Letter from Rt Hon Ian McCartney MP to
the Chairman of the Committee, Minister of State for Trade Investment
and Foreign Affairs
When I gave evidence to your committee on 7
February I agreed to send you further information on the UN Human
Rights Council Mission to Sudan.
At a special session on Darfur last December
the UN Human Rights Council agreed that a high level mission would
go to Sudan to examine the human rights situation in Darfur. President
Bashir gave his commitment to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
at the African Union (AU) Summit in January that the Government
of Sudan (GoS) would co-operate with the Mission.
The GoS refused to grant visas to all members
of the mission when it was due to visit Sudan in February. The
mission leader, Jody Williams, said, rightly, that if the whole
Mission was not allowed in, none would go. The mission did visit
Addis Ababa and eastern Chad. We, and others, pressed the GoS
to allow the whole mission in.
The Mission issued its report on Darfur on 12
March. The report was based on AU and UN information and confirmed
what we already knew about the grave human rights situation in
Darfur: that it remains characterised by gross and systematic
violations of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian
law. The report recommended that there be more effective protection:
deployment of UN/AU peacekeeping force and more human rights monitors;
a ceasefire and negotiated peace; effective delivery of humanitarian
assistance and ongoing donor support; and tackling impunity, including
through GoS co-operation with the ICC. Despite procedural objections
from OIC and Asian states, the report was welcomed by key African
delegations, who called for the Council to take effective action.
In my statement to the Council I called on it
to take effective action on Darfur and not become mired in procedural
debates. We do not accept that the Mission report is not valid
as the Mission failed to go to Sudan. The report is based on the
assessments of UN humanitarian agencies, the African Union in
Addis Ababa and UNHCR in eastern Chad. All of these organisations,
which have large numbers of staff operating in Darfur and Eastern
Chad, continue to report an appalling human rights and humanitarian
situation there.
I also spoke privately to the Sudanese Justice
Minister. I made clear to him that it was unacceptable that Sudan
had not co-operated with the human rights mission to Sudan. It
was a sensible and balanced report and we would be pressing for
the Council to uphold its recommendations. I made clear that the
Government of Sudan needed to uphold their international commitments
and that this included co-operation with the International Criminal
Court.
We, and EU partners, are pressing the Council
to take forward the recommendations in the report.
Rt Hon Ian McCartney MP
Minister of State for Trade Investment and Foreign
Affairs
13 April 2007
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