From the New York Times tonight (in the paper on Saturday)
In announcing Mr. Powell's plans to go to Darfur, Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said Thursday that the United States had not seen any evidence that the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, was following up his pledge earlier this week to disarm the militias.
International pressure on the Sudanese government to halt the killings and cease blocking assistance has taken on particular urgency because of the imminent onset of the rainy season, which makes much of the Darfur region difficult for aid missions to reach.
Foreign ministry officials from France, Italy and Switzerland, as well as United Nations officials, have been in Khartoum, the capital, expressing their concern to the government, leading Mr. Bashir to complain that foreigners were exploiting the plight of the people of Darfur to intervene in Sudanese affairs.
Addendum: From testimony by Pierre-Richard Prosper, Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues Before the U.S. House of Representatives, International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Africa, on Wednesday June 23, 2004: (Full text available from AllAfrica.com)
There is the question of whether this is genocide. We see indicators of genocide, and there is evidence that points in that direction. However, we are not in a position to confirm. To do so, we need Darfur to be opened up.
I have requested a visa to travel to Darfur and personally examine the situation. Despite this request having been submitted weeks ago, it is still pending. In the meantime, we have told the Sudanese that we are appalled by what is happening in Darfur and have indicated that there is evidence of continued Sudanese Government support of militias and knowledge of the abuses.
Meanwhile, speaking in Paris to a press conference on Friday, June 25 (today) as reported by the Associated Press,
Sudan's minister for humanitarian affairs, Mohammed Yousef Abdallah, denied accounts of famine, fighting and fleeing in his country's vast Darfur region, saying Friday that the humanitarian situation was "fully under control."
"There is no widespread disease in the area, no widespread death," and malnutrition levels are no worse than elsewhere in the region, Abdallah said."According to international parameters, it (the situation) is not at a catastrophic level as some are suggesting," he added.
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Posted by: BrokenSanity | June 26, 2004 at 11:49 AM