UN: Darfur Is Not Genocide, World: People Of Darfur, Die More Quietly!

[NATO AIR]

The UN says Darfur is not genocide.

The world is telling the victims and survivors of genocide in Darfur to die more quietly.

The global media is ignoring the screams of the victims, preferring instead to pursue an anti-American agenda.

The Chinese war machine is awash in Sudanese oil, building more submarines, ships and troop transports, all while the EU readies to sell weapons to them.

The Islamic leaders of the world stand quiet as their fellow Muslims are slaughtered, instead wishing to denounce America and the West.

NATO AIR (Eddie Beaver) lies in his rack at night underway and tries to imagine what it would be like to be deployed in the Red Sea, imagining listening to the jets take off as they fly to drop a deadly payload on Sudanese military postitions. Its about the only thing that keeps him from screaming "Fuck This, its hopeless" and not posting about Darfur anymore.

http://www.passionofthepresent.org/
U.N. Report Says Darfur Violence Is Not Genocide
The commission's study details human rights violations and war crimes, and says some may have acted with a 'genocidal intention,' writes Maggie Farley, Times Staff Writer, in today's Los Angeles Times.

Update: Jan 30 report at Aljazeera re UN report: No genocide committed in Darfur

U.N. Report Says Darfur Violence Is Not Genocide

By Maggie Farley, Times Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, January 29, 2005

UNITED NATIONS — A U.N. commission on Sudan has concluded that systematic, government-backed violence in the western region of Darfur was not genocide, but that there was evidence of crimes against humanity with an ethnic dimension.

The report documents violations of international human rights law, incidents of war crimes by militias and the rebels fighting them, and names individuals who may have acted with a "genocidal intention." But there was not sufficient evidence to indicate that Khartoum had a state policy intended to exterminate a particular racial or ethnic group, said diplomats familiar with the report.

It recommends referring the cases to the International Criminal Court, but leaves other options open. The United States, which opposes the court, has proposed a war crimes tribunal in Tanzania to prosecute atrocities committed in Darfur.

The report was submitted Thursday to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan by a five-member independent commission he assigned in October to investigate violations of human rights in Darfur, determine whether acts of genocide occurred and identify the perpetrators. It is not expected to be made public until Sudan has a chance to review the assessment, and until it has been presented to the Security Council, expected next week.

The commission, headed by Antonio Cassese, an Italian judge, had to reconvene after the report was completed because of disagreements over whether to identify implicated government officials who may be in charge of implementing Sudan's new peace plan with its southern rebels, said diplomats familiar with the discussions. Sudan's ambassador to Washington, Khidir Haroun Ahmed, said he understood that the names would not be disclosed until a court had concluded that there was evidence for prosecution.

"It would not be in the benefit of peacemaking to jump to hasty conclusions and blame the government without 100% evidence because that will weaken the government as a partner for peace," he said.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Darfur and nearly 2 million have been displaced since rebel groups took up arms against government forces in early 2003. Militias linked to the government are accused of numerous killings and rapes in the rebels' region.

The U.S. State Department concluded in September that genocide had occurred in Darfur based on interviews with about 1,800 refugees in neighboring Chad. Their accounts indicated a pattern of targeted violence coordinated by the Sudanese government and state-backed militias, the State Department said.

But the designation appeared to put more pressure on the U.S. to act than on Sudan. The Security Council has declined to place sanctions on Sudan, instead offering rewards for cementing a peace agreement in a separate conflict between the north and south that they hope would shore up a settlement in Darfur.

That peace agreement was signed this month, but the move has yet to halt the conflict in Darfur. A rise in violence has displaced thousands of civilians and obstructed access for aid workers. Cease-fire monitors from the African Union reported an aerial bombing by government planes in South Darfur as recently as Wednesday.

With the fighting continuing despite international censure, diplomats and human rights groups are seeking an effective deterrent. For many European and African countries, the answer seems to be prosecutions by the International Criminal Court.

"This is a watershed moment for the ICC," Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth said. "It is an opportunity for the court to show what it was made for."

But the Bush administration is torn between its desire to bring killers in Khartoum to justice and its opposition to the ICC, Roth said. Washington is afraid that the court will be used for politicized prosecutions of Americans. As an alternative, the U.S. has proposed that the U.N. and the African Union establish a court in Arusha, Tanzania, the headquarters of the Rwanda tribunal, for the prosecution of Darfur's war crimes, U.S. officials said.

Russia and China, which have been the main opponents of sanctions on Sudan, have voiced tentative support for sending the case to the ICC.

Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya said his country would help Sudan progress toward peace. Asked whether that included a referral to the ICC, he said China would defer to the African Union's decision. "They know what is best for Sudan better than we do," he said.

Sudan last week completed its own inquiry on allegations of genocide and human rights abuse, with results that on the surface, are similar to the U.N. commission's.

The Sudanese inquiry concluded that massive human rights violations by the military, rebel groups and warring tribes occurred, but that the violence did not constitute genocide. The report draws a comparison with genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia, and says that unlike those mass exterminations, there was no state policy with the goal of eradicating a particular group. They found evidence that government forces had bombed areas hosting armed opposition, and had killed civilians.

The committee also recommended a redistribution of land and water rights in Darfur to balance the needs of farmers and nomad grazers that have been at the root of tribal clashes.

