Sudanese criticise genocide resolution
By Nima Elbagir
KHARTOUM, July 23 (Reuters) – Sudanese Arabs on Friday slammed a U.S. congressional resolution declaring genocide in the western region of Darfur, while Darfuris asked what Washington would do now to make it safe for them to go back home.
“Is Iraq not enough? Do they want to destroy us too? … America wants everyone who is Arab (in Sudan) to pay. They do not understand anything,” said Ismail Gasmalseed, a 34-year-old driver in Khartoum.
The U.S. Congress approved the resolution on Thursday and its supporters hope it will help mobilise the international community to protect Africans in Darfur from Arab militias.
But the accusation of genocide is highly controversial and has not been formally adopted by the U.S. administration, the United Nations, Darfuri rebels or most of the humanitarian organisations working on the ground in the remote region.
The Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, have been driving non-Arab villagers off their land in Darfur in an extension of a long conflict over farmland and grazing. The conflict has displaced more than one million people in the region.
Ibrahim Ahmed, a Sudanese political analyst, said it was clear that there was no legal basis for saying genocide was under way in Darfur, otherwise the U.S. administration’s lawyers would have adopted the term.
“But what is equally obvious is that the American public thinks that it is genocide and therefore getting Congress to rule on this was a politically expedient way of mollifying public opinion while circumnavigating the legalities,” he added.
Yasir Abdullah, a journalist from northern Sudan, said the U.S. Congress and administration did not understand the roots of the Darfur conflict and were dealing with it very superficially.
“They are biased and have their own agenda. Sanctions will not harm the government, they will harm the people. Have they not learnt this yet?” he told Reuters.
A PLAN IN STAGES
The Bush administration has drafted a U.N. resolution threatening sanctions if the Sudanese government does not disarm the Janjaweed and remove all restrictions on access to Darfur.
The Sudanese government says it is trying to comply but it will take time to implement its plans.
“We don’t pretend that the situation has come back to normal,” Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told the French daily Le Monde in an interview published on Friday.
“There exists a real problem which has to be resolved on a humanitarian, political and security level and we intend to do that… But one has to understand that we are applying a plan that is working in stages,” he added.
Displaced Darfuris in Khartoum took some comfort from the congressional resolution but said they had some doubts about the the international community’s commitment to intervene.
“We were told that the United Nations would make us safe, but we waited so long in Darfur and no one came to make us safe. I’m not sure if we will be safe. Can America sleep with us in our houses?” asked Khadija, an 18-year-old woman who said she was abducted by militiamen in Darfur but escaped.
“I think if they say they will make us safe then they will, but why did they wait so long?” added Hawaa, another abductee.
Ismail said the Sudanese authorities expected to send 6,000 policemen into Darfur and 3,000 of those were now ready to work.
But a rebel spokesman in Darfur said the new policemen were Janjaweed in disguise, issued with uniforms and new weapons.
The Arab militias attacked twice in Darfur this week despite government promises that it is cracking down on them, Abu Bakr Hamid al-Nur, general coordinator of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), said.
Nur told Reuters by telephone that police forces including some of the Arab militias attacked rebels on Wednesday in the Orshi area north of el-Fasher, capital of North Darfur state.
Two days earlier Janjaweed killed more than 30 people and kidnapped many women and children at Kfour, between el-Fasher and Kutum, about 120 km (75 miles) to the northwest, he added.