WASHINGTON, 10 September 2004 — US Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday genocide has occurred in Darfur and blamed Sudan’s government and Janjaweed militias, a finding likely to increase pressure on Khartoum to end the violence.
“I concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility and that genocide may still be occurring,” Powell told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
While US officials have said a declaration of genocide does not impose significant legal obligations on them, the use of the term is likely to influence the diplomatic debate as the UN Security Council weighs a US-proposed resolution that threatens oil sanctions if Sudan does not stop the abuses.
There is no appetite in the US government or among other major powers for an international military deployment to try to stop the violence, which the United Nations estimates has killed up to 50,000 people directly or from hunger and disease.
“There is nobody prepared to send troops in there from the United States or the European Union or elsewhere to put it down in the sense of an imposition force,” Powell said.
“It doesn’t automatically authorize force but it should change the dynamics of the negotiations,” said Nina Bang-Jensen, director of the Coalition for International Justice, which conducted research on the violence in the western region of Sudan for the State Department.
“This is genocide,” she said. “There is a moral and legal imperative to act.”
International efforts so far have focused on trying to persuade Khartoum to allow humanitarian aid workers access to the region, where US and UN officials say it has made progress, and to stop the violence itself, which it has not.
A US State Department report released yesterday cited a pattern of Khartoum’s support for the Janjaweed militias drawn from nomadic Arabs conducting an ethnically targeted campaign of murder, rape and looting against villagers who largely speak African languages.
Powell praised the willingness of the African Union to send in thousands and monitors and accompanying protection forces, saying this could ratchet up the pressure on Khartoum and increase chances of “bringing the situation under control.”
Powell also said he expected Khartoum to reject the US finding of genocide, as it did an earlier US congressional resolution drawing the same conclusion, and he said the way for Khartoum to escape greater condemnation was to stop the violence.
“No new action is dictated by this determination. We have been doing everything we can to get the Sudanese government to act responsibly,” he said.
“Call it civil war, call it ethnic cleansing, call it genocide ... the reality is the same: There are people in Darfur who desperately need the help of the international community,” he added.
Under the relevant UN convention, genocide is broadly defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
Parties to the convention agreed to “undertake to prevent or punish” genocide and may call on the United Nations to take appropriate action for its “prevention and suppression.”
In keeping with that provision, Powell called on the United Nations to formally investigate the violence.
