Nothing to see here people, move along!
Posted on 01/31/2005 5:48:41 PM PST by Libertas aut Mortis
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.
I'm sure that will make all the thousands of dead people and their relatives feel much better.
I say the UN is proving it is no longer useful and should be kicked out of our country.
Didn't the government strafe its own people again this week, or last? Tell me why we listen to the UN again.
This says more about the United Nations than it does about Sudan. And nothing that it says is good. It's absurd that the American taxpayers fund 25% of the budget of an organization like this.
Some one should post this in DU and monitor their reaction.
Nothing to see here people, move along!
Yes. The old League of Nations was criticized - and finally disbanded - because it was completely ineffectual. But it didn't harm anyone or lie about atrocities while scarfing up untold fortunes in Swiss bank accounts by it's management and their dictator sugar daddies.
I heard there also is a U.N. report coming out that determines there was no genocide in Central and Eastern Europe from 1942 through 1945, although the U.N. panel recommended that Germany be reprimanded in the harshest terms possible for killing innocent civilians who all happened to be Jewish, or Christian, or gay, or gypsies, or basically, anybody who "wasn't pure enough."
That same report stated the United States committed genocide in Guantanamo Bay and an Iraq prison during 2004.
Seriously, 70k dead in Sudan, but that's no genocide? What the heck does it take for the U.N. to actually condemn a fascist regime?
-George
They have oil, right?
Explains everything.
Take your time, you sorry POS. How many Christians have to be murdered before he says it's genocide?? You don't suppose he's protecting his Muslim brothers do you? Maybe it's because he is one!
I guess they'll have to find to some other politically correct term for the death of of tens of thousands civilians.
But millions are dying of AIDS in Africa, and somehow it's Bush's fault, not that of the UN.
I'm really getting sick of this: every week there's another major reason for the UN to vacate that building in New York. Give it to the homeless -- they'd make better use of it!
And we are sooooooooo surprised that the UN, fresh from its oil-for-fraud whoremongering, couldn't see the genocide right in front of its face. (/sarcasm)
My heart cries for the people of Sudan. May they be freed from the tyranny of this injustice.
Just think how helpful that money would be if we de-funded the UN and spent the money on border patrol agents AND enforcement instead! Wow!
Depends on who you bribe. Bribing Kofi might be simpler but more expensive than bribing a few dozen ambassadors.
OK, liberals, defend the UN. You have 3 minutes to prepare and 5 minutes to speak.
Where is the outcry from the black community?
God still sits as judge of the UN. He will have the last word.
WE need to remove that evil from our midst lest we go down with them.
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