US Tries to Walk Back From Comments Downplaying Genocide in Darfur
EmailABC News' Kirit Radia reports: Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration's comments yesterday that Darfur is experiencing only the "remnants of genocide," thus implying the troubled region's worst violence is in the past, have exposed a deep disagreement on the matter within the Obama administration. Just two days earlier US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice described the situation as "genocide" and at a press conference in Germany earlier this month President Obama used the phrase "ongoing genocide." After Gration's comments yesterday, Rice was furious, according to US officials. The remarks touched off a debate within the administration, which is working to complete its policy review on Sudan. The debate continued today, and even delayed the start of the State Department daily briefing by over an hour until language could be agreed upon at the National Security Council, officials said. Today, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affair PJ Crowley walked back from Gration's comments when asked to explain the discrepancy. "I think there is no question that genocide has taken place in Darfur. We continue to characterize the circumstances in Darfur as genocide," Crowley said. When asked if Gration had misspoken, Crowley said: "there's room in the administration for a debate about the interpretation of the facts that go into that judgment." Gration's comments also irked the Darfur advocacy community. "President Obama and Ambassador Rice recently labeled the situation in Darfur as an ongoing genocide, and it is troubling that key players in the administration are not singing from the same song sheet with regard to this fundamental issue," Save Darfur Coalition President Jerry Fowler said in a statement today. John Norris, Executive Director of the Enough Project, told ABC News today that his group believes genocide is ongoing in Darfur. "We believe that the ongoing efforts by the government of Sudan meet the classic definition. That they, through their actions, not only through their support of the Janjaweed, government denials, denial of humanitarian aid, seem to be designed to destroy people in whole or in part," he said. ABC News' Elizabeth Gorman and Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.
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Remember, unemployment is “funemployment” under Obama. Even genocide looks better now that Obama is president.
Posted by: WhereWasThePress? | June 18, 2009, 5:54 pm 5:54 pm
I’m sorry I did not comment on the coverage of those remarks yesterday– you’ll notice that post got less than a dozen comments while posts on health care and other ‘hot button’ subjects got dozens more. That’s a shame, and I’m sorry I contributed to it. So I’ll atone by commenting here.
I thought the “remnants” remark was odd at the time and I’m glad to see it walked back. But one has to ask– given that Obama and Rice are both convinced of the ongoing genocide in Darfur, what of substance is the US going to do about it? What is the UN going to do? This has gone on too long and it is time to try doing something effective to ameliorate the suffering there.
Posted by: moderate | June 18, 2009, 6:04 pm 6:04 pm
I did not mean to be so flippant, either. This is serious. This is a continuing human tragedy.
There has been very little press on the change in funding for AIDS.
Obama had promised $2.8 billion to the Global Fund, but slashed that commitment to less than $1 billion. A cut of nearly two billion dollars! It seems especially stingy in light of Obama’s plans to increase the overall budget for foreign aid by eight percent.
SOS Hillary Clinton summed it up, “One million people (in Africa) will not receive treatment for HIV, and 2.9 million women (in Africa) will miss out on services to help prevent passing the virus to their unborn children.”
Posted by: WhereWasThePress? | June 18, 2009, 6:20 pm 6:20 pm
“Obama had promised $2.8 billion to the Global Fund, but slashed that commitment to less than $1 billion. A cut of nearly two billion dollars!”
This story is from the Global Aids Alliance.
“A pledge to spend £4.3 billion on bilateral Aids programmes under the Mr Obama’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) has been shaved back to £3.3 billion.
Mr Obama had also promised to contribute about £1.8 billion on the Global Fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, but his budget request fell short by £1.2 billion, the GAA said.”
“SOS Hillary Clinton summed it up, “One million people (in Africa) will not receive treatment for HIV, and 2.9 million women (in Africa) will miss out on services to help prevent passing the virus to their unborn children.”"
Except Hillary did not say that. That was a calculation made by the Global Aids Alliance.
Which begs the question since you claim that you want to treat this seriously, why are you posting fabricated information from PUMAs?
Posted by: Ryan C | June 18, 2009, 6:28 pm 6:28 pm
Ryan, math is not my strong point, but I don’t see why you are trumpeting the figures you cite in your comment (unless you are just passing along the talking point without giving it much thought).
You take someone to task for claiming that Obama’s pledge to the Global FUnd was cut by 2 billion. You correct them by quoting something that says the US funding to one program was cut by 1 billion pounds and the funding to another by .6 billion pounds. That’s a substantial cut, would you not agree? I plugged the numbers into a pound-to-dollar converter on the net, btw, and got the following figures– the Pepfar pledge was cut by 1.62 billion American dollars and the other pledge by nearly a billion (.97 billion), so the cut is even more than the 2 billion Wheresthepress complained of.
So whether it was Hillary who talked about how many fewer people will miss out on treatment or if it was the Global Aids Alliance who put out the figure, the dollar amounts show that it is true– the cut of 2.5 billion dollars in aid will mean millions of people in Africa do not receive the medical help they desperately need.
Posted by: moderate | June 18, 2009, 7:11 pm 7:11 pm
The real truth is that no one cares about Darfur, genocide is verbally condemned but no actions ever taken.
The world more or less accepts Muslim Arabs murdering Black Africans (also Muslims) & also making war on Christian Black Africans in the South of Sudan with no problem. How many have been murdered? Maybe 500,000 people plus I don’t even know how many displaced, their homes destroyed, how many raped & injured, or stolen as slaves (yes, folks, slaves) -
Compare this to the Israeli military operation in Gaza & the world reaction to SELF-DEFENSE by Israel against terrorists shooting thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians over a period of 8 years.
Double-standards?????
Posted by: Terry, Eilat - Israel | June 19, 2009, 4:36 am 4:36 am