The decision on whether or how to prosecute was left to a legal committee, which has not yet reached a conclusion, the report said. But Ahmed, the ambassador in Washington, said that if the international community acknowledged that rebels also had committed war crimes, not just the government and militias, then it would be "very logical" to send all the cases to the ICC. "Justice should apply to all people," Ahmed said.

 

[CSM]

Just what did you expect out of the UN??? With some 200+ member nations, most of them "third world", to expect a TRUE AND IMPARTIAL investigation by them is naive at best. What individual or organization is going to form a condemnation of themselves?

 

[NATO AIR]

Just what did you expect out of the UN??? With some 200+ member nations, most of them "third world", to expect a TRUE AND IMPARTIAL investigation by them is naive at best. What individual or organization is going to form a condemnation of themselves?

That's why we need a community of democracies, and dump the UN.

 

[dilloduck]

That's why we need a community of democracies, and dump the UN.

You mean you don't think that the ICC is gonna kick some ass and scare everyone into peaceful behavior?

 

[CSM]

You mean you don't think that the ICC is gonna kick some ass and scare everyone into peaceful behavior?

If the UN didn't scare em, nuthin will! I mean the UN is one of the scariest organizations I know; it's right up there with the DNC!

 

[NATO AIR]

If the UN didn't scare em, nuthin will! I mean the UN is one of the scariest organizations I know; it's right up there with the DNC!

humor is good medicine

 

[5stringJeff]

That's why we need a community of democracies, and dump the UN.

I agree.

 

[Zhukov]

The UN says Darfur is not genocide.

It's unlikely they would have done anything even if whatever silly little committee they assigned to investigate the situation had reported otherwise, so what difference does it make?

The U.N. has once again proved it's moral brankruptcy.

What they say is irrelevant.

They are irrelevant.

 

[onedomino]

Just what did you expect out of the UN??? With some 200+ member nations, most of them "third world", to expect a TRUE AND IMPARTIAL investigation by them is naive at best. What individual or organization is going to form a condemnation of themselves?

Good point, CSM.

http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000504.html
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[Avatar4321]

Good point, CSM.

[Pic edited out]

great pic. i love how the rat on a higher moral ground than Kofi.

I dont know how the UN can say its not genocide. What the heck is genocide if darfur is not genocide?

 

[NATO AIR]

great pic. i love how the rat on a higher moral ground than Kofi.

I dont know how the UN can say its not genocide. What the heck is genocide if darfur is not genocide?

The Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, the American occupation of Iraq (according to the UN and many of its member states)

 

[onedomino]

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New UN Report on Darfur Triggers US-Europe Division
Tue Feb 1, 2005 01:38 AM ET
By Evelyn Leopold

http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7493429

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A key report on war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region is triggering an intense diplomatic battle between the United States and Europe on how to prosecute perpetrators of pillage, slaughter and rape.

A U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry reported on Monday that the Sudanese government and its militia allies committed major crimes under international law, setting the stage for Sudan officials and rebels to be prosecuted as war criminals.

The 176-page report concluded that Khartoum had not pursued a policy of genocide against non-Arabs in Darfur, where at least 70,000 people have died from killings or disease and 1.8 million people were forced out of their homes.

But it said some individuals may have acted with "genocidal intent," which only a court could decide.

That court, the commission's five legal experts said, should be the Hague-based International Criminal Court, or ICC, set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and massive human rights abuses.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Europeans want the U.N. Security Council to refer Sudan to the ICC. The panel has produced a sealed list of suspects.

"This is a case that is tailor-made for the ICC," Britain's U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry told reporters.

But the Bush administration vigorously opposes the court, citing fears of prosecutions against U.S. soldiers abroad.

Instead it wants to set up a new U.N.-African Union tribunal in Tanzania. Diplomats said Washington was willing to pay a considerable sum to establish the court but feared no other rich country would help.

"Our interest here is accountability for the perpetrators of the atrocities," said acting U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson. "We're going to look at this issue very very closely in the next few days."

The United States is drafting a resolution that would establish a peacekeeping force in southern Sudan. Annan has asked for 10,130 troops plus 755 international police officers to implement a recent agreement ending a separate two-decade conflict in the south.

The same resolution would also stop government military flights into Darfur and ask that those responsible for the Darfur violence be barred from travel and have their assets frozen. But divisions in the council may exclude mention of a court in the draft, U.S. envoy Stuart Holliday told reporters.

Russia and China oppose penalties on Khartoum, and Beijing has doubts about the ICC.

"I can see the difficulties that my government will have," said Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya.

China is the only nation on the 15-member council, aside from the Bush administration, that has not ratified or signed the treaty establishing the ICC.

The Darfur conflict erupted after rebel groups took up arms in February 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglect. The government retaliated by deploying Arab militias, the most brutal of which are called Janjaweed, meaning "outlaws."

Khartoum has denied it aided the Janjaweed but the commission said some were armed and paid by the government and others fought alongside the regular army.

"Despite government statements regretting the actions of the Janjaweed, the various militia attacks on villages have continued throughout 2004, with continued government support," it said.

In deciding against using the term genocide for Darfur -- as the United States did last year -- the commission said "the crucial element of genocidal intent appears to be missing."

Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, drawn up after the Holocaust, governments are obliged to "prevent and punish genocide, defined as the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." (Here's the key phrase. Not calling it genocide means that no one is obligated under the 1948 Genocide Convention to do anything. This worthless UN report must have greatly pleased the EU, Chinese, Russians, and the Arab League)

But the report said that "intent" was not clear and those who organized attacks did so "primarily for purposes of counterinsurgency warfare."

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