May 27, 2005
Over the past few months, President Bush
has often talked about spreading freedom and democracy to places like Iraq
and Afghanistan, and how it is a priority for his administration. When it
comes to the Sudan, however, President Bush has been silent and unwilling
to lead the world in stopping the ultimate threat to freedom and
democracy: genocide. In fact, in recent months, his administration seems
to have made a shift from condemning the Sudanese regime to accommodating
it. During the past two years, hundreds of thousand of people have been
systematically killed in Sudan in what an official State Department
investigation confirmed as genocide. And while there is some good news –
NATO pledging air support for the African Union peacekeepers and
additional money pledged from international donors – the silence coming
from the United States government is deafening.
- President Bush should at
least mention Sudan and the genocide. It has been 137 days since
President Bush last mentioned Sudan or the genocide. And the last time
he talked about the Sudan, it was to praise the work of humanitarians;
he made no mention of the ongoing massacre. While President Bush stays
silent, the Coalition for International Justice estimates that 500
people die in Sudan every day.
- The White House must support
accountability in Sudan – not oppose it. A bipartisan group of
senators, led by Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jon Corzine (D-NJ),
introduced the Sudan Accountability Act, which passed the Senate
unanimously. The act calls for $90 million in U.S. aid for Darfur; for
freezing the assets of the perpetrators of the genocide; for
accelerating assistance to the African Union mission in Darfur; and for
establishing a no-fly zone over the region. But instead of supporting
the bill, the White House has fought against it. On April 25, the White
House sent a letter to its congressional allies in the House instructing
them to delete the provisions about Darfur.
- The Bush administration should call
it what it is – genocide. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell
called what was going on in Darfur genocide, but the Bush administration
has since backed away from that claim. On a recent trip to Sudan, Deputy
Secretary of State Robert Zoellick equivocated, stating that according
to a recent U.N. study, what was happening in Darfur were crimes against
humanity, and not genocide. He then grossly understated the number of
people killed in Sudan, stating that he believed the number was between
60,000 and 160,000 people. Most experts agree that the real number is
closer to 400,000.
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