By Nima Elbagir

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Civilians in Sudan's troubled Darfur region say they are being routinely imprisoned or harassed by Sudanese authorities for talking to foreigners about the conflict in the remote western area bordering Chad.

Rights group Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday that Sudan had rounded up scores of people who spoke to journalists and foreign leaders, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, on recent visits to Darfur.

One woman from Western Darfur state told Reuters she was imprisoned several times and routinely harassed after she translated for a recent visiting group of foreign diplomats.

"Nineteen security officers jumped down from two trucks and threatened me with weapons," said the woman, who was too frightened to give her name.

"They took me back to the headquarters and threatened me saying that they had scorpions and snakes and accusing me of mistranslating for the diplomats," she said.

Another woman, who works in development and declined to be identified, said authorities threatened to make her disappear one day after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Darfur.

Security officials told Reuters people were being questioned and some had been detained but that it was a matter of security and not a reprisal for speaking to foreigners.

Amnesty counted at least 50 people arrested including 15 men arrested at the Abu Shouk camp after Powell's June 30 visit, and another five taken from there after French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier's July 27 trip.

FRESH ATTACKS

After long conflict between Arab nomads and African farmers over scarce resources in arid Darfur, rebels launched a revolt in February last year, accusing Khartoum of arming Arab militias known as Janjaweed to carry out a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

The Janjaweed, a term loosely derived from the Arabic for "devils on horseback," are accused of looting, burning, killing and raping. The United Nations estimates the death toll to be at least 50,000, with 1 million people displaced and 2 million in need of aid. The U.S. Congress has called the violence genocide.

Khartoum disputes the death toll and denies it supports the militias, which it calls outlaws, but under threat of possible sanctions it has said it will try to meet a U.N. Security Council demand that it disarm the Janjaweed.

Under a joint plan agreed with the United Nations last week, Sudan also pledged to establish safe areas for the displaced and cease military operations by its troops and rebels around the safe areas.

But the U.N. refugee body in Geneva said on Tuesday Sudanese authorities were forcing traumatized refugees to return to unsafe villages, where they being attacked again by Janjaweed.

"We have interviewed people in hospital who tell us they have gone back to the villages, believing the government commitment, and have been shot by Janjaweed raiders," said UNHCR spokesman Peter Kessler.

"We can't tell if people are being led into a trap -- we would hope not," he added.

GENOCIDE QUESTIONS

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Tuesday the threat of sanctions was not enough to stop the violence in Darfur. He said he disagreed with a European Union mission, which said it had found no evidence of genocide there.

Frist visited southern Sudan and Chad, where about 200,000 Darfur refugees are encamped, but did not visit Darfur.

The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said the EU report was hasty and that the Janjaweed, supported by the government, had burned 3,000 villages in Darfur.

The African Union said on Sunday rebels and Khartoum had agreed to peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Aug. 23, but the rebels said they had not received formal invitations and the date was unsuitable, although they welcomed the location.

Sudan has accepted talks without preconditions in Abuja mediated by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Rebels have dropped preconditions including the disarmament of the Janjaweed and an inquiry into genocide, which caused talks in Addis Ababa to collapse in July.
http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/396053|top|08-10-2004::09:49|reuters.html

The things going on here are disgusting, and it is about to get worse. Recent reports say that disease and hunger are beginning to run rampant in these camps and that by the end of the year 1 million could be dead.

These janjaweed soldiers rape the African Muslims in an attempt to breed the darkness out of them, then brand them so they know which ones have already been taken care of. the Sudanese Gov't is supporting this and everyone knows it. They vow not to let any foreign soldiers enter except for 300 troops from the African Union and to fight anyone else who enters.

Forget the idea of issuing santions if they don't comply. Issue the harshest restrictions possible now and tell them they will be lifted once they comply with every single on of the UN's demands.

-Demosthenes

__________________
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Bring back a company named Executive Outcomes. Problem solved in weeks.

Then give them 12 years of inspections and cat and mouse .
The u.n. is usless.