US weighs new UN resolution on Darfur, Powell prepares to testify on “genocide”
WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (AFP) — The United States said Friday it is planning to introduce a new UN Security Council resolution to deal with the Darfur crisis as Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared to testify before US lawmakers next week on whether “genocide” is occurring the strife-torn western region of Sudan.
Following a critical report on Khartoum’s compliance with the council’s demands in an earlier resolution to ease the crisis and rein in pro-government militias accused of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, the State Department said Sudan was complicit in several attacks on black African populations there.
“It’s documented now from a variety of sources that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed militias have continued their attacks on civilians in Darfur,” spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.
“The government of Sudan has not fully complied with UN Security Council Resolution 1556 and it’s failed to meet fully its obligations to ensure the protection of its own civilian population,” he said, referring to the earlier resolution that threatened sanctions unless Khartoum eased the crisis by the end of August.
While support for sanctions among Security Council members does nor appear strong, a consensus to deploy more troops from the African Union seems to be emerging and Boucher said Washington was now looking at language for a second resolution and would be consulting “shortly” with other governments on options.
“We’re preparing a further UN resolution, looking at what goes into that,” he said, declining to offer specifics about what it might contain. “We expect we’ll be talking to other governments shortly about the elements that can go into a resolution.”
As that process goes ahead, Boucher said Powell would testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 9 on Darfur — deemed the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis by the United Nations — to provide preliminary results of a US probe into whether “genocide” was being committed there.
“The question fundamentally involves whether it’s genocide,” he said, noting that the US officials had interviewed more than 1,100 refugees from Darfur at camps in neighboring Chad to make a determination on the matter and that the report was “in the final stage of preparation.”
“There’s a pattern of attacks against non-Arab populations,” Boucher said. “Exactly what that constitutes, in terms of the crime of genocide and how that needs to be examined and looked at, is something that we have to address.”
He said Powell would likely address those issues in his testimony on Thursday but a senior State Department official said later that the secretary might stop short of making a final determination on genocide.
According to UN estimates, up to 50,000 people have died in Darfur, about 1.4 million people have fled their homes with about 180,000 crossing the border into Chad.