OT. Chinu would these muslims committing these acts be considered moderates?
Powell Sees 'Race Against Death' in Sudan's Darfur
Jul 8, 3:51 PM (ET)
news.myway.com|top|07-08-2004::15:51|reuters.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sudan must immediately stop Arab militias from attacking Africans in Darfur to win "the race against death" in the western Sudan region, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Thursday.
If it does not halt the violence that has driven more than 1 million people from their homes and speed delivery of aid, Khartoum may face unspecified "further measures" by the international community, Powell said.
U.S. officials have said marauding government-backed militias known as Janjaweed are conducting ethnic cleansing against Africans in Darfur, putting thousands at risk of death from starvation or illness as the rainy season approaches.
Khartoum has pledged to disarm the Janjaweed, remove them from areas near refugee camps and provide a "credible" police force in the border areas between Sudan and Chad, where tens of thousands of civilians have fled.
Powell, who visited Khartoum and a refugee camp in Darfur last week, said the Sudanese government has not yet done enough to live up to its promises to rein in the nomadic Arab militias and ensure aid workers can help the refugees. Most members of the militias and the black African villagers are Muslims.
"We want to see dramatic improvements on the ground right now. But despite the promises that have been made, we have yet to see these dramatic improvements. Only actions, not words, can win the race against death in Darfur," Powell said.
"We need immediate improvement in the situation and if we don't see that then the United States and the international community will have to consider further measures," he said in a speech on Africa without elaborating.
A senior State Department spokesman said as a first step the United States could move to pass a U.S.-drafted Security Council resolution that calls for the United Nations to impose an arms embargo and travel ban on Darfur's brutal militias.
The draft resolution, however, does not impose sanctions against the Khartoum government.
The U.S. official said Washington believed the resolution was tough enough for now and said changes to it, or other actions, would depend on what Khartoum does on the ground.
"We will continue to press them," Powell said. "There are too many tens upon tens of thousands of human beings who are at risk. Some of them have already been consigned to death because of the circumstances they are living in now." |
