UNITED NATIONS, Thursday

Twelve of the Security Council’s 15 members favour referring suspected war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region to the International Criminal Court, a course of action the United States bitterly opposes, council diplomats said yesterday.

The strong backing for an ICC role in the Darfur crisis came during a closed-door discussion of a report submitted earlier this month by a UN-appointed commission of inquiry that accused the Sudan government and militia of "heinous crimes" in the western Sudanese region, diplomats said.

During the meeting, just three countries, the United States, China and Algeria, did not line up behind an ICC referral, they said.

The ICC, based in The Hague, began operating last year as the world’s first permanent tribunal to try the most serious cases of human rights abuses. The Bush administration fears the ICC could be used to prosecute US soldiers and other officials serving abroad.

China and Algeria argued that trying to bring Sudanese government, rebel or Janjaweed militia leaders to justice before there was peace in Darfur might be counterproductive and they agreed with the Sudan government’s plea that prosecution of serious crimes against humanity should be left to the Sudanese, the diplomats said.

The United States, while stressing the need to bring violators to justice, did not mention a particular forum, they said.

"Nobody mentioned the American proposal," said one diplomat at the discussions, referring to a plan put forward informally by Washington. That plan would refer Darfur cases to a new court based in Arusha, Tanzania, that would share limited facilities with a tribunal investigating genocide in Rwanda.

The 12 countries saying a referral to the ICC would be the best course of action were Argentina, Benin, Brazil, Britain, Denmark, France, Greece, Japan, the Philippines, Romania, Russia and Tanzania, the diplomats said.

Council members took up the issue behind closed doors after Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, told them during a public briefing it was her view any meaningful prosecution had to be handled by the ICC.

Joel Adechi, Benin’s UN ambassador and the current Security Council president, said it was too early to say what the council would decide but he hoped it would act soon.

And the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for immediate action yesterday to end what he termed a near hell on earth in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

But African leaders warned against sending non-African troops to Darfur, where the United Nations estimates a two-year conflict between Sudan’s government and rebels has killed at least 70,000 people and driven some 2 million from their homes.

Annan backed a call by US President George W. Bush’s administration for a travel and assets freeze on those violating a ceasefire in Darfur.

He said the UN Security Council should consider a full range of options -- targeted sanctions, stronger peacekeeping efforts, new measures to protect civilians and pressure on all sides for a lasting political solution in the western region.

"While the United Nations may not be able to take humanity to heaven, it must act to save humanity from hell," Annan said at a meeting called to review a report submitted earlier this month by a UN-appointed commission on Darfur.

The report accused the Sudanese government and militias of "heinous crimes". It said rebels were responsible for serious crimes but its chief criticism was directed at the government’s inability to stop marauding Arab militiamen. — Reuters