U.S. may find it hard declare genocide in Darfur
By Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (Reuters) – The United States does not yet have enough evidence to declare genocide has taken place in Darfur and may find it hard to prove genocidal intent behind the western Sudan violence, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
A U.S. government finding that attacks by militias drawn from nomadic Arabs against villagers who speak African languages constitutes genocide could raise international pressure on Khartoum to end a crisis that the U.N. estimates has killed 50,000 people and left 1.2 million homeless.
U.S. officials have accused government-backed militias, called Janjaweed, of using murder, rape and pillage as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign in Darfur that begun after two rebel groups took up arms against the government in February 2003.
The U.S. Congress has already declared the violence genocide but the European Union has not found evidence to support this, a conclusion the State Department may eventually share. Sudan has denied the Darfur conflict amounted to genocide.
Under the relevant U.N. convention, genocide is broadly defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
“Right now, it doesn’t look like genocide … The evidence to prove that isn’t there. The evidence to meet that standard isn’t there,” said a U.S. official who asked not to be named.
The official noted, however, that the U.S. investigation is not yet complete.
“It’s finding the intent that’s the hard part of making the determination,” said another U.S. official.
There is little appetite in Washington for international military intervention in Darfur and Secretary of State Colin Powell has argued that getting the Sudanese government to stop the violence is the way to end the crisis.
He said Washington would make any “genocide” determination on the merits but he is constantly “calibrating” the U.S. response based on whether it will spur, or inhibit, action by Khartoum to end the crisis.
“For us to call it genocide … imposes a stigma from the United States on that government. But will that stigma cause the government to pull back or will it cause the government take a more positive action of the kind we’re looking for?” Powell told the Cincinnati Enquirer on Monday.
International Crisis Group expert John Prendergast said Khartoum responds to pressure. “When they have been pressured more strenuously … that is when they have made compromises, that is when they have changed their behavior,” he said.