GENEVA - Jody Williams, the U.S. anti-landmine campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner, will lead a team of United Nations investigators to investigate killings, rapes, destruction of villages and mass flight in Darfur, officials said Friday.
The team of six was appointed after more than a month of protracted private negotiations among members of the UN Human Rights Council, which has shied away from criticizing the Sudanese government for its role in the rights abuses.
Differences between some African and Arab states on the one hand, and Western diplomats on the other, forced the revision of the list several times.
Western governments and human rights campaigners have said diplomats involved in the debate within the council should not be sent to Darfur to preserve the mission's objectivity.
"A fact-finding mission sent by the council should rely heavily precisely on expertise and on independence," Mariette Grange of Human Rights Watch told The Associated Press.
In the compromise now reached, Patrice Tonda, the ambassador of Gabon to the UN in Geneva, and Makarim Wibisono, the ambassador of Indonesia, will be part of the mission.
Top UN officials and aid agencies have accused the Sudanese government of supporting the militia groups responsible for the attacks in Darfur -- a charge Khartoum strongly denies.
Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, has also spoken of "credible evidence" that the Sudanese military was responsible for ground attacks and aerial bombardments of civilians.
According to UN estimates, more than 200,000 people have been killed and some 2.5 million people have fled their homes since violence broke out between janjaweed militia and ethnic African groups in 2003.
The international community has been pressuring Sudan -- so far unsuccessfully -- to allow large numbers of UN peacekeepers into the country to replace or at least assist the 7,000-strong African Union operation there.
