Concern welcomes Powell speech

The use of the word genocide does not, however, require the U.S. to act, but legal experts say it establishes a basis for future U.S. action under international law.
Powell listed a “consistent and widespread” pattern of atrocities that have helped create a humanitarian crisis in Darfur, with thousands of people displaced by the violence languishing in refugee camps.
But relief workers on the ground applauded Powell’s remarks, saying that the U.S. use of the word genocide indicates a serious level of concern in Washington.
Jack Finucane, the Sudan country director for the Irish relief agency Concern, said by telephone from Darfur on Tuesday that Powell’s remarks indicated a serious Washington response with the situation in Sudan, before meeting with the United States Agency for International Development director Andrew S. Natsios.
“To prove genocide has been very difficult,” Finucane continued, noting that it is only when the United Nations Security Council uses the word genocide that there is a legal imperative upon Security Council members to intervene militarily.
Since the Rwandan genocide of 1994, there has been an international debate about the use of the word as well as the use of international intervention in troubled regions around the world.
“Things have improved a lot,” Finucane said of the Darfur situation, but he said that while the capacity of relief agencies to help in the region has increased, roughly 10,000 people die per month because of disease, starvation and inadequate water supplies and sanitation.
“This is killing off many young children and older people,” he said. “Concern has a program to build 10,000 latrines and this is going very well. But the food pipeline is only at 45 percent of its need.”
At the moment, Sudan’s rainy season is hampering efforts to bring in supplies. As the rains end next month, Finucane said supplies will increase dramatically as trucks will once more be used to bring them in by road — air transport is being used currently, at seven or eight times the normal cost of road transport and with less capacity.
Powell’s remarks last Thursday will certainly pressure the Sudanese government over which hangs the serious charge that it aided and abetted the Jingaweit militias responsible for the killings in Darfur, killings that are believed to be continuing.
Finucane said the security situation where he was has improved, but that 3,000 police personnel sent by the government in Khartoum had not made the refugees any safer as many believed them responsible for the violence.
Sanctions against Sudan are being discussed, but Finucane said the use of sanctions remains “a very crude weapon,” because it affects the already suffering poor most of all.
“It could have a very negative affect,” he said, adding that only a peacekeeping force would abruptly transform the situation. Finucane believes it is now a question of when, not if, such a move is put in place by the UN.
Last week, Finucane traveled along the Sudanese border with Chad.
“I was in villages that have had no food for seven weeks,” he said. But he welcomed Secretary Powell’s comments last week as a hopeful sign.
“I think the Americans are very serious about this,” he said.