By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Sudanese government's continued attacks on civilians in Darfur show how empty Khartoum's promises of peace for the ravaged region are, 15 human rights organizations said in a report issued on Tuesday.
"Far from trying to improve the situation as it claims, the government of Sudan continues to conduct large-scale military attacks against populated areas, to harass aid workers and to allow impunity for the worst crimes committed in Darfur," Human Rights Watch, the Save Darfur Coalition, and 13 other rights organizations said in a highly unusual joint report.
In July, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague asked the court's judges to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on suspicion of masterminding a campaign of genocide in Darfur, an accusation Khartoum rejects.
Since then, the groups say, Sudanese officials have been lobbying the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council to use their power to suspend the ICC investigation of Bashir, arguing that an indictment would destroy the fragile peace process in Darfur.
According to the rights groups' 22-page report, Khartoum has been working hard to convince the international community that it wants peace in Darfur in an attempt to pressure the Security Council into suspending the case against Bashir.
Bashir has announced a new peace initiative in western Sudan's Darfur, agreed to peace talks currently being mediated by Qatar and pledged to punish anyone guilty of crimes in Darfur.
But there are few signs of peace in Darfur and the policy of impunity for more than five years of mass murder in the region continue, making clear that the government's pledges are empty rhetoric, the report says.
The groups say that the only area of improvement has been in the deployment of the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur, known as UNAMID.
The humanitarian situation and security in Darfur have deteriorated significantly in recent months, the groups say.
Sudanese U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem told Reuters that the activist groups were "warmongers" whose main objective was "to undermine peace in Sudan because they are beneficiaries of the war." He dismissed their accusations.
"The enemies of Sudan, including those organizations, will never be lacking in their negative campaign against chances and hopes for peace in Sudan," he said.
The United Nations estimates that as many as 300,000 people have died and some 2.7 million left homeless in the five years of fighting between rebels and the army and government-backed militia.
(Editing by Eric Beech)
