US Secretary of State Colin Powell dramatically increased pressure on the Sudanese government on Thursday by declaring the killings and destruction in its Darfur region to be genocide.
Powell, directly blaming the Sudanese government, said: "This was a coordinated effort, not just random violence."
The US now has an obligation under international law to act. Labelling violence as genocide is relatively rare.
Powell's declaration follows a report from US state department investigators who spent five weeks taking evidence from 1,136 refugees attacked by the government-backed Janjaweed militia.
The British government, after sifting through the state department's evidence, reached a different conclusion.
A UK Foreign Office source said the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, while regarding the situation as dreadful, had not found incontrovertible evidence to justify calling it genocide.
Powell is to press the UN to set up an international commission "with a view to ensuring accountability." Straw, who discussed this with Powell, is backing the proposal.
Powell said: "I concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility and that genocide may still be occurring."
The Sudanese government rejected the charge. Najeeb al-Khair Abdel-Wahab, the deputy foreign minister, said he expected the international community to assist, "not put oil on the fire."
The US and British governments have been reluctant to declare the destruction of lives and villages in Darfur to be genocide because of the international legal obligations and to avoid unnecessarily antagonizing the Sudanese government.
An estimated 40,000 people have been killed and 1.2 million have fled their homes as a result of the violence.
Genocide is defined under a law drawn up after World War II as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
Powell said the evidence corroborated the specific intent of perpetrators to destroy a "group in whole or part."
He said: "There is nobody prepared to send troops in there from the United States or the European Union or elsewhere to put it down in the sense of an imposition force."
The preferred option in Washington and London is to expand an African Union monitoring force already in Darfur.
The State Department report, released yesterday, said there was a "consistent and widespread pattern of atrocities committed against non-Arab villagers."
The report said: "Most respondents said government forces, militia fighters, or a combination of both, had completely destroyed their villages." It said 61 percent witnessed the killing of a family member, and 16 percent said they had been raped or had heard about a rape victim.
"About one-third of the ref-ugees heard racial epithets while under attack," it said.
The Sudanese government claims it is simplistic to portray the violence as between Arab Janjaweed and black African villagers, and blames much of the trouble on anti-government rebels in Darfur.
The UN security council is discussing a draft resolution on Darfur calling for an expanded African Union mandate.
The US and British governments will include in the draft the setting up of the international commission.
EU officials yesterday shared the British reluctance to use the word genocide.
A feud has broken out between the top leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on whether to maintain close ties with Russia. The AfD leader Alice Weidel this week slammed planned visits to Russia by some party lawmakers, while coleader Tino Chrupalla voiced a defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The unusual split comes at a time when mainstream politicians have accused the anti-immigration AfD of acting as stooges for the Kremlin and even spying for Russia. The row has also erupted in a year in which the AfD is flying high, often polling above the record 20 percent it
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS