Congress Calls Sudan Atrocities 'Genocide'

[Seraphim]

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Congress late Thursday night passed resolutions declaring that atrocities that have been unfolding in western Sudan are genocide and urged the Bush administration to do the same.



The resolutions came as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) met with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) Thursday, for the second time in three weeks, to discuss what he called a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Darfur.


An estimated 30,000 civilians have been killed — most of them black Africans — and up to 1 million displaced since two groups from the Darfur region's African tribes took up arms over what they regard as unjust treatment by the government in their struggle with Arab countrymen over land and resources.


The Arab militia, called Janjaweed, began attacking black villages, and some human rights groups have accused the militias of ethnic cleansing and genocide.


But until the congressional resolutions late Thursday, U.S. officials had declined to label the killings a genocide. Passed unanimously in the House and Senate, the measures urge President Bush (news - web sites) to call the situation in Sudan "by its rightful name" and urge his administration work with the international community to stop it.


A 1948 UN convention obligates the international community to prevent and punish acts it has declared as genocide.


U.S. officials and humanitarian groups accuse the Sudanese government of backing the militias — a claim Khartoum denies.

[BlackRain]

I noticed no one replied to this thread.

Sad really.

[n4292936]

out of site, out of mind - like many of Africa's troubles really

[cut]

I noticed no one replied to this thread.

Sad really.

I agree... but you can't expect everyone to be around all of the time, I wasn't. :P

[BlackRain]

I noticed no one replied to this thread.

Sad really.

I agree... but you can't expect everyone to be around all of the time, I wasn't. :P

Cut, old friend, I was just referring to the plight of the people there.

[cut]

I know

[usa320]

We need to get people in Sudan ASAP...we should have acted by now...people are dying over there.

[cut]

We need to get people in Sudan ASAP...we should have acted by now...people are dying over there.

We are acting now. Or at least on the verge of it.

[SeanAshi]

Didn't Sudan tell the US and UK to stay out of it? (fell on deaf ears) Hopefuly someone will get in there soon and put an end to the lawlessness.

[Bulkowski]

Shouldn't (or isn't) the UN there? If it is genocide aren't they required to send assistance?

[SeanAshi]

Officialy its not genocide yet although it should be and the UN should already be on the ground, who's gonna step up and put that Arab militia in its place?
"Sudan's government has the ability to deal with the Darfur's crisis if given enough time and there is no need for a regional or international interference. The issue is internal, it is a tribal issue," he said.
More Sudanese stalling tactics.

[usa320]

The government has been supporting the janjaweed with Hind Gunships for a while now...

[MEGR]

Executive Outcomes?

[Midav]

Out of site, out of mind. Very true.

Could'a, should'a, would'a... now's the chance for the world to act and do something about this. Quit talking, but rather, act as a united front.

[RFSU]

Someone should tell "Dubya" that they have oil.

[Midav]

Someone should tell "Dubya" that they have oil.

Someone should tell the UN to do their job.

[2RHPZ]

Sudan gets its MiG-29SE/UBs



U.S. State Department Expresses Alarm in Connection with Deliveries of Russian MiG-29 Fighters to Sudan

The U.S. State Department has expressed alarm in connection with reports about deliveries of Russian MiG-29 fighters to Sudan. As an official representative of the State Department, Richard Boucher, declared, "in case of the confirmation of this information, the U.S. will view it with great alarm." According to him, the United States is against the transfer of any types of weapons to Sudan, since the view it as a state that supports terrorism. "Moreover, the continuing crisis in the province of Darfur is one more reason for harsh objections to the deliveries of arms to Sudan," R. Boucher noted.

It is recalled that earlier this week, the Russian Airplane Building Corporation MiG announced the conclusion of the fulfillment of a contract for the deliver to Sudan of 12 MiG-29 fighters. The contract, which was conclude at the end of 2001, provides for the delivery to Sudan of 10 MiG-29SEh fighters and two MiG-29UB training airplanes, and also various types of special materials.

Source: 23.07.04, RBC.RU


This isn't speculation, there are previous articles indicating the early completion of the delivery as well.

I didn't know the MiG-29S was still marketed. I guess Sudan didn't have a ground attack requirement? (MiG-29SMT).

