February 15, 2005 - 12:15 AM

U.S. calls for Darfur peace force

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States has circulated a draft U.N. resolution
calling for a large peacekeeping force in southern Sudan but dodged the question of what
kind of court should try war criminals in Darfur.

The U.S.-drafted Security Council resolution would impose a travel ban and freeze
assets on those who violated a cease-fire in Darfur, in western Sudan, where at least
70,000 people have been killed and 2 million made homeless.

The text, circulated on Monday, would create a Security Council committee to identify
which individuals should be subject to the sanctions.

"If you are going to have peace in Sudan, you have to have peace in Darfur," U.S.
Deputy Ambassador Stuart Holliday told reporters.

The eight-page draft resolution demands accountability for atrocities "through
internationally accepted means" but does not say where the perpetrators should be tried.

Diplomats said the United States had so far failed to get enough council support for its
proposed new court set up in Arusha, Tanzania. Some nine of the 15 council members
prefer the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the first permanent global criminal
court for trying individuals for genocide, war crimes and mass human rights abuses.

The Bush administration strongly opposes the ICC, fearing it could be used to
prosecute U.S. soldiers and other officials serving abroad. U.S. officials said Washington
would pay most of the cost of the Tanzania tribunal.

Consequently, the resolution may be adopted, possibly within two weeks, without
mentioning the name of a court if no agreement is reached by then while negotiations
continue.

The measure again threatens an oil embargo if violence continues in Darfur, but
diplomats said there was little chance it would be implemented.

A key aim of the resolution is to implement a peace agreement signed on January 9
that ended a 21-year-old civil war in southern Sudan, with a large peacekeeping force of
10,000, 715 police and a host of civilians. The peace pact calls for political
power-sharing in the capital, Khartoum, as well as a division of oil and other resources.

The resolution also leaves the door open for a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur
and asks Secretary-General Kofi Annan to report on options to help the African Union,
which has more than 1,000 troops and monitors in Darfur and hopes to have 3,000 on the
ground by mid-April.

Sudan is also banned from conducting offensive military flights. "We will hold people to
account who are involved in the kinds of attacks that have been reported by the African
Union in Darfur," Holiday said.

The draft calls for a weapons ban that would include the Sudanese government in
Darfur, rather than just armed groups such as brutal pro-government militia accused of
slaughter, rape and the pillaging of farming villages.

If the government has to move arms or offensive military equipment covered under the
embargo, it must notify the Security Council, Holliday said.

The resolution for the first time establishes a special unit within the peacekeeping force
that would monitor the conduct of the troops themselves to prevent "sexual exploitation
and abuse" as occurred among forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"The point is for the peacekeepers themselves to have an appropriate mechanism to
address their own conduct," Holliday said.