US genocide charge is Bush election ploy – Sudan FM

SEOUL, Sept 10 (AFP) — Sudan’s foreign minister rejected US charges of genocide in the western region of Darfur as a reelection ploy by US President George W. Bush.

Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said the Bush administration was using a humanitarian crisis in the region to distract attention away from the mounting US death toll in Iraq.

“We strongly believe the Bush administration is trying to distract internal and international attention away from what is taking place in Iraq to avoid pressure from the Democrats during the ongoing presidential election,” Ismail told AFP in an interview

“They should not use our humanitarian crisis for their own political

The minister, on a five-day visit to South Korea, was responding to US charges of genocide in the Darfur region, where an estimated 50,000 people have been killed and 1.4 million more uprooted since February 2003.

The Sudanese government has been accused of arming and backing Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, which have rampaged through the western Darfur region.

Bush said in Washington Thursday he was appalled at the violence in Darfur which he said amounted to genocide.

Secretary of State Colin Powell earlier told a Senate hearing that evidence compiled by the United States concluded that genocide had been committed in Darfur and the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bore responsibility.

However Sudan’s foreign minister said it was the same Bush administration that claimed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

“Regrettably, now they are saying there is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, after they invaded Iraq and lost over 1,000 American sons and daughters,” he said.

“As we have seen (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld’s weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we are now seeing Powell’s genocide in Sudan.”

He said the Bush administration was “furious” at the rising death toll in Iraq, and was desperate to deflect attention away from the war there as Bush battles for reelection against Democrat John Kerry.