Powell says killings in Sudan amounts to genocide

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration for the first time Thursday called attacks in Sudan's Darfur region by government-backed Arab militia against black Africans "genocide."\nThe designation by Secretary of State Colin Powell came as a U.S. proposal in the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions against Sudan encountered opposition. Powell told Congress that Sudan's government is to blame for the killing of tens of thousands and uprooting of 1.2 million people.\nIn recent interviews with 1,136 refugees in neighboring Chad, the State Department found a "consistent and widespread pattern of atrocities committed against non-Arab villagers," according to a department report. It added that about a third of the refugees who were interviewed heard racial epithets while under attack.\nPowell said that as a member of the 1948 international genocide convention, Sudan is obliged to prevent and punish acts of genocide.\n"To us, at this time, it appears that Sudan has failed to do so," he said.\nPowell's announcement came as the United States was pressuring the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Sudan's oil industry, among other measures, if the government does not take steps to improve security in Darfur.\nSuch sanctions are opposed by China and Pakistan, Security Council members that import Sudanese oil.\nThe Bush administration has not seriously considered sending troops to Sudan. The African Union, a continent-wide security group, has dispatched 125 monitors to Darfur who are protected by 300 African Union troops.\nU.N. envoy Jan Pronk urged Sudan last week to allow more than 3,000 troops into the region to stop violence and to prevent the conflict from escalating.\nIn Abuja, Nigeria, where Darfur peace talks are under way, Sudanese Deputy Foreign Minister Najeeb El-Khair Abdel Wahab criticized Powell's action.\n"We don't think this kind of attitude can help the situation in Darfur. We expect the international community to assist the process that is taking place in Abuja, and not put oil on the fire," he said.\nThe European Union also was critical. "We have not discussed specifically the use of the word genocide," said spokesman Jean-Charles Ellermann-Kingombe. "For us, we have noted that there is an extremely serious situation that still requires a huge humanitarian aid effort."\nState Department officials acknowledged the possibility that the genocide designation could interfere with U.S. efforts to encourage more robust Sudanese government efforts to protect Darfur's citizens. And Powell has acknowledged that the designation will not lead directly to any material benefit for Darfur's victims.\nThe 1948 genocide convention defines that act as a calculated effort to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group in whole or in part.\nState Department officials could not say whether any convention member had ever invoked the accord. U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said he believes Powell's designation was a first.\nOther crises over the years that often carry the genocide label have occurred in Rwanda in 1994 and Cambodia from 1975-79. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is facing genocide charges before an international war crimes tribunal at The Hague.\nCongress this summer called the violence in Sudan genocide.\nPowell noted that part of the genocide convention provides that parties may call on the United Nations to take any action under the U.N. charter that "they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide ... ."\nHe urged the U.N. Security Council to approve a resolution on Sudan that requests that the United Nations look into "all violations of international humanitarian law and human rights that have occurred in Darfur."\nThe violence in Darfur began when black African tribes in the region rebelled in February 2003, accusing the national government in Khartoum of neglecting their interests.\nPowell said that in response, the Arab militias coupled with Sudanese military forces "committed large-scale acts of violence, including murders, rape and physical assaults on non-Arab individuals."\nHe told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he hopes the Sudanese government will respond to the genocide designation by recognizing that "this is not the time to go backward but go forward."\nSenate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who has visited Sudan repeatedly over the years, said the Darfur crisis "could be one of the greatest humanitarian tragedies of all time." Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., criticized the administration for not having a presidential special envoy for Sudan.\nDarfur has not been a major theme of the presidential campaign. Democratic candidate John Kerry has called for decisive U.S. action to end the suffering.