America: Annan Needs To Act on Sudan
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

UNITED NATIONS – As Secretary-General Annan urged the Security Council to act on Sudan, America yesterday indicated that Mr. Annan himself might need to do more.
In yesterday’s year-end press conference, Mr. Annan indicated that the council, which is divided on sanctions against Sudan, should come to a decision. “The situation on the ground is deteriorating,” he said, “So there comes a time when you have to make a reassessment as to whether the approach you have taken is working or not. And if it is not working, what other measures do you take?”
At the same time, American ambassador, Stuart Holliday, said that Mr. Annan might need to return to Sudan to highlight the horrors of Darfur. “If there is the prospect that the [peace] process can be moved forward, then it would be useful for him to consider going back” to Sudan, Mr. Holliday told The New York Sun.
Asked whether Mr. Annan should, like America, name the Darfur killing “genocide,” Mr. Holliday said that this should be determined in a report that Mr. Annan’s team is preparing, which is expected by next month. In the press conference, Mr. Annan stayed away from the term “genocide.”
Borrowing from Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, Mr. Annan dubbed 2004 an “annus horribilis.” The oil-for-food scandal “cast a shadow” over the U.N., he admitted, adding that relations with America need to be repaired. Mr. Annan however refused to join journalists who tried to isolate American “neocons” as the only U.N. critics, or his son Kojo, who recently called criticism of the U.N. a “witch hunt.”
“The current criticisms and attacks have not been helpful for the relationship [with America], regardless of which quarter it comes from,” he said. “There have also been some constructive criticisms.”
He refuted allegations from his own staff and outsiders that the U.N. is not committed to transparency and to protecting whistle-blowers. “I am surprised that you said the staff felt they were intimidated to give evidence,” he said when asked by the Sun about two recent investigations in which staffers complained about fear of stepping forward.
Yesterday, however, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Commission, Richard Lugar of Indiana, asked Mr. Annan to provide a progress report on previous promises to enact new rules to protect U.N. whistle blowers.
Mr. Lugar also demanded that Mr. Annan personally investigate the case of Andrew Thomson, a medical staffer with the U.N. whose contract has not been renewed after he co-wrote a book that documented wrongdoing in peacekeeping missions in Haiti and Rwanda. Also yesterday, two attorneys for Mr. Thomson and his two co-authors asked the internal investigating arm of the U.N. to look into the termination of his contract.