Rights Panel Rejects Darfur Resolution

Refugees from Sudan's Darfur ethnic conflict who have fled to Chad, collect water in the Djabal Refugee Camp in the eastern town of Goz Beida, in Chad on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2006, among some 218,000 refugees from Darfur seeking refuge with the Central African nation. On Tuesday, Chad's information Minister accused some refugees of working for Sudan's government to destabilize his country and called for the camps to be evacuated. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) (Christophe Ena - AP)

GENEVA -- The U.N. Human Rights Council rejected on Tuesday an attempt to hold the Sudanese government responsible for halting atrocities in Darfur, opting instead for a less-pointed resolution calling on all warring parties to end abuses.

The council, which took over from the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission June, is dominated by African and Muslim countries that have sided with China, Cuba and other countries in preventing criticism of any government but Israel.

The council voted 22-20 against a resolution from the European Union and Canada demanding the Sudanese government prosecute those responsible for killing, raping and injuring civilians in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

The showdown followed months of negotiations between the European Union and the council's African group on what approach to take toward Darfur, which the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

After rejecting the EU-Canada resolution, the council then voted 25-11 with 10 abstentions to approve the African group's resolution.

That resolution called on all parties to the conflict "to put an immediate end to the ongoing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, with a special focus on vulnerable groups, including women and children."

It also called on those parties not to hinder the return of all internally displaced persons to their homes.

The African resolution does not blame President Omar al-Bashir's government, which has been accused of unleashing brutal militiamen known as janjaweed in fighting Darfur rebels. The janjaweed are widely alleged to have destroyed hundreds of villages, killing the inhabitants, raping women and stealing livestock.

The government has always denied backing the janjaweed. But U.N. investigators said the government armed the janjaweed, and members of the militia have acknowledged receiving state support.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million others displaced since the conflict began in February 2003, when Darfur's ethnic African tribesmen took up arms against what they saw as decades of neglect and discrimination by the Arab government in Khartoum.

The council is meant to be a watchdog that monitors and reports on human rights abuses. It does not have the power to sanction but can send fact-finding missions and draw international attention to a country's human rights record.

India, Russia and Sri Lanka were among the countries that rejected the EU measure. Some in the African group broke ranks including Ghana, which voted for the EU measure, and Mauritius and Zambia, which abstained.