Sudan denies accusation of “genocide” in Darfur
KHARTOUM, July 25, 2004 (dpa) — Sudanese authorities on Saturday rejected the U.S. Congress’ declaration that the violence in Sudan’s Darfur region constitutes genocide.
The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives voted unanimously Thursday for resolutions urging U.S. leaders and the international community to begin “calling the atrocities being committed in Darfur by their rightful name: genocide”.
Al-Tigani al-Fadhil, undersecretary at the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Khartoum, said that the congressional resolutions were biased, unfair and far from the truth. He said that the genocide allegations both exacerbate the Darfur conflict in western Sudan and undermine efforts by the African Union (AU) to head off the humanitarian crisis in the region.
Al-Fadhil vowed that his government would mount an anti U.S. campaign over Darfur to explain Khartoum’s position to the relevant regional and international institutions.
He warned that further steps on Darfur by the international community would undermine the ongoing peace process in Sudan’s long- running south-north civil war.
U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday demanded that the Khartoum regime halt atrocities by government-linked Janjaweed Arab militias against black African tribes in Darfur, but he stopped short of calling the conflict genocide. The U.S. State Department is assembling evidence on the Darfur violence but not yet asserted that the crisis meets technical definitions of genocide.
By widespread estimates, 30,000 Darfur civilians have been killed, more than 130,000 refugees have sought sanctuary in neighbouring Chad, and more than 1 million Darfur people fleeing the violence are displaced within Sudan.
Sudan’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Ibrahim Mahmoud, said Saturday that his ministry has spent 2 million dollars on medical needs in Darfur and sent 250 medical staff to help alleviate deteriorating health conditions amid the rainy season in western Sudan.
Reports have grown in the last week of widespread of disease due to unhygenic conditions in Darfur. The Sudanese government is still insisting that conditions have improved for internal refugees in the region.
Mahmoud, the health minister, said that the Musa refugee camp in the southern Darfur town of Nyala had been evacuated, with 4,390 displaced families voluntarily returning to their original homes in northern Darfur. He also declared western Darfur free of rebels, whose actions may have precipitated the Janjaweed militia attacks.
The Sudanese government demanded that the international community condemn Darfur rebels for their own humanitarian violations and asked the world to exert pressure on the rebel groups.
At the Ministry of Interior, State Minister Ahmed Haroun said that 80 per cent of the government-pledged police forces have arrived in Darfur to keep the peace and investigate atrocities. He admitted that the government has recorded only one rape allegation.
In addition to widespread slayings, African woman in Darfur have allegedly suffered systematic sexual assault.