R
Republican Party Reptile
Guest
This reminds me of when Bill Clinton refused to publicly call the...uh...genocide in Rwanda a "genocide," because if he had done so, under the Genocide Convention, he'd have had to act.
Today, Clinton refers to this as one of his greatest failures as president.
Have you learned nothing, Europe?
Sudan massacres are not genocide, says EU
Rory Carroll, Africa correspondent
Tuesday August 10, 2004
The Guardian
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 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.
The announcement is bound to anger those impatient for stronger international pressure on Sudan.
....
Genocide is defined as a calculated effort to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, but the debate over its meaning is political, not semantic.
The genocide convention, adopted by the UN in 1948, calls on signatories to "prevent" and "punish" genocide. If governments accept events in Darfur amount to genocide they would be obliged to intervene.
Today, Clinton refers to this as one of his greatest failures as president.
Have you learned nothing, Europe?
Sudan massacres are not genocide, says EU
Rory Carroll, Africa correspondent
Tuesday August 10, 2004
The Guardian
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 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.
The announcement is bound to anger those impatient for stronger international pressure on Sudan.
....
Genocide is defined as a calculated effort to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, but the debate over its meaning is political, not semantic.
The genocide convention, adopted by the UN in 1948, calls on signatories to "prevent" and "punish" genocide. If governments accept events in Darfur amount to genocide they would be obliged to intervene.