[Nizark]

Isn't there something in the UN charter or some piece of US law that says when genocide or an act of genocide is declared to be taken place, its law that the US/UN gets involved?

[ShotOver]

UN are pissweak. Send in the marines like Somalia.

[BlackRain]

Since that "bad guys" in Sudan are Arabs (i.e. muslims) committing genocide, many countries are reluctant to get involved for fear of increasing their terrorism risk.

How else can you explain the inaction and one particular country's announcement that genocide is not taking place?


Recent Developments:



KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Sudan's foreign minister has rejected a U.S. Congressional declaration that bloodletting in the country's western region of Darfur amounts to genocide.


LONDON (*******) - Britain's top military commander has said the country could muster 5,000 troops to send to Sudan if necessary to help tackle what the U.N. has described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.


BRUSSELS, July 24 (*******) - The European Union's top diplomat urged Sudan late on Friday to disarm Arab militias and arrest their leaders, responsible for human rights abuses, described by the U.S. Congress as "genocide."

Foreign Policy Javier Solana told Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail at their late-night meeting in Brussels that Khartoum had to act without delay to disarm the Janjaweed militias, which have driven black Africans into barren desert.


SYDNEY: Australia is considering a United Nations' request for troops to join a mission to the troubled Darfur region of Sudan, where civil war threatens to create a humanitarian catastrophe.


Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, wrote to Mr Straw urging him to back a European peacekeeping force for the region. He said: "It is becoming increasingly clear that pressure on the Sudanese government alone will not be sufficient to stem the impending disaster in Darfur. An EU military force operating under a UN mandate looks like the only answer if we are to prevent a disaster on the scale of Rwanda a decade ago.

"With US and British forces stretched to breaking point, countries such as France and Germany have the opportunity to make a contribution."


French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier will visit Chad and Sudan's Darfur region next week to show support for an African Union observer mission, his ministry said on Friday.

[moughoun]

Since that "bad guys" in Sudan are Arabs (i.e. muslims) committing genocide, many countries are reluctant to get involved for fear of increasing their terrorism risk.

How else can you explain the inaction and one particular country's announcement that genocide is not taking place?

Ah, both side's are Muslim's, Arab's vs "Black" African's

[BlackRain]

The Arab Muslim militia are called the Janjaweed are the criminals. The victims are black Africans.

[moughoun]

The Arab Muslim militia are called the Janjaweed are the criminals. The victims are black Africans.

Yes, I know that, but in your previous post, it sounded like you were saying it was Arab Muslim's oppressing non-Muslim's, otherwise I agree we should be bombing the bollock's off them

[abncougar]

the UN is worthless

[2RHPZ]

Rape: A deadly weapon of war

In Sudan conflict, rapists knowingly give victims HIV

`Selective murder' should be a crime, says Stephen Lewis

While the international tribunal at The Hague has declared ****** assault a war crime, in Africa, it is the victims who often find they have been handed a death sentence.

"Rape has become not just a war crime, but selective murder," says Stephen Lewis, the United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

"Where the people who carry out this crime know that they have AIDS, it should be made a separate and identifiable crime in international law."

In Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and other African countries, hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, often systematically and by men who are fully aware that they are spreading the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.

Humanitarian groups estimate that more than two-thirds of the rapists who took part in the Rwanda genocide were infected with the virus

But although rape itself was declared a war crime by the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague in 1996, there is no legal provision for charges relating to deliberate spreading of the deadly AIDS disease.

"In Africa, the victims are usually the poorest and most difficult to reach, because they're living in war zones," says Lewis, former Canadian ambassador to the U.N., who returns to Africa this week to review progress in treating AIDS.

"Once they're infected, they have virtually no chance of getting help. Eventually, they will die."

Amnesty International says that in Darfur, western Sudan, girls as young as 8 are being routinely raped and forced into ****** slavery by the Janjaweed Arab militias in a campaign of ethnic cleansing widely accused to be supported by the Sudanese government.

Sudan has denied supporting the militias in its fight against insurgents in Darfur, where Arab herdsmen and black farmers have clashed for years.

