctions on those accused of committing the atrocities in Darfur. The three countries are widely seen as sympathetic to Sudan. China, in particular, has extensive economic and trade relations with Sudan. The African Union (AU) has deployed some 1,900 troops to monitor the situation in Darfur, a region roughly the size of France. Annan told reporters in New York that UN Security Council members endorsed the AU's peace-keeping mission in Darfur. He noted that the AU's peace-keeping force is set to expand shortly. He also added that the UN, the US and the EU would soon be sending observer teams to Darfur to assess the AU's performance. Annan also said he hoped the UN would soon agree to send 10,000 peace-keepers to southern Sudan. A dispute recently arose between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), until now the country's most powerful armed opposition group. The southern Sudanese-based SPLA signed a comprehensive peace agreement in January. The peace agreement stipulated that oil revenues would be split in half between the SPLA and the Sudanese government. The SPLA says that under the agreement it is entitled to sign contracts with foreign oil companies. The Sudanese authorities, on the other hand, insist the SPLA has no right to do so. The January peace deal allotted the SPLA a share of Sudan's oil profits. Foreign companies are now queuing up to sign contracts with the SPLA for extracting oil in south Sudan. The SPLA ignored Khartoum's protestations and went ahead to sign a contract with the British-based company White Nile. Rival French company, the giant conglomerate Total, in December renewed a contract it had signed two decades ago with Sudan for the exploitation of the country's oil resources. Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir annulled the contract with Total when he came to power in 1989. The SPLA which practically governs most of southern Sudan, with the notable exception of government-controlled garrison towns, says that it has rescinded all oil exploration rights in the territory under its control. The SPLA this week announced it had re-assigned seven "blocks", including the one held by France's Total. The Sudan Liberation Army of Darfur, identified by the Sudanese authorities as its main enemy in the war-torn region, hopes to clinch a deal with Khartoum similar to the wealth and power-sharing agreement between the Sudanese government and the SPLA. The UN's top humanitarian and emergency relief official Jan Egeland sang the praises of humanitarian and emergency relief agencies but said the same kind of commitment and political will was needed by the international community to end the violence in Darfur. Egeland said the humanitarian crisis in Darfur has largely been contained but a lack of political will was preventing a return to peace. "The international community is now set up to send massive humanitarian assistance anywhere in the world and very quickly... but it has been unable to deploy a proper observer force in the past six months," Egeland said. During a recent visit to southern Sudan, he pointed out that only five per cent of the required funds have so far been secured. The United States is pushing for harsher sanctions and wants a UN Security Council resolution passed which, if adopted, would freeze the assets and impose travel sanctions on those accused of atrocities in Darfur. Meanwhile, the Sudanese authorities refused to grant entry visas to a US congressional delegation who had hoped to prove the effectiveness of the UN's operations in Sudan. The congressional group said they were concerned about what they called the "inactivity" of the UN with regards to atrocities in Darfur. "Despite having more than ample time, the government of Sudan failed to act on visa applications by task force members and experts, making the travel impossible," the congressional group said in a statement released this week.
