Newsgroup: it.cultura.religioni.cristiani
Titolo: [Sudan] dai che diventiamo amici e vi vendiamo le armi, poi pensiamo al petrolio.

Sudan embargo shows crack
News Article by Chicago Tribune posted on May 19, 2004 at 10:32:42: EST (-5
GMT)
Sudan embargo shows crack
Chicago Tribune
By Cam Simpson Washington Bureau
The Bush administration moved one step closer Tuesday to lifting an arms
embargo against Sudan, even as it decried the government's role in blocking
relief efforts for a huge humanitarian crisis sparked by continuing Sudanese
military attacks against civilians.
Secretary of State Colin Powell removed Sudan from a list of countries that
cannot receive U.S. arms because they have failed to cooperate with the U.S.
on international terrorism. He formally notified Congress of that decision
with the publication Tuesday morning of a notice in the Federal Register.
Sudan's removal from the so-called non-cooperative list moves it closer to
having the arms embargo lifted, though that cannot happen until its name
also is taken off a separate list of state sponsors of terrorism. The U.S.
government maintains the two lists to pressure nations that either maintain
formal ties with terrorist groups or do not do enough to help the U.S. go
after them.
Later Tuesday, Powell did not mention his action on Sudan as he promised a
group of development and relief workers that the administration "will not
normalize relations" with the Sudanese military dictatorship until it
addresses the humanitarian crisis unfolding in a region of western Sudan
known as Darfur.
Speaking to InterAction, an umbrella group for non-governmental
organizations, Powell promised Tuesday, "We will not reduce our pressure on
the government of Sudan regarding Darfur." He called the situation "one of
the most serious crises on the face of the Earth now."
An estimated 1 million people from Darfur are homeless after fleeing attacks
on their towns and villages, either by government forces or by
government-backed militiamen, according to reports by the State Department,
the United Nations and human-rights groups.
An estimated 10,000 people have been killed in the attacks, which have been
directed primarily at three ethnic groups. Human Rights Watch recently
called it a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" because new ethnic groups are
being moved into areas abandoned by fleeing civilians.
Relief workers who have interviewed refugees, mostly those who fled across
the Sudanese border into Chad, report that militiamen armed with rocket
launchers and assault rifles have been sweeping across the region on
horseback, burning towns, destroying crops, and raping and killing
civilians. Attacks by the Arab militiamen, known as the janjaweed, are often
coordinated with government forces, including through air raids that precede
the ground assaults, according to Human Rights Watch.
USAID, the relief and development arm of the State Department, reports that
the Sudanese government is blocking nearly all humanitarian access to the
region.
After receiving visas May 4 allowing them to enter Sudan, members of a USAID
team waited more than a week for the Sudanese government to issue special
travel permits allowing them to leave Khartoum, the capital. Team members
wanted to travel immediately to Darfur to assess the crisis, a State
Department spokesman said.
The Sudanese government finally relented and issued the permits, but they
were good for only 72 hours. And the government requires foreigners to give
72-hour notice before they are allowed to travel, meaning the permits
expired before the team could even leave the capital, according to the State
Department.
Department spokesman Richard Boucher defended the U.S. decision to improve
relations with Sudan by removing its name from the terrorism list even in
the face of the government's actions in Darfur.
"If they do cooperate against terrorism, it's good for us to show that that
leads to a beneficial change," Boucher said. "That's the encouragement for
other countries to cooperate against terrorism."
He also said the move "doesn't change the kind of pressure that we're
bringing on Sudan, the strong pressure we're bringing on Sudan, from us and
others in the international community, to change their behavior in Darfur."
But Jemera Rone, a Human Rights Watch official who has worked on the Darfur
situation, said it was "just appalling" for the U.S. government "to make any
gesture toward Sudan like this." She also predicted the Sudanese government
would hold it out to critics as "some sort of U.S. stamp of approval" for
its actions.

 Sudan embargo shows crack
[cut]
Schifo totale.
:-((
-- 
Natanaele
e-mail: natanaele(at)
people.it
«Misericordia cerco, non sacrificio» Osea 6,6 / Mt 9,13
«La lettera uccide, lo Spirito dà la vita.» 2 Cor 3,6