"The Janjaweed broke the limbs of some women and girls to prevent them from escaping," one Darfuri survivor told Amnesty investigators.

Although the vast number of perpetrators are men, Amnesty says, there are also reports of Janjaweed women singers, known as Hakama, accompanying the militias during rape attacks, to encourage them and further humiliate the victims with taunts and racial slurs.

Because of the shame and social ostracism associated with rape, Amnesty adds, many victims refuse to break their silence about ****** attacks.

But hundreds gave chilling testimony of their experiences, which included not only rape but also the torture and murder of family members by Arab militias.

Some women reported that the light-skinned militiamen told them they were targeted because they were black.

"The horrific nature and scale of the violence inflicted on entire groups in Darfur appears to be a form of collective punishment of a population whose members have taken up arms against the central government," Amnesty said in a report released Monday.

The Janjaweed assaulted women of all ages, the report said, including many who were pregnant.

"I was with another woman, Aziza, aged 18, who had her stomach slit on the night we were abducted," said a woman from the village of Garsila in western Sudan.

"She was pregnant and was killed, as they said, `It is the child of the enemy.'"

Other witnesses said women who tried to escape were punished by having their children shot in front of them. Some women were said to have been permanently crippled by beatings aimed at preventing their escape.

Survivors of rape attacks also described ordeals of kidnapping and gang rape, sometimes of children.

`Five to six men would rape us in rounds, one after the other, for hours, during those six days, every night.'

Woman from the village of Silaya

"After six days some of the girls were released," said a woman from the village of Silaya who was held with a group of eight women and girls.

"But the others, as young as 8 years old, were kept there. Five to six men would rape us in rounds, one after the other, for hours, during those six days, every night. "

Amnesty was given the names of more than 50 women and children who were abducted and have since vanished without a trace.

Rapes often follow attacks on villages in Darfur, Amnesty said, because women are easily targeted by the Janjaweed.

"Women in Darfur are primary targets for violence and are more vulnerable in the context of armed conflict because it is women who are responsible for the children and other family dependents.

"Women are the main caregivers, which renders them more vulnerable during attacks and flight. Women are more accessible to aggressors during attacks because they usually stay closer to the village, compared to men, who tend to herd cattle further away."

Because of the continuing violence in the region, women substantially outnumber men as both villagers and refugees, the Amnesty report noted.

And it said women have been attacked and raped while fleeing massacres in villages, and in the camps and settlements where they are seeking shelter.

"Some of the (women) who have spoken out against abuses during visits by foreign U.N. or government officials were killed by the Janjaweed or arrested and held incommunicado by the government national security forces or military intelligence.

"The internally displaced population is being held in what amount to virtual prisons, and is effectively denied the right to freedom of movement. Such violence against civilians not only breaches international human rights standards but also often appears to be an intentional attempt to humiliate and destroy the social fabric of the communities attacked."

The Amnesty report stressed the long-term consequences of rape in Darfur, including ostracism by the victims' communities, forced pregnancy and pressure to abandon babies born as a result of rape.

"The suffering and abuse endured by these women goes far beyond the actual rape," it said.

A widespread belief that pregnancy results only from "wanted ***" results in hostility toward pregnant women who were known to have been raped. But even those who were not pregnant were likely to be disowned by their husbands and families.

Meanwhile, the possibility is very slight of medical care reaching women infected with HIV or suffering from serious injuries during ****** attacks.

Amnesty called on the international community to provide care, as well as food, water and shelter.

Darfur continues to be the world's most massive humanitarian crisis, with thousands of people starving and thousands more, especially babies and young children, dying of infectious diseases.

The prospects for arresting and prosecuting the men who commit the large-scale rapes in Darfur are similarly unlikely, Amnesty's report said.

"Not a single member of the Janjaweed or of the armed forces has been charged with committing rape or abductions."

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, too, there is widespread mistrust of the authorities — some of whom were themselves involved in rape — and little reporting or prosecution of the crime.

An official responsible for the protection of women and children said that only two of 60 cases that were reported in one year have reached the public prosecutor's office, according to the Montreal-based International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development.

And, humanitarian groups say, it is the victims and not the perpetrators who will suffer the ultimate punishment of death.

