via Mike at TopDog08.com:
NAME THAT CREEP. From Save Darfur:
The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act (H.R. 3127/S. 1462) continues to slowly move forward as Congress enters the home stretch of the legislative year prior to an as yet undetermined adjournment date in late November or early December. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Richard Lugar has favorably reported the bill out of committee, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has indicated his support for bringing the bill to the floor as soon as an anonymous hold is lifted. [Emphasis added]
Last April the White House sent a letter to House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis asking him to quash the Darfur Accountability Act (which was then attached to the Iraq supplemental) by the time it came out of the conference committee. I got ahold of that letter, as did Nicholas Kristof, and we held it up as yet another example of the administration's lily-livered response to genocide. It seems that the White House wanted to avoid repeating that embarrassment this time around so they gave their favorite hack a call and told that senator not to let the legislation even make it to conference committee. Disgusting.
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fyi: http://www.genocideintervention.net/about/press/releases/pr_20051114.php
Genocide Intervention Network Condemns State Dept. Characterization of Darfur Crisis
Zoellick’s Assertion of Darfur as a ‘Tribal War’ Ignores Facts of Systematic Genocide
State Dept. Reneging on Responsibility to Protect Civilians
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2005 — The Genocide Intervention Network today strongly condemned Assistant Secretary of State Robert Zoellick’s mischaracterization of the current genocide in Darfur, Sudan, as a “tribal war.” More than a year ago, President Bush and the United States Congress declared that genocide was occurring in Darfur, and the facts of the conflict have not changed since that time.
Many politicians made similar claims to Sec. Zoellick during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, attempting to draw attention away from the responsibility of international governments to protect civilians being systematically slaughtered by their own government. Like in Rwanda, the Genocide Intervention Network said, the use of the “tribal war” explanation in Darfur ignores the calculated political decisions being made by the Sudanese government in conducting genocide.
Since the genocide began in 2003, more than 400,000 civilians have been killed and 2.5 million Darfurians have been displaced.
“The civilians of Darfur have not been fighting a two-sided tribal war,” GI-Net Education Director Rajaa Shakir said, “they have been fleeing a government-sponsored campaign to eliminate them.”
read the full statement