Sudan says conflict 'not genocide'
 |  A displaced Sudanese boy at a refugee camp in nearby Chad |
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 The U.S. Congress declares that bloodletting in Darfur is genocide.
 Thousands of refugees fleeing the war in Sudan have now crossed into Chad.
 One of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today.
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KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Sudan's foreign minister has rejected a U.S. Congressional declaration that bloodletting in the country's western region of Darfur amounts to genocide.
Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail insisted his government was doing all it can to end the conflict in Darfur which so far has killed 30,000 people and forced a million to flee.
On Friday members of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus called for President Bush's Administration to declare that genocide is taking place in Darfur.
At a news conference, Congressman Donald Payne also called on the United Nations to act.
"We call on the United Nations Security Council to introduce a resolution authorizing the intervention into Darfur. We call on this (Bush) administration to use our intelligence assets to expose those responsible for genocide," he said.
So far neither the Bush administration nor the U.N. has said the conflict is genocide -- a step which would authorize other nations to intervene under international law.
Foreign minister Ismail said that Sudan agrees with the African Union, which has refrained from calling the atrocities genocide, a crime punishable under a 1948 U.N. convention.
"Congress is always biased," Ismail told The Associated Press at the Brussels headquarters for the European Union.
"I would rather say what the Africans who are concerned with this case (are saying)."
"We are cooperating with the U.N.," he added.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said last month he was not ready to describe the situation in Darfur "as genocide or ethnic cleansing" but he did call it "a tragic humanitarian situation" and raised the possibility of international intervention.
Arab militias have killed up to 30,000 people in Darfur, most of them black Africans, and driven over one million from their homes since the conflict began last year.
On Saturday, Australia's defense minister said that U.N. officials had approached his country about contributing troops to a U.N. mission to Darfur.
"We are contemplating whether to make a contribution," Defense Minister Robert Hill told AP.
"It would be relatively modest and we haven't made a final decision. He said the troops of interest to the United Nations included medics and engineers.
In Britain, the head of the army, Sir Mike Jackson, said his forces would be ready if called upon.
Chief of the General Staff Jackson told the BBC a brigade of 5,000 soldiers could be ready and fully equipped if the Tony Blair government decided to send troops in.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Friday rejected international pressure on his country.
"The international concern over Darfur is actually a targeting of the Islamic state in Sudan," Bashir told a public meeting south of Khartoum.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said it was up to the signatories of the genocide convention to decide if action should be taken on Sudan and whether to raise the issue with the U.N. Security Council or the International Criminal Court.
"Those are the options open, and we're just waiting to see whether any member state decides to take one of those options," he said Friday in New York.
Congress approved resolutions late Thursday declaring that atrocities unfolding in Darfur are genocide, and urged the Bush administration to do the same.
 Ismail: "Not genocide" | |
Passed unanimously in the House and Senate, the measures urged President George W. Bush to call the situation in Sudan "by its rightful name" and urge his administration work with the international community to stop it.
Human rights groups expressed hope the actions would lead to international action to stop the slaughter.
"There have clearly been massive atrocities committed against civilians, but genocide requires a particular intent that's not easy to prove," Leslie Lefkow, an Amsterdam-based researcher with Human Rights Watch, told the Associated Press.
The New York-based rights group has called the violence "ethnic cleansing" but not "genocide."
"Whatever you call it... this is just an appalling human rights situation that needs to be addressed," Lefkow said.
"The international community should be responding to it and putting the absolute maximum pressure to see some improvement."
Meeting with Ismail late Friday, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana took the Sudanese foreign minister to task for not acting quick enough on U.N. demands to disarm the Arab militias, EU officials said.
The United States, the European Union and humanitarian groups accuse the Sudanese government of backing the Janjaweed militias -- a claim Sudan denies.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that more reports from the region were needed before a determination could be made on whether the killings amount to genocide.
But he called the situation a "humanitarian catastrophe" and urged Sudan to act quickly to disarm the Arab militias.
Earlier this month the African Union pressed Sudan to "neutralize" the Arab militiamen but said they did not consider the atrocities to be genocide.
Amnesty International also has not used the term "genocide" but welcomed the Congressional initiative as a way to raise awareness and persuade other governments, especially those in Africa, to put more pressure on the Sudanese government.
"There is a potential for it to be genocide, but to date we don't have enough access or information to confirm that," Amnesty spokesman Adotei Akwei said.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
