G8 set to point finger at Sudan for Darfur crisis
SAVANNAH, Georgia, June 07, 2004 (dpa) — A U.S. official called Monday on Sudan to allow aid and human rights workers swift access to the stricken Darfur region and said the crisis would be discussed at the upcoming G8 summit.
“Darfur is a brewing disaster for which the Sudanese government bears a lot of responsibility,” said U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
Rice said leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrial countries would debate responses to Darfur during their three-day summit at Sea Island in the southeast U.S. state of Georgia which opens Tuesday.
Rice urged the Sudanese government to do everything in its power to allow aid and human rights workers to reach Darfur victims.
A leading international think tank in Brussels called on the G8 to take immediate action to protect hundreds of thousands of people facing “ethnic cleansing” in Darfur.
In a letter sent to the G8 and United Nations Security Council, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said ending the disaster in Darfur demanded “determined international leadership.”
ICG President Gareth Evans said the U.N. must make sure Sudan implements its promise to give full and immediate access to aid agencies; takes measures to stop further atrocities; and supports political negotiations.
Evans said the G8 must also ensure sufficient resources are available to aid victims and that leaders should warn Khartoum it will be held accountable for the situation in Darfur.
“The time for action by world leaders is now. Hundreds of thousands of lives are already at risk and every weeks delay has ever more deadly consequences,” the ICG said.
The crisis group said government-backed militias in Darfur were conducting a scorched-earth campaign, killing many thousands of civilians and forcing over one million from their homes.
Victims of the fighting were in poorly-run government-controlled camps in Darfur and remained vulnerable to attack by the “Janjaweed” militias, the ICG said.
It warned that the internally displaced people also had inadequate access to desperately needed relief supplies.