No Genocide in Darfur: Carter
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"If you read the law textbooks ... you'll see
very clearly that it's not genocide," said Carter.
CAIRO The United States is exaggerating when it described the Darfur
conflict as "genocide," former US president Jimmy Carter has said, warning that
the use of the term was legally inaccurate and "unhelpful," The Christian
Science Monitor reported Friday.
"There is a legal definition of genocide and Darfur does not meet that legal
standard. The atrocities were horrible but I don't think it qualifies to be
called genocide," said Carter, a member of the group of Elders who visited
Darfur and included Archbishop Desmond Tutu, rights advocate Graca Machel, and
entrepreneur Richard Branson.
Nobel laureate Carter, whose charitable foundation, the Carter Center, worked
to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC), said: "If you read the law
textbooks ... you'll see very clearly that it's not genocide and to call it
genocide falsely just to exaggerate a horrible situation I don't think it
helps."
Carter said the problems in Darfur need a political solution and called on
participants at crucial peace talks in Libya on October 27 to be patient.
Washington is almost alone in branding the 4 1/2 years of violence in Darfur
genocide.
Khartoum rejects the term, European governments are reluctant to use it and a
UN-appointed commission of inquiry found no genocide.
The World Health Organization has further said the term is much hyped, but
said there is a humanitarian catastrophe in the troubled region.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, genocide is the deliberate and
systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity,
nationality, religion, or race.
The term, derived from the Greek genos ("race," "tribe," or "nation") and the
Latin cide ("killing"), was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born jurist who
served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of War during World War II.
Pampering
Brahimi said the West has "pampered" Darfur rebels a lot.
Carter's criticism of the West's handling of the Darfur crisis was joined by
veteran UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who accused the West of "pampering" the
rebels.
"The international community has acted rather irresponsibly on all this in
the past by pampering a lot of these people around - not really wondering
whether they really represented anybody and whether they were acting
responsibly," said Brahimi.
Brahimi warned that the West needs to ensure that the people of Darfur are
properly represented at the talks.
Brahimi also urged a comprehensive peace in Sudan, Africa's largest country.
"We cannot solve Darfur if the CPA (comprehensive performance assessment) is
crumbling," he said.
Brahimi's and Carter's comments come at the end the Elders' two-day mission
to Sudan.
Wrapping up their visit on Thursday, October 4, the Elders called for the
rapid deployment of a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.
"It's quite clear to us that the crucial element to end the suffering of the
people of Darfur is for the hybrid force to be deployed as soon as possible,"
Tutu told reporters in Khartoum.
His comments followed an attack on African Union peacekeepers in Darfur last
Saturday that left 10 African troops dead, the bloodiest yet on the struggling
AU force.
The mission is the first for "The Elders", a group launched by fellow Nobel
laureate and former South African president Nelson Mandela.
They went to experience first hand the suffering of the people of Darfur and
find ways to end violence in a region plagued by four years of civil war that
has left an estimated 200,000 people dead, according to UN estimates.
Sudanese authorities say only 9,000 people have died.
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