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Bush Declares Genocide in Sudan's Darfur


Thu Sep 9, 8:57 PM ET
By Arshad Mohammed and Saul Hudson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States declared on Thursday that the violence in Sudan's Darfur region amounted to genocide and urged the world to back an expanded African peacekeeping force to halt the bloodshed.

But a senior Sudanese official rejected the genocide declaration as American "posturing" and several U.N. Security Council members raised objections to a draft resolution on Darfur circulated by Washington.

"It is clear that only outside action can stop the killing," President Bush (news - web sites) said in a statement demanding that all sides to the conflict, including Darfur rebels, lay down their arms.

"We have concluded that genocide has taken place in Darfur. We urge the international community to work with us to prevent and suppress acts of genocide," Bush said.

His statement, issued after Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) made similar remarks to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noted that Washington was seeking a U.N. Security Council resolution to authorize an expanded African Union peacekeeping operation in Sudan.

"We will also seek to ban flights by Sudanese military aircraft in Darfur," Bush said. "The world cannot ignore the suffering of more than 1 million people."

Rebels began an uprising in Darfur in February 2003 after years of skirmishes between mainly African farmers and Arab nomads over land and water. The government turned to the Janjaweed militias to help suppress the rebels.

The United Nations (news - web sites) has estimated some 1.2 million people have fled their homes and up to 50,000 people have died from direct violence, starvation or illness in what it describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

While the genocide finding has little legal import, analysts said it may influence Security Council debate on the U.S. resolution. The resolution threatens sanctions on Sudan's oil sector, which pumps about 320,000 barrels per day.

Its customers include Security Council members China and Pakistan, who expressed opposition on Thursday to the draft resolution, as did council member Algeria.

China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, raised the possibility of a veto. "Personally I would say if the draft stands as it is now, it would certainly be more than (an) abstention," he told reporters.

Both the Pakistani and Algerian ambassadors said they would probably abstain unless the resolution was changed, objecting to sanctions threats in particular. They said several other council members agreed.

A minimum of nine votes and no veto is needed for adoption in the 15-member council.

U.S. Ambassador John Danforth, however, told reporters after a closed-door council meeting that he expected the draft to be adopted, perhaps next week and with some revisions.

He said a larger African Union monitoring mission in Darfur was crucial. "The importance of getting an outside presence into Darfur to monitor the situation is something that is impossible to overstate," Danforth said.

Angelo Beda, deputy speaker of Sudan's parliament, called the genocide declaration "posturing by America, possibly for the elections."

Speaking to Reuters in Nairobi, he suggested the Bush administration made the charge to court black voters. "Where is this genocide, where is this rape they are talking about?" he said.

The U.S. draft resolution demands Khartoum stop what U.S. officials say is a campaign of rape, murder and looting against African villagers carried out by the Janjaweed Arab militia.

"The government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and ... genocide may still be occurring," Powell said.

Powell called on the U.N. to investigate the violence, which a U.N. spokesman said was the first time a nation had invoked Article VIII of the U.N. convention on genocide allowing nations to ask the world body to take "appropriate" action.

Beda and two colleagues, touring African capitals to put Khartoum's position, said U.S. pressure would stir fresh separatist turmoil elsewhere in the country, complicate Darfur peace efforts and possibly torpedo peace moves in a separate 21-year conflict in the south.

At peace talks in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, Darfur rebels said negotiations with the Sudan government were on the verge of collapse. The two sides have been far apart on key security issues, including disarmament.

In Khartoum, Sudanese Justice Minister Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin told Reuters it would be unfair for the U.N. to impose sanctions and that Sudan would agree to expanding the mandate of AU monitors to allow them to document human rights abuses.

The 53-nation AU has more than 80 observers in Darfur, but only to monitor a cease-fire between the government and rebels. Some 300 AU troops have been deployed to protect the monitors. (Additional reporting by Opheera McDoom in Khartoum, Tume Ahemba in Abuja, William Maclean in Nairobi, Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations)