Rebel leader in south Darfur welcomes genocide label
WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (AFP) — John Garang, rebel SPLM leader in southern Sudan, said Thursday that US Secretary of State Colin Powell was correct to label killings in Darfur genocide.
“When you have a government that uses tribes against other tribes as a counter-insurgency strategy, that concept of using people against people, that’s the definition of genocide, or ethnic cleansing,” said Garang, head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
“So indeed it is genocide,” he said after meeting with Powell in Washington.
Powell testified before Congress Thursday that atrocities in Darfur were genocide and called on the United Nations to launch a thorough probe into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Earlier Thursday, Powell told a Senate hearing that evidence compiled by the United States “concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring.”
The government in Khartoum has been accused of arming and backing Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, that have rampaged through Sudan’s western Darfur region.
An estimated 50,000 people have been killed and 1.4 million more uprooted in a campaign against black Africans that started out as an attempt to put down a rebel uprising launched in February 2003.
Powell also said that Khartoum bore most of the blame for stalling peace talks with the SPLM held in Kenya.
“Khartoum appears unwilling to resume talks at the most senior level, claiming it must focus on Darfur,” Powell said.
“That would be fine if its focus were the right focus, but it is not.
“We believe that a comprehensive agreement would bolster efforts to resolve the crisis in Darfur by providing a legal basis for a political solution and by opening up the political process in Khartoum,” he said.
The war in southern Sudan erupted in 1983 when the mostly Christian and animist south took up arms to end domination and marginalization by the wealthier, mainly Muslim north.
Together with recurrent famine and disease, the war has killed at least 1.5 million people and displaced four million others.
“The movement is ready to go immediately to Naivasha (Kenya) and to complete the remaining issues, which are technical in nature,” Garang said.
“The announcement of the secretary of state on genocide will indeed have an impact on the negotiation, I believe positive,” Garang said.
“So that you would have a comprehensive peace agreement in place and we implement that agreement, and that would help in resolving the situation in Darfur,” he said.
Powell said the United States will seek a UN investigation into violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law that have occurred in Darfur.
Sudan is a contracting party to an international convention against genocide and is obliged under the convention to prevent and punish acts of genocide.