By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Nov 14 2007 (IPS)

The European Union’s latest annual report on how it promotes human rights states that the 27-country bloc is “determined to work towards the prevention of crimes of international concern and the ending of impunity for perpetrators of such crimes.”

According to campaigners, that determination has not been on display in the EU’s response to the alleged genocide in Darfur.

In April, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants for the arrest of Ahmed Haroun, Sudan’s minister for humanitarian affairs, and Ali Kosheib, a leading figure in the Janjaweed bandits who are accused of carrying out widespread killings with the backing of the Khartoum government.

Both men face 51 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape, forcing people from their homes, and persecution.

The EU’s human rights report mentions that it recently appointed a special envoy to deal with the Darfur crisis, which has claimed the lives of 200,000 and uprooted 2.5 million people in the past four-and-a-half years. Danish diplomat Torben Brylle has been given a mandate that includes responsibility for fighting against impunity, the report adds.

But since the ICC’s arrest warrant was issued, Ahmed Haroun has been appointed chairman of a committee monitoring security in Sudan, including the western province of Darfur. As part of his new responsibilities, he can assess complaints of human rights abuses in Darfur.

Lotte Leicht, Brussels director with Human Rights Watch, says it is “frankly inexplicable” that EU governments have responded to Haroun’s new appointment with “utter silence”.

She points out that Haroun is now in charge of investigating the kind of war crimes he himself is alleged to have carried out. As the minister responsible for Darfur’s security four years ago, he reportedly recruited and armed Janjaweed forces that killed hundreds of civilians, raped girls and women, and caused widespread damage to property in the villages of Bindisi, Arawala, Kodoom and Mukjar.

Leicht is urging EU foreign ministers meeting next week (Nov. 19-20) to formally warn Sudan that they will introduce sanctions against its government if it continues to ignore the arrest warrants against Kosheib and Haroun.

An innovative approach could be taken to sanctions in this case, she believes. Officials in the Khartoum government could be banned from travelling to Europe and have their financial assets frozen for a 12-month period. Yet the application of these measures could be suspended for three months and then automatically applied if Khartoum has not complied with this requirement within that time.

A similar approach was taken recently with Uzbekistan. Eight Uzbek officials were banned from travelling to Europe in October 2005, in response to Tashkent’s refusal to permit an international investigation into the Andijan massacre in May that year, during which Uzbek forces killed hundreds of mostly unarmed protesters. Even though little progress has been detected on human rights, the EU agreed to suspend the sanctions last month, but has warned that they could be re-imposed if insufficient action is taken by Tashkent.

Initially, Human Rights Watch criticised the easing of restrictions on Uzbekistan, yet it argues now that the general approach can have merits. If applied to Sudan, it would be “a good way of using the stick and the carrot at the same time,” Leicht told IPS.

Despite the desperate humanitarian situation caused by the conflict in Darfur, officials from Portugal, the current holder of the EU’s presidency, have confirmed that it does not figure on the agenda for foreign ministers next week. The Union’s assistance to an African-led peacekeeping force in Sudan is likely to be discussed at a related meeting involving EU defence and development aid ministers, a spokesman for the Lisbon government added.

Nick Grono from the International Crisis Group, an organisation focused on resolving conflicts, argued that “sanctions do matter in Sudan.”

He noted that President Omar al-Bashir has only made concessions to international opinion when he has felt isolated. For example, Bashir agreed that a joint United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force may be deployed in Darfur after the U.S. and Britain had threatened to impose a no- fly zone over the province, Grono added.

“We do believe pressure works,” said Grono. “It has just not been tried in Sudan.”

Ulrich Delius, an Africa specialist with the German Society for Threatened Peoples, said it is “most disturbing” that Europe has not taken a firmer stance on Darfur.

It is wrong, he feels, to shy away from sanctions out of fear that they could have negative consequences for peace talks between Khartoum and a variety of rebel groups.

“It’s fine that the peace process is starting but it might take years before there is any meaningful result of that,” he told IPS. “We are seeing no real change of mind by the Sudanese government in the direction of peace, human rights and democracy. When we are talking to (European) politicians, most of them share more or less our analysis of the situation. Yet they are making no efforts to put more pressure on the Sudanese government. This is really worrying.”

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