A keenly awaited United Nations investigation into human rights abuse in Sudan's Darfur region does not describe violence against villagers there as "genocide", the Sudanese government said on Monday. Pro-government militia are accused of a two-year campaign of raping civilians and pillaging villages in the desert region where tens of thousands of people have died and 1.8 million have been driven from their homes.
The United Nations report is currently in the hands of Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Sudanese government, and is expected to be made public this week after being presented to the Security Council.
"We have a copy of that report and they didn't say there is a genocide," Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters on the sidelines of an African Union summit in the Nigerian capital.
The report does contain names of people suspected of being responsible for atrocities, Ismail added, but he did not disclose who was on the list.
The conflict erupted in western Sudan after rebel groups took up arms in February 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglect. The government is accused of deploying Arab militias known as Janjaweed to put down the rebellion. Khartoum denies the charge and calls the militias outlaws.
DEFINITION: The United States described the Sudanese Darfur campaign as "genocide", but the United Nations has shied away from using the term, which compels specific reactions under international law.
Genocide is legally defined by international conventions as the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".
Annan said on Sunday that "gross violations of human rights" had occurred in Darfur and recommended the Security Council consider sanctions on the oil-exporting country.
Western powers argued for imposing sanctions on Khartoum last year, but opposition by China, which has oil interests in Sudan, and Russia, which supplies arms, blocked the motion.
The United States is considering a new UN resolution that would impose an arms embargo and sanctions against those responsible for gross human rights abuses.
Ismail said "sanctions will not help Darfur".
The United Nations has proposed trying Darfur's suspected war criminals at the International Criminal Court, but the plan has been opposed by the United States, which does not recognise that tribunal.
Rights groups and some governments have become increasingly frustrated by the lack of action over Darfur while fighting and massive displacements continue. Last week the Sudanese government launched a bombing raid that killed about 100 civilians and displaced 9,000, the United Nations said.
PEACE TALKS TO RESUME: Ismail said the bombing was being investigated by the government and African Union monitors. An AU source said its monitors had been blocked from investigating the bomb site.
"It is not our policy to bomb any civilians. We will punish those who committed it, but it is not our policy," Ismail said.
Ismail said the government intended to resume peace talks with two Darfur rebel groups in the Nigerian capital in February, but the African Union mediators said no specific date had been fixed.
A spokesman for one of the two main rebel groups in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said if the group was invited to talks in Abuja they would consider.
"JEM is ready for any peace talks in Abuja or elsewhere in Africa because we cannot achieve all our objectives without talks. We are ready to go but the talks will not be successful until the government withdraws its troops from occupied areas," Tajeddin Nyam, deputy leader of the JEM delegation to the previous Abuja talks, told Reuters in Cairo by telephone.