HORN OF AFRICA: Sudan, Ethiopia criticised over violations

May 12, 2006 -(IRIN) The head of a United Nations human rights agency called Sudan’s efforts to improve its rights record “paper initiatives” following her visit to the troubled western region of Darfur.

Rape is still rampant in Darfur, said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour. During her recent visit to the region, she met women who had given birth to their rapists’ children and faced ostracism by their community as a result.

"The government [of Sudan] asserted that it had taken many initiatives to address the question of sexual violence. […] I saw no evidence on the ground that any of these committees that have been set up to look after these issues have made a dent in the problems," Arbour told reporters in Geneva on Thursday. "I think it is fair to say that underneath this humanitarian crisis [in Darfur], there is also a very serious human rights situation."

Arbour took the international community to task as well, for not doing enough to reconstruct southern Sudan following the signing in January 2005 of the peace agreement that ended two decades of the war between the Sudanese government and former rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.

The envoy also visited Ethiopia during her weeklong mission to the Horn of Africa. She urged authorities in Addis Ababa, the capital, to consider reducing the charges for 111 defendants - including at least 54 officials of the country's main opposition party, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy and 15 journalists - who face charges of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order through violence and outrages against the constitution. Other charges include high treason and attempted genocide, which are capital offences under Ethiopian law.

"I have urged the prosecutor to take another look at the evidence in an effort to see whether it would be feasible in some, if not in all cases, to reduce the charges so as to make them bailable," she said. Bail is provided for under Ethiopia’s penal code. Most of the defendants have been held since November 2005.

Despite calls by human rights groups for the defendants to be released, the prosecution maintains they are guilty of instigating unrest following parliamentary and municipal elections on 15 May 2005. At least 84 people died, many at the hands of the police, when violence erupted in June and November 2005 during opposition demonstrations to protest alleged poll fraud.

Arbour also highlighted the necessity of helping the fledgling Somali government establish its authority. She said the international community was "insufficiently engaged" in the crisis and should do more to end civil strife.