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No
Genocide in Darfur: UN Report
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A
displaced Sudanese child from Darfur.
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UNITED
NATIONS, February 1 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – While
accusing the Khartoum government of gross, systematic human rights
violations, a UN report revealed Tuesday, February 1, ruling out a
US-claim Sudan has pursued a policy of genocide in western troubled
Darfur.
“The
conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented
in Darfur by the government authorities, directly or through the
militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as
detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in the
region,” the report said, according to Reuters.
The
report conclusion was welcomed by the Sudanese government as a means
to undermined the US claims of genocide in the troubled region.
“We
have a copy of that report and they didn't say that there is a
genocide,” said Sudanese Foreign Minister Osman Ismail on the
sidelines of an African Union summit in Abuja, Nigeria.
The
United States repeatedly called the situation in Darfur “genocide”
and accused the Sudanese government of backing the Arab militias
Janjaweed in their alleged attacks on African Darfuris.
Last
July, the US House Of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution
describing the situation in Darfur a “genocide.”
Genocide
is defined as intent to destroy a group on national, ethnical, racial
or religious grounds.
Violations
The
UN commission report, however, accused the Khartoum government and its
allied militias of systematically abusing civilians in the troubled
region.
“The
commission found that [Sudan's] government forces and militias
conducted indiscriminate attacks,” the report by the five-member
commission said.
Those
violations included killing of civilians, enforced disappearances,
destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence,
pillaging and forced displacement, throughout Darfur, it added.
“These
acts were conducted on a widespread and systematic basis, and
therefore may amount to crimes against humanity,” said the report.
The
report recommended the UN Security Council refer cases of human rights
violations in Darfur to the Hague-based International Criminal Court,
the first permanent global criminal tribunal, for trial.
“International
offenses such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have
been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than
genocide,” the report said.
It
identified suspected perpetrators of such atrocities as government
officials, rebels and “foreign army officers acting in their
personal capacity”, adding that there was evidence some fighters
with the militia were from Chad and Libya.
The
report was initiated last October by the UN Security Council which had
asked Secretary General Kofi Annan to set up a commission to
investigate alleged human rights violations in Darfur, determine
whether genocide had occurred and identify perpetrators.
The
Darfur conflict erupted in April 2003 when the rebel Justice and
Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLA)
took up arms against the Khartoum government.
The
United Nations said the conflict is causing the world’s worst
humanitarian crisis at present.
An
estimated 670,000 people have fled their homes in Darfur since the
beginning of the conflict while 110,000 others reportedly sought
refuge in neighboring Chad.
The
World Health Organization
and the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) group, however, dismissed
reports of the western media on the mass killings and rapes in the
Sudan's western Darfur, considering such reports as a propagation
campaign.
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