[allAfrica.com] [Christian_Science_Monitor] Genocide: Darfur Ceasefire Eases Pressure On the US The East African (Nairobi) NEWS April 12, 2004 Posted to the web April 14, 2004 By Kevin J. Kelley, David Kaiza and Agencies Washington/Kampala MOUNTING PRESSURE on the Bush administration to help prepare an international military response to the atrocities occurring in Sudan's Darfur region is expected to ease following the signing of an agreement between the government and rebel forces. The agreement, signed last Thursday by negotiators in Chad and promptly hailed by the US government, will give humanitarian agencies access to the area, where international monitors estimate that 1,000 people have been dying each week in attacks by Arab "Janjaweed" militias or as a result of disease. The agreement was expected to take effect on Sunday. Recalling the world's failure to halt the genocide in Rwanda, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had earlier in the week said, "The international community must be prepared to take swift and appropriate action. By action in such situations, I mean a continuum of steps, which may include military action." He was speaking on April 7 - designated by the UN as the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide of Rwanda - to mark the 10th anniversary of the massacre of as many as 800,000 people, the vast majority members of the Tutsi ethnic group, in a period of only three months. He said reports of atrocities in Darfur left him with "a deep sense of foreboding." The comparison was also evoked in a statement issued by the Committee on Conscience of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum last Wednesday. The group reiterated its "genocide warning" for Sudan, noting that the US Agency for International Development (USAid) had warned that 100,000 civilians would be at risk over the next few months if the displaced were not permitted to return home, and provided with adequate relief supplies. An indirect appeal for US-led military intervention came from John Kerry, the expected Democratic candidate in November's presidential election. Praising the kind of leadership demonstrated by the United States in Bosnia and Kosovo - where American troops took part in multilateral military operations - Senator Kerry said similar leadership "is needed now in Sudan to prevent a full-scale genocide". He urged President Bush to act to resolve the crisis in Sudan "so that we never again find ourselves remembering our own failure to stop another genocide." Mr Bush did address the Darfur crisis last week, though he stopped short of terming it "genocide" or threatening US military action. The American president charged that the Sudanese government is "complicit in the brutalisation of Darfur", and said he had communicated his views directly to Sudanese leader Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir. Mr Bush also said that Khartoum must reach a settlement in a separate conflict with rebels in southern Sudan before the United States will move to upgrade relations between the two countries. But he did not apply the same condition to Khartoum's behaviour in Darfur. Human Rights Watch and other groups say that the "Janjaweed" (warriors on horseback) have links to the Sudanese government. The militias are attacking non-Arab Africans, who are also Muslims. Some members of those tribal groups launched an insurgency about a year ago in support of their demands for greater power sharing with authorities in Khartoum. The scope of the violence in Darfur has not yet been described as genocide by American officials. "We've called it a humanitarian crisis," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters on April 6. "But I really hesitate to use the G-word at this point, not really having considered it in that light." The US was criticised for its reluctance to apply the term "genocide" to the 1994 bloodbath in Rwanda. Some commentators are, meanwhile, arguing that responsibility for halting the killings in Darfur does not rest solely with the US. The New York Times argues that the African Union and European Union must also become involved. And The Washington Post has suggested that leaders in the Arab and Muslim should speak out as well. The coincidence of the Darfur crisis with last week's 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide has spurred international concern about the possible eruption of genocide in other parts of the continent, including eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and northern Uganda and south Sudan. No major incident has occured in northern Uganda since the February 25 massacre at Bar Lonyo, in which some 200 people were killed by suspected rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army. But the rebels still maraud, looking for food and numbers to replenish their ranks. Civil-rights organisations and religious bodies warned in the wake of the massacre that the situation in the north and east of Uganda could be headed the Rwanda way, saying the greatest danger in the north was not the rebels, but the ramifications of the "tribal" militias created last year to shore up the army's capacity. They said that by placing guns in the hands of civilians, the government risked triggering ethnic conflict, which would feed on animosities created between the Teso, Langi, Acholi and the Karamojong by the 18-year conflict. Prevent Genocide International also warned at a meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, in January, that Uganda was among the countries where genocide was likely to erupt. And while international concern is focused on Darfur, some regional specialists are warning that the Sudanese government is preparing a major military offensive against suspected rebel forces that have recently joined the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), in Eastern Equatorial state in the south of the country.   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2004 The East African. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================