UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged the Security Council to act quickly to stop atrocities in Sudan and to use the International Criminal Court to try perpetrators of violence in the Darfur region.
Despite pictures and reports of displaced and brutalized villagers that have prompted outrage around the world, the major powers on the council differ over sanctions and how to prosecute those responsible for pillage, slaughter and rape in Sudan's western Darfur region.
The Bush administration strongly opposes the new Hague-based International Criminal Court, set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and massive human-rights abuses, which Europeans and other Western allies support.
"What is vital is that these people are indeed held accountable," Mr Annan said in a statement. "Such grave crimes cannot be committed with impunity. That would be a terrible betrayal of the victims, and of potential future victims in Darfur and elsewhere."
"My own support for the ICC is well known," Mr Annan said, adding the decision was up to the council, not to him.
US envoys for the past week have been talking to council members about a new resolution that would impose a travel ban and an assets freeze on those responsible for the violence. Those measures were threatened in previous resolutions but rejected by Russia, China, Algeria and others.
US State Department spokesman Mr Richard Boucher said the United States also was renewing its push for sanctions on Sudan's oil industry, another provision threatened in a resolution last year but not implemented.
The calls for action followed a report on Monday from a panel of five legal experts the Security Council sent to Sudan. They determined the Khartoum government and its brutal militia allies committed crimes against humanity said they should be prosecuted by the ICC.
But the report concluded Khartoum had not pursued a policy of genocide against non-Arabs in Darfur, where at least 70,000 people have died from killings or disease and 1.8 million people are homeless after pro-government militia pillaged, killed and raped.