Leader

Sudan: U.N. Clears Gov't of Genocide

Jan 31, 12:43 PM (ET)

By DANIEL BALINT-KURTI

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) - Sudan's foreign minister said Monday a U.N. report concluded that no genocide was committed in his country's Darfur region, where tens of thousands of civilians have died in a nearly two-year crisis.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, diplomats confirmed that the report did not find that Sudan had committed genocide, but they said it was very critical of Sudanese government actions. The report was expected to be circulated in New York on Tuesday.

The United States has accused Sudan's government of directing militia who attack civilians in what Washington has called a genocidal campaign in the western region.

"We have a copy of that report and they didn't say that there is a genocide," Sudan Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said on the sidelines of an African Union summit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

Last year, the United Nations said the Darfur conflict created the world's worst humanitarian crisis. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Sunday a report on the situation would be forwarded to Security Council members "very shortly."

Annan declined to say whether the team made a determination that genocide was committed.

"Regardless of how the commission describes what is going on in Darfur, there is no doubt that serious crimes have been committed," he said.

U.S. diplomats at the United Nations said recently they would make proposals to the Security Council to bring the perpetrators of atrocities in Darfur to justice.

Also Monday, Sudan's government and Darfur rebels said they will reopen long-stalled peace talks in Nigeria in February. Three previous peace conferences and a cease-fire agreement have failed to calm the violence.

Both Osman and representatives of allied Sudanese rebel groups the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement said they would attend the latest meetings, which a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity were scheduled to begin the third week of February in Abuja.

The most recent peace conference began Dec. 11 in Abuja, but rebels boycotted meetings with government delegates two days later, alleging a new government offensive. The talks broke down entirely within weeks.

The Justice and Equality Movement, the smaller insurgent group, would attend the talks if AU negotiators treated them fairly and were "serious and objective," Khalil Ibrahim Mohammed, a top rebel official, said Monday.

He added that insurgent leaders wanted a new mediator for the talks.

"America and the European Union must come forward," he said by phone from Eritrea.

The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when the two rebel groups took up arms against what they considered years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin.

The government responded with a counterinsurgency campaign in which an Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, committed wide-scale abuses against the African population. An estimated 1.8 million people have been displaced in the conflict, and more than 70,000 people are believed to have died from hunger and disease since March.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050131/D87V6SE00.html

__________________

dalem

Whew!

I was worried the UN would have to "do something" for a minute there.

-dale

MIKEMUN

Not surprised....And Rwanda was not a genocide too.....After ten years suddenly they will discover that it was a genocide after all...Bravo UN...Keep up with your useless debates..Makes you sleep better at night..

MIKEMUN

Makes you wonder,doesn't it??Where are all the people who protested against the Iraqi war?? Where is the concern for civilian life that they were so concerned about??Wher is Chirac and Schroeder?? What a useless world.....Let them stand up,and be counted??What are acts with genocidal intents anyway??70 000 people..And they are sitting around and doing nothing?? Nothing will ever change in this world...China signed a major oil contract with Sudan...Maybe the root lies there??

Officer of Engineers

Think you better study the situation a little more. There are no good guys in that region. The guys doing dying today were the people doing the butchering yesterday. The rebels who claimed to be the victims of the genocide broke the truce and attack several government outposts and did more than a little bloodshedding of their own on women and children.

Either we go in shooting everybody, including women and children because that they were the ones doing the butchering in Rwanda or we stay out.

__________________
Chimo

Leader

I have no doubt that it is a two sided conflict, but that means that they are both murdering civilians, which is all the more reason for people to be calling attention to it and not down playing it like the UN is doing. There is a whole a lot of people stuck in the middle of these groups.

Confed999

Yes Sir. It would still be nice to have more political pressure against all sides in these conflicts. Short of beating them all down, I don't know what else to do...

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Julie

The UN is too busy counting all that money coming in for the Tsunami aid.

dalem

Don't get me started...

-dale

Julie

Okay, okay..nice try though, huh?

How about...hmmm....Clinton is new UN Envoy for the Tsunami Aid Relief?

troung

Of course it is two sided... the SPLA defeats the Sudanese army so the militias and SuAF attack civilians.

This is ********...

Ray

The UN organisation independently can do nothing.

It has to be approved by the UN Security Council.

Therefore, the deadwood is not the UN per se, but those who comprise of the UN Security Council.

They ahve possibly good reasons to pussyfoot and not let the UN organisation get cracking.

Leader

The report wasn't "approved" by the Security Council.

Officer of Engineers

Anyone remember Somalia?

Ray

Leader,

Reports don't get approved.

It is commonsense that Reports are the base documents on which decision are made. It is only when the UNSC considers the Report, then they direct the action, which the UN takes.

Surely, the President of the US does not approve each scrap of paper that is ordered to be done by someone or the other in the Admin for it to be legit.

And likewise, no scrap of paper can send US troops to Iraq or elsewhere without the approval of the President.

Recap of my post: