UN gets sanctions proposals against Sudan officials

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 (Reuters) The UN Security Council allowed UN experts, who have recommended sanctions on top Sudanese officials, to continue monitoring atrocities and arms embargo violations in Darfur.

The list of candidates for sanctions, not released. was given to Security Council members in a report earlier this month that said all sides in Darfur had violated an arms embargo, with the government supplying weapons to brutal militia groups and rebels escalating fighting.

But Qatar's UN ambassador, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, revealed to the Security Council that the experts' accusations included ''people of the highest authority,'' indicating President Omar Hassan al-Bashir might be on the list.

Qatar, a firm ally of the Khartoum government, castigated the experts for not being objective on Darfur, where some 200,000 people have died since 1993, 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes and countless women raped.

Still, the council voted 15-0 to keep the experts on the job for another year, until September 29, 2007, while adding a fifth member to the previously four-member panel.

The Security Council adopted a resolution in March 2005 authorizing an asset freeze and travel ban on individuals who defy peace efforts, violate international human rights law, or are responsible for military overflights in Darfur. It also appointed a group of outside experts to make recommendations.

It took a year until the the first sanctions were imposed on individuals last April, including a former air force general, a militia leader and two rebel commanders.

But with the United Nations agitating for a peacekeeping force in Darfur, sanctions may not top of the agenda.

''The key thing is to try and get security and stability to Darfur,'' Britain's UN ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry told reporters yesterday. ''The question of impunity comes after those points.'' But US Ambassador John Bolton said sanctions might help win Sudan's approval for a UN force in Darfur, although the United States was cautious in April in putting embargoes on top Sudanese officials.

''One could make the argument that consideration of sanctions might have a positive effect on reaching agreement with the government of Sudan,'' Bolton said.

''We've never had any hesitation about seeking sanctions when the evidence was there against anybody who committed the offenses that the panel of experts is studying,'' he said.

Bashir has forcefully turned down a UN force in Darfur, accusing the United States and its allies of wanting to restore colonialism, although a peacekeepers are currently in southern Sudan to monitor a peace treaty there.

The African Union, which has an under-equipped peace force in Darfur, agreed last week to extend the mandate of its soldiers until the end of the year, averting a possible security vacuum.

Arab diplomats told Reuters in Cairo Egypt and the Arab League were trying to persuade Sudan to let the peacekeepers in and find a face-saving compromise.

Some UN diplomats are also speculating that beefing up the African Union force and having a dual command might be a way out of the impasse but will not say so publicly.

One promising sign would be a Sudanese agreement to let in some 105 military personnel which the United Nations plans to send to Sudan to help the African Union force.

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