Geneva: Sudan's government is blocking aid workers from entering the country before next month's referendum on independence for the south, a vote that could result in violent unrest if it isn't respected by all sides, the UN's human rights chief said on Thursday.
Human rights observers and aid workers need to be in place before January 9 to prepare for possible unrest if the vote ends up splitting Africa's largest country in two, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told AP.
"There's a huge holdup of visas, almost 1,000," Pillay said in a wide-ranging interview at her Geneva office. "It just seems deliberate, this holdup on visas. I hope the Secretary-General (Ban Ki-moon) will address this directly with the government."
"It will really hamper human rights and humanitarian work if we're not there on the ground in time," she said. "All the UN agencies on the ground have to plan for some calamitous situation to erupt if the outcome of the referendum is not respected."
An official who answered the phone at Sudan's mission in Geneva described claims of a delay in issuing visas as "baseless." The woman, who gave her name as Naima Lazaar, said senior embassy officials were unavailable to discuss Pillay's claim.
The former South African judge said her own request for a visit to Sudan earlier this month was ignored by the government, which has blocked UN investigators from travelling to the country on several previous occasions.
Pillay called on Khartoum's allies, including members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and China, to lean on Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir to respect human rights. Pressure from countries with heavy economic interests in South Africa had been key to ending the apartheid system there, she said. Pillay cited her inability to visit Sudan as an example of the limitations of her role as the UN's top human rights official. Since being appointed to the post in 2008, she has frequently found herself at the centre of a three-way battle between governments, the UN and human rights groups.
In one infamous incident, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted a walkout by European diplomats with an inflammatory speech during a UN anti-racism conference in 2009. "I was a bit naive," Pillay said. "I wondered why people were so afraid that he would use it as a political platform, but I see that they were right," she said.