The EU said yesterday there was widespread violence in the Darfur region of Sudan but the killings were not genocidal, a potentially crucial distinction which underlined its absolute unwillingness reluctance to intervene. "We are not in the situation of genocide there," Pieter Feith, an adviser to the EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said in Brussels after returning from a fact-finding visit to Sudan.
"But it is clear there is widespread, silent and slow killing and village burning of a fairly large scale. There are considerable doubts as to the willingness of Sudan's government to assume its duty to protect its civilian population against attacks." He said in the absence of willingness to send a significant military force, the EU and others had little choice but to cooperate with Khartoum.
| And that absence of willingness is something we can take as a given... |
The announcement is bound to anger those impatient for stronger international pressure on Sudan. Last month the US House of Representatives voted by 422 votes to nil to describe Khartoum's actions as genocide, a conclusion shared by several analysts who say there is no other term for the systematic slaughter, rape and expulsions. But the White House, the African Union and groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have so far avoided using the g-word. At least 30,000 people are thought to have died and 1 million displaced in what the UN has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
| "What's 30,000 deaders? A drop in the African bucket! And they're all colored guys. They don't feel pain like we do..." |
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