Sudan: US government fails to stop the genocide in Darfur

The Society for Threatened peoples (GfbV) accused the US Ambassador at the United Nations, John Bolton, on Tuesday with "scandalous playing to the gallery at the expense of the suffering civil population in Darfur”. Bolton refused to allow the UN special correspondent for the prevention of genocide, Juan Mendez, from reporting and thus prevented a debate on possibilities of stopping the continuing crimes. Thereupon Mendez warned at a press conference of an escalation of the violence in Darfur.

"With these policies the USA is linking itself with the best friends of the Sudanese government: with China and Russia, who do not allow uncomfortable human rights activists to speak” criticised the GfbV Asia expert Ulrich Delius. It is understandable if Bolton accuses the United Nations with talking too much and doing too little. But the USA has not done very much either to stop the genocide and protect the suffering civilian population although 13 months ago they for the first time publicly termed the serious crimes against humanity as genocide.

As a result of firm pressure from the US Congress and the publication of a refugees’ questionnaire by the US Foreign Ministry the White House publicly declared on 9th September 2004 that genocide is being committed in Darfur.

"For the US government the ‘fight against terror’ is clearly more important than the stopping of genocide” criticised Delius. Thus it was that the American secret service CIA praised its Sudanese colleagues for bringing forward information on Muslim extremists. The CIA had no qualms about sending a plane to the Sudan at the end of April 2005 to fly the controversial head of the Sudanese secret service General-major Salah Abdallah Gosh for secret talks to Washington. Gosh is mooted to be the man behind the scenes of Sudanese support for the Janjaweed militia who are committing the murders in Darfur.

Some 400,000 people have fallen victim to the genocide in Darfur since 2002. About 2,4 million civilians have since then been systematically driven out by the Janjaweed militia, who work together with the government.