U.N. report finds no genocide in Sudan
But officials say report very critical of government actions
ABUJA, Nigeria, Jan 31, 2005 (MSNBC News Services) – 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.
‘Serious crimes,’ but genocide?
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.
The report was commissioned by the Security Council in October specifically to determine whether genocide had occurred and identify perpetrators if so.
High threshold
The United Nations has shied away from using the term genocide, which compels specific reactions under international law. Genocide is legally defined by international conventions as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
Legal analysts say the convention on genocide, drafted after the Holocaust of World War II, sets a high threshold.
“For example, if a mass killing was motivated by the intent to suppress an armed insurgency, even if it was an armed insurgency conducted by an ethnic group, … even if those lands were possessed by a distinct ethnic group, then those acts would be crimes, but not the crime of genocide,” said Richard Dicker, a counsel for Human Rights Watch.
Annan said on Sunday “gross violations of human rights” had occurred in Darfur and recommended the Security Council consider sanctions on the oil-exporting country.
West vs. Russia, China
On Monday, Canada, Australia and New Zealand said in a letter the council should look at “targeted measures” that could include travel bans and an assets freeze.
The United States is preparing a resolution to this effect, but Russia, which supplies arms, and China, which has oil interests in Sudan, have opposed penalties on Khartoum.
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.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.