| Easy political points. Content==null... |
Senator John Kerry called on President Bush on Thursday to take the lead in stopping the killing of civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan by declaring it a genocide, pushing for tough United Nations sanctions on the government, backing the deployment of an international force and raising money for relief aid.
| Kerry just doesn't pay attention, does he? |
As a United Nations special envoy, Jan Pronk, briefed the Security Council in New York on his findings that Sudan had failed to rein in the Arab militias attacking black Africans in Darfur, Mr. Kerry said the choice facing the Bush administration was "whether to give Sudan another pass or, finally, to punish the real perpetrators of the violence. Many governments want to evade the issue yet again. I hope ours will not be one of them."
| He's for it now, but he'll turn against it as soon as Bush proposes something. |
| But wait? What about letting the UN take the lead? I thought that was what we were doing now? Or did I miss something? |
An estimated 50,000 black Africans have been killed and 1.2 million have been displaced by marauding Arab Janjaweed militias armed and encouraged by the Sudanese government. The United Nation has characterized the campaign of raping women, razing villages, destroying crops and poisoning water supplies as ethnic cleansing, and Congress has declared it genocide. A report by Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday used the term "scorched-earth policy." In a sternly worded
| Yep. That'll take care of it... |
report based on the findings of Mr. Pronk, Mr. Annan said that attacks against civilians were continuing, that a vast majority of militias had not been disarmed and that "no concrete steps have been taken to bring to justice or even identify any of the militia leaders or perpetrators of these attacks, allowing the violations of human rights and the basic laws of war to continue in a climate of impunity."
| Comes as a surprise, doesn't it? The Sudanese are usually so cooperative... |
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