Annan urges UN rights forum to deal urgently with Darfur

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the world body's Human Rights Council to hold a special session on violations in Sudan's strife-torn region of Darfur, warning that the Council's reputation is at stake.

In prepared remarks to the 47-member states of the Council, which were released by the United Nations, Annan says the violations there deserve at least as much if not more attention than grave violations in Palestinian territories and Israel.

"There are surely other situations, besides the one in the Middle East, which would merit scrutiny by a special session of this council. I would suggest that Darfur is a glaring case in point," Annan says in his message to the session.

The Council formed this year has so far been driven by similar geopolitical rifts that discredited its predecessor body, the Commission, and blocked outright condemnation of most severe situations of abuse in recent years except by Israel in Palestinian territories. The Council has held the urgent special sessions three times in the past two months, but solely at the request of Arab nations to deal with the Middle East.

Annan says the Council needs to be marked by "a strong sense of purpose" if it wants to "take its place as one of the paramount bodies of the United Nations". "There is much at stake for the Council and for human rights in the months ahead. A new atmosphere is vitally needed," he warns, calling on the 47 member states to rise above national and regional interests to tackle abuses "wherever and whenever" they occur. On Tuesday, the Council rejected a bid by the European Union and Canada to place primary responsibility on the Sudanese government to prevent human rights violations in the conflict-riven Darfur.

Instead, an African resolution that made no direct reference to Khartoum's role in the conflict was passed in its unaltered form with 25 votes in favour, 11 against and 10 abstentions.

Sudan was expected Wednesday to give its formal response on contentious points of a tentative deal reached with the United Nations for deploying a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.

Annan, a Ghanaian, says the 47 nations in the Council must build coalitions based on the principle of upholding human rights.

"Do not let yourselves be split along the faultline between north and south - between developed and developing countries - as your colleagues have done in some other parts of the system, with results inimical to progress," the outgoing UN chief cautions.

Annan also mounts a staunch defence of the system of UN human rights experts who investigate abuse - known as "special procedures" - two days after African countries in the Council, supported by China and Cuba, launched a process to set up a "code of conduct" for the experts' activities.

In his message, Annan says he hopes the Council will handle the debate on her findings "in an impartial way and not allow it to monopolise attention at the expense of others where ther are equally grave or even graver violations".

- AFP