Sudan, Ethiopia Deny Persecution and Genocide

Meanwhile, Sudan's government and the main southern rebel group adjourned peace talks for the month of Ramadan, without having agreed on a permanent ceasefire or final peace deal to end Africa's longest war, the chief mediator said [more]. In this 21 year conflict, largly over the control of southern Sudanese oil, the lives of at least 1.5 million people have been claimed while four million others have been displaced.

Despite the atrocities and government induced famine, the response of the international community has been anemic. Perhaps the persecution of Christians and targeting of black Africans by the Arab government has not yet passed the necessary "global test" for action. Nevertheless, killings, rape, burnings and looting continue unabated.

In a plea to England's Prime Minister, Lord Alton writes, "If this isn't genocide, then what on earth is?" His detailed report is compelling and documents the widespread killing of the Sudanese people by the Khartoum government (more).

John Kerry exploited the U.S. reponse to Sudan's crisis to criticize the Bush presidency. "Words without deeds are meaningless especially when people are dying every day," Kerry said, maintaining that Bush had not acted appropriately after Powell made his "genocide" statement in September. The Bush campaign responded forcefully that the United States under Bush "has been leading the effort to get the channels of assistance opened and to take care of the people of Darfur ... and has been leading the effort to try to bring security to the region of Darfur."

China has weighed in on Sudan's human rights violations by trying to stop the United Nations from imposing sanctions in order to protect its oil imports from the country. [more]. Lord Alton quotes a refugee from Southern Sudan who said, "Every barrel of your oil is half filled with our blood." Similarly, the governments of Chad, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria and Sudan have rejected the need for foreign intervention, describing the crisis as an "absolute African issue" [more].

The Sudan crisis is a systemic problem of the Islamic Khartoum government and has striking parallels in other African countries. In neighboring Ethiopia, the government called reports of the Anuak genocide a "fiction". Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, said the Ethiopian military had intervened to stop killing by armed Anuak insurgents and that "without the intervention of the army, the killings would have continued". No more than 200 people have died, he said. Tell this to the 10,000 desperate Anuak civilians who fleed to Sudan to escape persecution by the country’s army. [more]. The predominently Christian Anuak, are being systematically killed by the Ethiopian army, and by other ethnic groups incited to violence by the army. [more]