US sees “mixed results” from Sudan on Darfur
TAMPA, Florida, July 16 (AFP) — The White House said Friday that it was not satisfied with the Sudanese government’s actions in the strife-torn region of Darfur but declined to brand the humanitarian crisis there as genocide.
“Regardless of what you want to call it, it is a humanitarian crisis and a security crisis that needs to be addressed immediately,” spokesman Scott McClellan said as US President George W. Bush traveled here.
“We have urged the government to take action to address the security situation and to help allow for the aid to get to the people who need it,” he said, noting that Washington has pushed for a UN resolution on the matter.
“We’ve seen some mixed results from the government,” he said aboard Bush’s official Air Force One plane.
More than 10,000 people are estimated to have died in Darfur, and at least 1.2 million have been driven from their homes, many of them to squalid camps in Chad, since a revolt against the Arab-dominated government broke out among indigenous ethnic minorities in February 2003.
In retaliation, the pro-government Arab Janjaweed militias have carried out what UN officials say is a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against black Africans.
Repeatedly pushed on whether the violence amounted to “genocide,” as US lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives have labelled it, McClellan refused to use the term.
In late June, senior US officials said there was evidence that genocide was taking place in the strife-torn western region but that Washington had not yet made a formal legal determination on the issue.
Such a determination, which would require action under international conventions against genocide, is now under active review, the officials said.
“I can tell you that we see indicators of genocide and there is evidence that points in that direction,” said Pierre Prosper, the US ambassador-at-large for war crimes.
“At this moment, we are not in a position to confirm,” Prosper added in testimony before the House International Relations Committee. “In order to do so, Darfur needs to be opened up.”