Posted on 01/31/2005 9:27:16 AM PST by NormsRevenge
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 genocide determination.
"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 within weeks in Nigeria.
The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Army and allied Justice and Equality Movement 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.
What We have is a UN Hitler could have 'worked' with.
Well, if the UN says it, it's good enough for me.
It's not like they'd lie for money and power, right? (SARCASM)
Well, the League of Nations DID work with him, and look what it got us!
The whole concept of the UNis flawed.
We need to sideline it ias merely a forum for discussion among nations and develop a new league of democracies that will exclude totalitarian regimes, one-party democracies, etc, and only allow for democratic nations to consider the issues that affect all democracies.
I disagree. Any league, conference, union, whatever, is going to be flawed simply because HUMANS are flawed and national interests will always get in the way. Ditch the UN and call it an experiment gone bad. Dad always said,
"DON'T THROW GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD..."
The UN never found a dictator it couldn't coddle, a genocide it couldn't justify, a nuclear weapon program it couldn't overlook or a dollar of aid it couldn't find how to misappropriate.
Get the UN out of US.
Then by your logic we should have no state at all, and yet we all know better than that, except for radical libertarians and, well who can account for them?
I am thinking maybe NATO could morph into what we need here and elt the UN atrophy while booting them out to Brussels or something.
WOW
"Then by your logic we should have no state at all"
I don't think rejecting an international organization is the same thing as rejecting a federal government. The problem with the former is that it almost inevitably leads to loss of sovereignty. We don't want a worldwide democracy or republic.
Tens of thousands murdered, but it isnt Genocide, just a run of bad luck.
But a couple of thousand Albanians in Kosovo in a civil war, and it's "Bombs over Belgrade." Guess the residents of Darfur didn't have the right color of skin for the UN.
Liars! What good *is* the UN again?
If I hear one more kind word about the UN out of any admin official after this...
My e-mail Condi...
Madam Secretary,
First, let me offer congratulations on your appointment to the office of Secretary of State. We are blessed to have a person of your talent and skill in such an important job. I do believe, as you said recently, "the time for diplomacy is now."
In an AP story today, (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050131/D87V6SE00.html) Sudan's foreign minister indicated that a UN report on his country did not conclude that genocide had occurred. This is contradictory to Secretary Powell’s assertion, and in all likelihood, contrary to your own understanding.
Why, if the UN is so deeply wrong about this issue of great moral consequence, does the United States continue to participate? This current climate in the UN would give sanction to a Hitler, much the way the League of Nations did.
This statement by the foreign minister of Sudan should be loudly and publicly contradicted. It should be made clear that the Arab Janjaweed Militia is guilty of mass murder of non-Arabs and the government of Sudan complicit in the ethnic cleansing. No UN report can so blatantly ignore the overwhelming facts. The world body is as guilty as the government of Sudan if it is unwilling to uphold its responsibility to acknowledge these crimes.
The UN does not serve the interests of the moral world, nor does it serve the American people who care deeply for justice and freedom everywhere.
Please use the full power of your office to extract the UN from the US and the US from the UN.
Sincerest regards,
*****
H.R. 1146 will WITHDRAW the USA from the United Nations' madhouse/cesspool
Go to: http://www.getusout.org/un/index.html . Then go lobby at http://www.conservativeusa.org/megalink.htm .
The United Nations is a corrupt disgrace and it is time for the USA to WITHDRAW from and defund the United Nations. Please tell your senators, congressmen and everyone you know to support Representative Ron Paul’s bill H.R. 1146 which would WITHDRAW the USA from the United Nations, prohibit US funds going to the UN and prohibit US troops serving under UN command. H.R 1146 is the American Sovereignty Restoration Act.
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