Aid group criticizes US policy on Sudan

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) – The United States is playing down the crisis in Sudan and should take the lead in global efforts to resolve the conflict, said a leading international advocacy group on Tuesday.

US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.

The International Crisis Group, a nongovernmental body that seeks to promote solutions to conflicts worldwide, also called for African Union troop monitors in Sudan to be increased fivefold and for the appointment of a high-profile international mediator on the Sudan conflict.

The group’s special adviser on Sudan, John Prendergast, took aim at U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick for his comments during a visit to Sudan this month in which he said between 60,000 and 160,000 people had died in Sudan’s Darfur region.

“For Zoellick to float 60,000 as a low end number is negligent criminally,” said Prendergast, whose group estimates as many as 10,000 people or more die each month in Darfur.

“It’s a deliberate effort by the Bush administration to downplay the severity of the crisis in order to reduce the urgency of an additional response. I find that to be disingenuous and perhaps murderous,” he added in a conference call to discuss a report on Sudan by the group.

Prendergast, who has worked on crisis issues in Africa for the past two decades, said he was also disturbed the United States seemed to be backing away from assertions last year by then Secretary of State Colin Powell that what was happening in Darfur amounted to genocide.

State Department spokesman on Sudan issues, David Sims, dismissed criticism over the death toll figures given by Zoellick and said he disagreed with the view that the United States was playing down the crisis.

“We have done a great deal in Sudan but we will not sit back. We will continue our work. Whether it’s genocide or not in the legal sense, too many people have died,” Sims told Reuters.

Donors pledged $4.5 billion at an international conference in Oslo this month to help Sudan recover from Africa’s longest civil war. The United States, with a pledge of $1.7 billion, is the largest donor.

The crisis in Darfur was triggered in February 2003 when pastoral rebel groups took up arms against the government in a struggle over power and scarce resources. Khartoum retaliated by arming a nomadic Arab militia known as the Janjaweed.

Criticism of Zoellick’s death toll numbers followed a weekend editorial in The Washington Post which said the Bush administration was “taking a step in the wrong direction” in its Sudan policy and this would encourage others to drag their feet.

“Next time he should cite better numbers,” commented the Post of Zoellick.