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| Africa: Horn |
| US to impose sanctions on Darfur militia members |
| 2004-06-26 |
| The United States will slap punitive sanctions on members of pro-Khartoum militias operating in Sudan's crisis-wracked western region of Darfur and might also apply penalties to Sudanese officials found to be complicit in atrocities there. The State Department said the sanctions would be imposed regardless of whether Washington makes a legal determination that the Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, or government troops are committing "genocide" in Darfur. Such a determination is now under review. "Whether you call it genocide or whether you call it ethnic cleansing, clearly there are atrocities being committed," deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters. "We are going to identify individual members of the militia, the Janjawid, for sanctions based on their involvement in ethnic cleansing." Asked if sanctions might also be imposed on Sudanese government officials who may have links to the militias, Ereli replied: "That's something we're looking at." Thursday, the US ambassador at-large for war crimes, Pierre Prosper, told lawmakers that there is evidence "genocide" may be taking place in Darfur, but that the United States had not yet been able to confirm that. "I can tell you that we see indicators of genocide and there is evidence that points in that direction," he said. Despite the uncertainty, Prosper said Washington had evidence of war crimes committed by seven militia members and associates and identified them by name. "These people need to be investigated and brought to justice," he said. Prosper identified the seven as: Musa Hilal, Hamid Dawai, Abdullah abu Shineibat, Omar Babbush, Omada Saef, Ahmad Dekheir and Ahmed Abu Kamasha. Ereli could not say whether the seven people identified by Prosper would be the first targets of the US sanctions -- which will likely include a travel ban and a freeze on any assets they may in the United States or under US jurisdiction. Ereli's comments came just days ahead of a landmark visit to Khartoum and Darfur next week by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said he would use the opportunity to press the government to end the crisis. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #6 well, we can buy the rest of them - price: leaving Khartoum intact? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-06-26 6:45:48 PM |
| #5 nothing bad with that, ZF |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-06-26 6:42:16 PM |
| #4 When I first became aware of the resurgence of the slave trade in Africa, I took a look at the groups trying to put a stop to it. Their approaches fell into two categories: "raising awareness" and buying then freeing slaves. The first is typical useless bullshit -- it makes the Movement feel good, but it doesn't put a stop to anything. Buying then freeing slaves is worse than useless, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, it frees some of them. The ones not lucky enough to be bought by a Westerner are still slaves, though. Oh, and the money just fuels more slave raids and increases the weapon gap between the slaves and the slavers. If you can't get a strong -- and REAL -- government to outlaw slavery, the only real way to fight slavery is to do something about the slavers. Kill them; make their raids more dangerous; drive up the cost of taking slaves. That will drive up the cost of buying them; if you keep up the pressure, eventually the price of a slave will be more than anyone can pay. Of course, with Moslem Arabs involved, the economics don't necessarily mean anything. They seem to view owning slaves as a religious and ethnic right; who knows if the economics would have any effect. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-06-26 6:42:11 PM |
| #3 Frank G: no travel to the US for these militia members? Exactly when have they even tried? weakass response. RC is right..armimg the villagers is the moral and correct thing to do, and if it fucks with the empire quest of the Master Race™ in Khartoum, so much the better We don't really know if the people in Darfur are exactly our friends. And if we take responsibility for them, what happens when they lose? Do we take on the burden of hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees? Much as I sympathize with the victims of the massacres, I think we approach this situation very, very gingerly. If we're going to adopt a cause, let's adopt the cause of the *Christians* in Indonesia who are the victims of periodic massacres. At least if they lose and have to seek asylum, we get a flood of good-looking *Christian* babes coming here. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-06-26 6:29:37 PM |
| #2 no travel to the US for these militia members? Exactly when have they even tried? weakass response. RC is right..armimg the villagers is the moral and correct thing to do, and if it fucks with the empire quest of the Master Race™ in Khartoum, so much the better |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-06-26 6:23:10 PM |
| #1 That'll stop 'em much more effectively than just shooting them. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-06-26 6:18:52 PM |