According to Women's Equity in Access to Care and Treatment, 67 per cent of the 250,000 women who survived rape attacks in Rwanda are now infected with HIV.

The attacks, the group says, have become "an engine of HIV infection."[/i]

[aartamen]

AFAIK the black Sudanese at least in large part Christian. SoF has been writing about them and their plight for at least a year now. The mainstream consciousness is about one year behind SoF on all kinds of issues.

[army cadet_ngcsu]

You know what I think is really a ****ing joke. Apparantly at the UN, if one were to use the word genocide in a mandate or in a speech the UN is supposed to look into the subject matter and if it is true then the members have to act...or something like that, atleast that is how a reliable source described it. Well, apparantly at the UN when they were debating the subject and no one once even uttered the word.

But from my understanding, the war in Sudan is one of Africa's longest lasting conflicts with 100,000's killed. It is mostly an Arab/Muslim vs. Christian thing, especially in regards to the Southern portion of the country. But once again the international community is afraid to touch this one since it has muslims involved.

[aartamen]

That's exactly right. If something is deemed genocide UN must act per its chapter.

[SeanAshi]

Sudan: Crusade Against Islam

Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir has said the international community is using Darfur to target his government and Islam, according to Al-Anbaa newspaper.

On Saturday the Sudanese paper quoted Bashir as telling supporters in the central region of Gazira that the campaign against Sudan was aimed at derailing the growth of Islam in the country.

Bashir, who took office in 1989, accused UN Secretary General Kofi Annan of "intensifying unnecessary and unjustified pressures" on Sudan.

He said the international community was ignoring reports about ceasefire violations by Darfur rebels. The rebels were the ones who walked out on peace talks and should be held responsible for exploiting the situation to make political gains, the president said.

Ghazi Sulaiman, leader of the Democratic Alliance which opposes the Sudanese government, told Aljazeera that the Western media was unfortunately blaming the Sudanese government for a tribal issue which was exploited by the rebels in the south.

"Unfortunately the UN and US are falling victim to the rebels," he said.

[2RHPZ]

Blame the UN cheerleaders

26jul04

I SEE the next decade's "Never again" story is here. Just as we all agreed the 1994 Rwandan genocide should never be allowed to happen again, so - in a year or two - we'll all be agreed that another 2004 Sudanese genocide should never be allowed to happen again.

But right now it is happening, and you can't help wondering where all the great humanitarians are. Alas, Sudan doesn't seem to have much appeal to them, lacking as it does the crucial Bush angle and affording little opportunity for use of words such as "neocons" and "Halliburton".

In the Fairfax press, Robert Manne is still too busy fighting the last war - "Iraq is the greatest disaster in the recent history of US foreign policy. Nothing is more important than to try to understand how this catastrophe occurred." And if that means rehashing the same old column backwards and sideways for another two years - WMD, Andrew Wilkie, neocons, Cheney - he's prepared to do it.

There's an old, cynical formula for the prominence accorded different disasters by American editors. It runs something like: one dead American equals 10 dead Israelis equals 100 dead Russians equals 1000 dead Africans. But, to the average progressive columnist in the Western world, what matters is who killed you. 30,000 dead Sudanese don't equal one Iraqi prisoner being led around Abu Ghraib on a dog collar. But the minute the Yanks go in and accidentally blow up a schoolhouse, injuring an eight-year-old girl, the Mannes of the world will discover a sudden interest in Africa.

Manne's big gripe about Iraq seems to be that it was an "unnecessary, unlawful and unjust war". Each to his own. The Steyn Doctrine, such as it is, is that there's never a bad reason to take out a thug regime. Unfortunately for the beleaguered villagers of Darfur, the Americans so far are playing by Manne's rules. The USAF could target and bomb the Janjaweed as effectively as they did the Taliban.

But then the Not In Our Name crowd would get their knickers in a twist and everyone would complain that it's unlawful unless it's authorised by the UN. The problem is, by the time you've gone through the UN, everyone's dead.

