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12/09/2005:

"We Must End the Genocide"

12/08/05 "ICH" -- -- On December 10th the world celebrates the 57th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet our government is ignoring the most terrible violations of these rights in the killing and enslavement of the people of Darfur, Sudan.

Last year the United States branded the Janjaweed killings in Darfur as genocide.

This year the Congress eliminated all of the $59 million in support for the African Union peacekeepers from the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, giving the appearance of complicity in genocide.

The United States encouraged the peace settlement between Khartoum and the southern Juba government of divided Sudan that ended the civil war. Why then are we not actively supporting the peace effort in Darfur?

The U.S. Government appears to be changing its policy toward Sudan. The U.S.-controlled World Bank is supplying $20 million in emergency aid to the Juba government in southern Sudan, while the State Department has allowed the genocidal Khartoum government to hire a lobbyist in Washington!

Since 1999 China has invested $3 billion to build the oil pipeline that connects the oil fields of southern Sudan with the Red Sea port in the north. Sudan is estimated to have 563 million barrels of reserves. Is this the reason we are courting the Khartoum government at the expense of millions of refugees from the Darfur region?
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