By Richard Waddington GENEVA, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The United Nations new human rights watchdog was struggling on Wednesday to agree on a mission of inquiry for Sudan's Darfur to probe charges of worsening abuses against civilians. In what as seen as a key test for the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, the 47 member states were split over whether to back European Union demands for a team of experts to be sent and African insistence the investigation be entrusted to the Council's own members. The Europeans say that the latter lack the needed expertise and could simply reflect the political views of their governments, some of which are sympathetic to the Horn of Africa state's view that it is suffering a campaign of mis-information. The Council, launched in June as part of U.N. reform, is under pressure to show it can act effectively on Darfur where aid officials say more than 200,000 have died in violence over the past three years. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the opening session on Tuesday the Council must help end the "nightmare" of violence by sending a "clear and united message ... that the current situation is simply unacceptable." Diplomats said negotiations were underway on a compromise proposal put forward by Council president, Mexican ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba, which called for the sending of five "highly qualified" people whom he would choose after consultations with the full membership. "It is a turning point for the Council," de Alba was quoted as telling fellow diplomats in a closed-door session. "It is up to the Council to send the right message to the people of Darfur," one diplomat quoted him as saying. ILL-REPRESENTED AND DISTORTED Khartoum and its backers on the Council, brushing aside reports from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other top officials, say the situation in Darfur, where long-simmering ethnic violence erupted into war in 2003, has improved since a peace treaty earlier this year with one leading rebel group. It also disputes the death toll in the region, where over 2 million have been driven from their homes, and pins the blame for rights' violations on rebel groups that are still fighting. "It is quite disheartening to see such a situation being ill-represented and distorted," Sudan's representative to the session Farah Mustafa told the Council on Tuesday. Western diplomats say there is already abundant information available about what is happening in Darfur and the main point of a mission is to increase international pressure on Khartoum to accept U.N. peacekeepers for the region. James Morris, executive director of the U.N.'s World Food programme, echoed calls for a settlement on Wednesday. "Villages have just been obliterated. This is just the most mean spirited kind of antagonism and violence that you could imagine," Morris said in Johannesburg, saying security issues meant the WFP could not reach many of those in desperate need. The Sudanese government, which is accused of backing Janjaweed militia groups which U.N. human rights officials blame for some of the worst offences, including rape and wide-scale murder, says Western countries are trying to re-colonise it in pursuit of its oil wealth. The Darfur debate is seen as important for the credibility of the Council, which has been accused of focusing on alleged Israeli violations in Palestinian territory and Lebanon and ignoring what the U.N. sees as a huge humanitarian crisis. "This Council should take a stance today for the victims of Darfur and commit itself to continuing to act on Darfur while the crisis continues," Mariette Grange, of advocacy group Human Rights Watch, told the U.N. watchdog on Wednesday. (additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Johannesburg)