The UN system is broken beyond repair. The Security Council was unable to agree even on a resolution merely expressing some criticism of the Sudanese Government - China, Pakistan and Algeria scuppered that. In May, even as its proxies were getting stuck into their ethnic cleansing in Darfur, Sudan was elected to a three-year term on the UN Human Rights Commission. This isn't an aberration: Zimbabwe is also a member. The very structure of the UN, under which countries vote in regional blocs, encourages such affronts to decency. The Sudanese representative immediately professed himself concerned by human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

As the Canadian columnist George Jonas put it, the UN enables dictators to punch above their weight. All Elfatih Mohammed Ahmed Erwa, the Sudanese Government's man in New York, has to do is string things out long enough to bog down the US call for sanctions in the Gauloise-filled rooms. "Let's not be hasty", Erwa told The Los Angeles Times. And, fortunately, not being hasty is something the UN's happy to do in its own leisurely way until everyone's in the mass grave and the point is moot.

A few days ago, the Australian Red Cross announced that three nurses from NSW were among those trying to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Good for them. But, if we were really serious about alleviating it, we'd stop using that pathetically evasive word "humanitarian". "Humanitarian crisis" is fine for a hurricane or a drought, but not a genocide.

The death and dislocation in Sudan is a political crisis, worsened by political decisions every step up the chain - from the blood-drenched militia to their patrons in Khartoum to their buddies in the African Union to the schemers and cynics at the UN. It's "multilateralism" that magnifies some nickel and dime murder gangs into a global player. As for the West, if it's only "lawful" when it's sanctioned by the UN, then the almost inevitable "failure to get agreement in the Security Council" is the perfect cover for governments who would rather sit things out.

HERE'S another line for "multilateralists" to ponder, from a report by W.F. Deedes from Darfur in Britain's Daily Telegraph: "Aid agencies have found it difficult to get visas."

The UN confers on its most dysfunctional members a surreal, postmodern sovereignty: a state that claims it can't do anything about groups committing genocide across huge tracts of its territory nevertheless expects the world to respect its immigration paperwork as inviolable. Why should the West's ability to help Darfur be dependent on the visa section of the Sudanese embassy? The world would be a better place if the UN, or the democratic members thereof, declared that thug states forfeit the automatic deference to sovereignty. But, since that won't happen, it would be preferable if free nations had a forum of their own in which decisions could be reached before every last peasant has been hacked to death. The "coalition of the willing" has a nice ring to it.

One day historians will wonder why the most militarily advanced nations could do nothing to halt men with machetes and a few rusting rifles. Just over a century ago, after Kitchener's victory over the dervishes at Omdurman, Belloc wrote:

"Whatever happens

We have got

The Maxim gun

And they have not."

We've tossed out the Maxim gun for Daisycutters and Cruise missiles. In Darfur, meanwhile, the Janjaweed on their horses are no better armed than the dervishes were. But we're powerless against them because we have fetishised the poseur-multilateralism of the UN as the only legitimate form of intervention. And, because of it, in Sudan as in Rwanda, hundreds of thousands will die.

Mark Steyn is a columnist for Britain's Telegraph Group and the Chicago Sun-Times.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,10243833,00.html

[Kilgor]

yeap... get some marines in there.. get some dog collars on those people and take some pictures. You will have the whole world screaming for blood in no time ! :D

[Kilgor]

Double post

[Gatling]

I think the term "arab militia" should be put in context here.Sudan is a country inhabited by black people, from fair to dark complexion. The people from the northen part are muslim and from different ethnic background to those from the south who are mainly christians or animist.By " arab militia" one should primarly take the "arab" as their language and tribal heritage, because most of the time at least in Darfur you cannot tell who is "arab" and who is not just by physical appearance. Also in that region you have a different problem, where everybody is muslim, but some are farmers and the others are nomads, and thus from different tribes.The "janjaweed" who are a collection of black people from tribes claiming to have arab ancestry are nomadic people and backed by the sudanese governement..The other tribes like the Zaghawa who appear to be the victims today, were on the winning side yesterday, when armed by the president of CHAD{who is a zaghawa himself} and conducting raids on the 'arabs', and the sudanese governemental forces..So the problem is much more complicated than it seems , just like anything in Africa, but is absolutely NO EXCUSE for what is going on the ground currently{which by the way was cooking along for almost 2 years }