RESOLUTION B3-0532, 0576, 0597 and 0612/93

The European Parliament,

-Recalling its previous resolutions concerned with the Sudan of 18 January 1990, 5 April 1990, 4 June 1990, 22 November 1990, 16 May 1991, 13 June 1991, 9 April 1992, 29 October 1992, 19 November 1992, 11 February 1993 and in particular that adopted by the ACP-EEC Joint Assembly in March 1993,

A.concerned at the alarming reports issued by the UN and other international organizations according to which 2.8 million persons are facing starvation in southern Sudan,

B.aware that the conflicts in Sudan in the last ten years and the accompanying famines and epidemics have already caused some half a million deaths and produced more than 2.5 million refugees,

C.alarmed by perennial disturbing reports from international human rights organizations and humanitarian bodies operating in the country concerning the genocidal violation of human rights, especially in the civil war zone of southern Sudan, southern Kordofan, southern Darfur and the Blue Nile, where the security authorities, the army and the paramilitary Popular Defence Forces (PDF) appear to feel uninhibited by any need to respect civilian human dignity,

D.alarmed by the Government's large-scale systematic campaign of forcible relocation of the Nuba people, with the apparent aim of the destruction of Nuba identity by violently removing the ethnic Nuba population from their ancestral lands and scattering them in small camps throughout northern Kordofan, where they are exposed to hunger and disease, an exercise accompanied by widespread and numerous human rights abuses, arrests, systematic slavery, killings and extra-judicial executions of Nuba men,

E.recognizing that the main cause of these disasters has been the attempt by successive governments in Khartoum to impose dictatorial rule and Islamic law on the animist and Christian population of Southern Sudan, but that the rebel leaders in the South have, especially by their internal rivalries, contributed to the disaster,

F.regretting that the Sudanese Government's actions led to the breakdown of the recent ceasefire initially offered by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA),

1.Calls on the Sudanese authorities to put an end to these systematic violations of human rights, which must be regarded as a means of warfare and ethnic cleansing, and to respect the rights of minorities and the freedoms of the population without any distinction as to race, religion or language;

2.Calls on the Community and the Member States to organize massive aid for the population of Sudan and to do everything possible to ensure that this aid actually reaches the population by channelling it through the NGOs;

3.Stresses the extreme urgency of providing sufficient supplies of food, water, medicines and shelter before the onset of the rainy season which will render the airstrips, used for the landing of aid supplies, unusable;

4.Deplores the breakdown of the ceasefire between the Government and the SPLA which will lead to continued suffering by the civilian population, especially amongst displaced persons;

5.Expresses the wish that the peace negotiations which are due to take place in Nigeria between the Sudanese Government and the SPLA and the negotiations due to take place in Nairobi between the Government and the three dissident rebel factions of the SPLA headed by Rieck Mackar will result in an immediate ceasefire and a return to peace in Sudan;

6.Calls on the Council to consider all means of exerting pressure, bearing in mind the commitments of Article 5 of the Lomé IV Convention;

7.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, EPC, the co-Presidents of the ACP-EEC Joint Assembly, the Secretaries-General of the Arab League, the Conference of Islamic States and the UN and the Government of Sudan.