UN demands Darfur peace pact as atrocities mount

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 12 (Reuters) The UN Security Council has told the Sudan government and rebels to make peace in Darfur by April 30 and instructed UN military experts to plan for a peacekeeping force there.

Neither demand may be fulfilled. Talks led by the African Union between Sudan and Darfur rebels in Abuja, Nigeria, have been touch and go, although the aim is a deal by April 30.

And Sudan may reject the demand for a UN military assessment mission to go to Darfur by April 30. The Sudanese have not agreed to future UN peacekeepers in Darfur, where atrocities against homeless civilians continue unabated.

The 15-nation Security Council, in a policy statement read at a public meeting yesterday, backed the African Union's April 30 deadline for reaching an agreement in the Abuja talks and reaffirmed its decision ''to hold accountable those impeding the peace process and committing human rights violations.'' The Abuja negotiations have missed several deadlines already but this time African heads of state and top Sudanese officials are intervening.

The Darfur conflict erupted in early 2003 when mostly non-Arab tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated Khartoum government of neglect.

The government retaliated by arming mainly Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, who began a campaign of murder, rape, arson and plunder that drove 2 million villagers into squalid camps. Khartoum denies responsibility and the Janjaweed are not part of the Abuja talks.

The main bulwark against abuses is the cash-strapped African Union which, under pressure from its Arab members who side with Khartoum, is hesitating to merge its 7,000 troops with a UN force.

Sudan recently refused a Darfur visit by the UN humanitarian coordinator, Jan Egeland, and refused to renew the contract of the Norwegian Refugee Council that cares for 90,000 people driven from their homes.

The council's statement, agreed to by all 15 members, expressed regrets at both decisions.

A senior UN peacekeeping official, Hedi Annabi, expects to go to Khartoum shortly, diplomats said. In addition, Salim Ahmed Salim, the AU's mediator for the Darfur talks, will visit the United Nations next week.

Diplomats said Britain would soon distribute a list of individuals it believes are blocking the peace process, who could become the targets of UN sanctions, such as a travel ban and having their foreign assets frozen. But China, which has veto power, has said it was not in favor of sanctions.

US Ambassador John Bolton told reporters, ''The next step of course will be on the issue of sanctions against individuals in the Sudan, where we expect to make progress this week.'' Separately, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, through his spokesman, expressed deep concern about recent fighting along Chad's border with Sudan which has spilled over into the Central African Republic.

He strongly condemned recent attacks against refugee camps in southern Chad, where Sudanese from Darfur have fled, and the killing of two doctors on a humanitarian mission supported by the United Nations, in the northern Central African Republic.

REUTERS DH BD0550