President Pledges Aid to Troubled Sudan
May 8, 2006 — -- Nearly two years ago, the Bush administration labeled the killings in Sudan's Darfur region "genocide," and today President Bush made his most passionate promise to do something about it.
"America will not turn away from this tragedy," the president said. "We will call genocide by its right name, and we will stand up for the innocent until the peace of Darfur is secured."
Renewed violence in Darfur over the past two months has displaced another 200,000 people and cut aid workers off from some of the neediest refugees. Compounding the problem, the United Nation's World Food Program is running out of money for Darfur, forcing it to cut food rations in half.
President Bush offered immediate steps to address that part of the problem: He ordered five ships to be filled with food and delivered to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where it is to be taken to refugee camps in Darfur. The president also renewed his request for Congress to provide another $225 million in emergency spending to buy more food for Sudan.
Security, however, remains an even greater problem than food. To do something about that, Bush has called Sudanese President Omar Bashir twice in the past week to urge him to accept a U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur. The United States is pushing to send in at least 14,000 U.N. peacekeepers, but the Sudanese government has balked at the idea of putting U.N. troops in Darfur. The phone calls may be helping, though; President Bashir now says he will consider allowing the peacekeepers in.
Could it be the George Clooney effect? Activists ranging from Christian conservatives to Hollywood celebrities have long criticized the president for not doing enough in Darfur. Those voices have gotten louder in recent weeks, thanks in part to Clooney's recent trip to the region.
But officials say the main factor behind President Bush's renewed push on Darfur is a peace agreement signed Friday between the Sudanese government and rebels in Darfur. It was the government's effort to crush the rebels that led to the killings in the first place.
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